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Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

reportphonespam.org

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Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#141

Post by lostlogin »

jimmydddd wrote: post #112
aimor wrote: post #81

I've been reporting spam calls and texts to the FCC for a few years now. Does it do anything? I don't know, certainly not immediately, and the problem persists. I tried the method spelled out here for my latest batch of "Your USPS package has arrived" texts, but the phone numbers (example: +63 936 631 6676) just give an "invalid number" response. Not unexpected. Every official channel seems to be failing us on this o…

I disagree with the posted page that the telecoms are interested in stopping spam. If they really cared, they would have addressed it by now. I suspect they are somehow making money from the spam callers.

With booking systems that use texts for appointment confirmation, several companies end up using the same group of phone numbers due to the service that sends the text having limited phone numbers.

Some of the companies are quite spammy. It’s frustrating as blocking the number risks blocking real ‘you have an appointment at xxx’ type messages.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#142

Post by ipython »

nilamo wrote: post #82

It's so funny(?) that we passed the TCPA in order to stop robocalls, but then never decided to actually enforce it.

The TCPA deputizes you as a private citizen to enforce it. It’s empowering, so much so I would be amazed if anything like it would be passed these days.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#143

Post by screamingninja »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #115
jupp0r wrote: post #55

It already takes me 45 minutes of my time to get a hold of a support person of my own carrier and I'm a paying customer. I commend the effort, but getting a human to answer a support hotline call in order to report a spammer number is so comically difficult and ineffective that I can't see a significant amount of people participating. Why doesn't my carrier have an automated system allowing them to communicate with t…

In the UK, you just forward the text to "7726" which is SPAM on a keypad. It's a requirement from the regulator. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice...

Does a forwarded text retain the envelope?

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#145

Post by lotsofpulp »

lakpan wrote: post #138
tinus_hn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can rest assured that the phone company 100% securely knows who to bill for the call. They just aren’t telling you.

In America’s “receiver pays their part” system I wouldn’t be too sure. In the rest of the world, the caller/texter pays 100% of the charge, but in the US you’re charged per text and minutes received . Once you add a “free call” entity on the other side (like Google Voice) then no one is charged to make the call. Additionally, plenty of people “sell” their real number and there are android apps routing internet call t…

> , but in the US you’re charged per text and minutes received

I doubt 99%+ of end users in the US have been charged for non international minutes or non international text in the last decade or even 15 years.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#146

Post by ipython »

jwie wrote: post #4

The first order problem with spam calls/sms is you probably opted in to something. Most spam, like it or not, you asked for, and they can almost certainly prove it. The TCPA lawsuit business was so lucrative for years that a lot of effort goes into producing proof that the contact is legal. Rather than stopping spam calls these laws basically guarantee spam, but legal spam. Also carriers have pretty well cracked ille…

I can assure you I have never opted in to being called by random Indians claiming to be social security employees.

It’s open enrollment for Medicare, and I can also assure you that not only do I not qualify for Medicare but I have also not opted in to incessant Medicare spam.

I also never opted in for political messaging.

I also never opted in for calls regarding Camp Lejune injuries.

I also never opted in for calls about automobile accident injuries.

I also never opted in to be contacted for final expense insurance.

Shall I go on? Carriers most certainly have not “cracked” illegal spam through analytics. My carrier stops about 20-50% of the spam I receive.

The TCPA is great to cut down on the onshore businesses using illegal telemarketing to promote their business, but does nothing for the offshore scams. I’ve used TCPA in the past and helped carriers identify and sue telemarketers so I am very familiar with it.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#147

Post by katzgrau »

a_wild_dandan wrote: post #139

"People still use phones?" For my social circle, phones have become fax machines -- archaic tech that you forget exists until required for some abnormal situation. My pocket computer's "phone" reference feels quaint, like those floppy disk icons on save buttons; except disk drives aren't so persistently, actively detrimental to my day that I must disable them. So now, all unknown callers are automatically ignored. If…

This is the way I wish it could be (for me, personally), but some standardization among my friends is required. Which app do we tie our interdependence to? A very real question.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#148

Post by Bluestrike2 »

megablast wrote: post #108
AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. My son got sick at school last week and I ignored the call from the school nurse because I have been so thoroughly conditioned by daily scam calls to ignore any unrecognized number. It’s insane that this is still a problem.

If you have a kid and are ignoring calls, that is crazy.

Maybe, but that's the world we live in now. If it's crazy, it's an inevitable sort of crazy. Get enough spam calls, and even if you know you might get a valid call from an unknown number, you'll find yourself treating them all as spam just the same. We really, really don't do well with repeated false alarms.

It's how our brains operate, and the fact that the spam keeps on coming just reinforces it. If the call is legitimate and time sensitive, you hope they'll leave a voicemail or, better yet, follow up with a text message.

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#149

Post by calamari4065 »

drdaeman wrote: post #114
jimmydddd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the posted page that the telecoms are interested in stopping spam. If they really cared, they would have addressed it by now. I suspect they are somehow making money from the spam callers.

> telecoms are interested in stopping spam. If they really cared, they would have addressed it by now I'm not so sure about this. No one (except for, obviously, spammers) benefits from email spam, every mailhost and network admin is most certainly interested in stopping it (to some extent), and yet my mailbox can prove that spam is still very much alive. Solving spam problems in a highly distributed large federation…

The analogy doesn't hold because anyone can send an email to anyone else on any service at any time.

You can't exactly just climb up a telephone pole and tap off a few phone numbers for yourself. You have to explicitly enter into a contract with a service provider to use their infrastructure.

Spammers and scammers are wasting infrastructure resources that the telcos could be allocating to users. The telco can just cut your access off if you abuse it.

If I spin up an email server, no one entity can stop me sending email to anyone else. Gmail or Outlook or other services can block me individually, but there is no centralized network and no central authority that can refuse my connection. [0]

I suspect that telcos don't want to do anything about abuse because it's a very large fraction of their total traffic. The artificially higher utilization of the network gives them more justification for their prices or gives them some sort of good boy points for having x number of users. I don't really know how any of that works, just a wild guess.

[0] There are centralized blacklists and other ways to communicate that a sender should be widely blocked, but that's not the same as a telco refusing to physically connect you

Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

#150

Post by powersnail »

bhpm wrote: post #26
dboreham wrote: post #23

My solution since 2002: don't answer the phone.

Same here but every time I post that on this site I get replies about how they have to answer the phone because their kid could have fallen down a well and their wife could be in a coma and the police would be trying to contact them and if they don’t jump to answer the phone every time it rings their entire family could be murdered. So IDK. It seems to be a problem, I just don’t have enough of a life for it to be for…

I'd assume police/hospital would leave a voice mail?
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