“Should I Answer?” uses a crowdsourced approach, and works quite well for me.
Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
211–220 of 339 posts
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#212"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…
> If it's important, they'll submit a proof-of-work voicemail.
If you don't use voice-over-phone, why keep voicemail enabled?
i disabled mine in 1999 when i discovered that certain colleagues would use it to pass work tasks off to me when they knew i wouldn't be able to pick up the phone. They could then use that as an excuse to say, "well I passed it off to him, so it's his job now."
The call history itself is enough info that someone tried to call me. A message saying, "it's me! Call me back!" is just noise at that point. (Obviously, only people i knew get called back.)
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#213I got a spam call seemingly “from Verizon” (their main number) on my Verizon phone. I called them and told them and they said “oh yeah that happens all the time don’t pick up when we call” That’s when I realized we’ll never win. The spammers have won.
The spammers have won only because the phone system (in which the phone companies are complicit) is designed to let them win. When you get a call from Verizon's number, they know the actual originator of the call (or perhaps they know it up to some known-to-be-not-so-trustworthy-source). They know that the number is not Verizon's phone number. But the phone company chooses to blindly display the spoofed caller ID. No…
What systems rely on spoofed called ID-s? I would assume carriers don't like this too much, but so much legacy crap is built on this that they are just rolling with it and just accepting the bad rep for spam.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> Solving spam problems in a highly distributed large federation of networks is not simple. I agree and disagree with this statement: 1. The distributed system can't solve the spam problem, because it's not a technical problem. 2. The population can immediately solve the spam problem by responding in the affirmative to every single request they get. What makes spam profitable is the quality of the responses - right n…
When you say 'poison the database' in the case if sms/robocalls what exactly would that involve?
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#215What I usually do is keeping them on the phone as long as possible with questions and then tell them I don't want what they are selling. I worked in a place that had call centres as part of their business and I know that they classify calls into hit or miss. Miss calls must finish as quickly as possible and they know that if they keep miss calls under a given duration they are gaining money. I want to be the person t…
Absolutely est advice! I never talk to them and keep them on the line for as long as they care to wait.
They block me.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#216Crowdsource blocking can be quite effective at weeding out actual spam. For example Truecaller helps me block most spam calls based on how many others have flagged a particular number. It's not foolproof but usually any new numbers that telemarketers grab get quickly blacklisted. On a few occasions I've had to unblock numbers because I needed them temporarily but I can't remember missing anything important like payme…
If you are Indian, its so much easier to report spam (but of course not easy enough! TRAI, while seems to have good intentions here, is pretty much a luddite where tech & UX are concerned).
make sure your number is register in DnD. Use the official DnD app to register a compliant https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=trai.gov.in.dn...
The app rating should have given you a clue that the app is quite a crapfest, but it is still better than the steps folks in US have to wade through. it takes a couple of clicks and a short few typed words to raise the complaint.
Another way is to simply send a sms to 1909 as
> “, , ”
the schema is different for all ISPs, but in general none seems to adhere strictly to the schema as long as the datetime, phone number and comma delimiters are correct.
Here is the link from airtel on the way to file such complaints; https://www.airtel.in/business/commercial-communication/asse...
ISPs are required by law to folloup on these and once you have sent the sms, you will get update smses for your complaint.
I usually just use the DnD app and when that isn't working, I send the sms. the schema i can get from my sms history and just change the caller id, phone and date. And in return I get the satisfaction of getting the update about the phone number of the violater being barred or limited to 20 calls in a month.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#217Who's actually benefitting from these spam/scam/advertising phone calls? Whenever I get one I pick up, realize I'm listening to a recording, and hang up immideately, I don't know what it was trying to shove in my face. Who's listening to these calls and doing something that benefits the spammers?
At the end of the recorded speech is a human. Let the speech play, then don't talk to the human. Let them listen to ... silence.
They'll soon stop calling.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#218I remember in the mid/late 2000s/2010s using Spamcop.net prodigiously to report every spam email I got because there were just so many. Spamcop automated the reporting process by looking up the mailhost that the spam was sent from and sent a report to the ISP hosting it along with any URL included to the site hosting it, as well as sites like Phishtank, the APWG, the FTC & etc.
Spamcop also ran their own RBL for the emails that got reported to them.
Eventually, the vast majority of hosting companies just refused reports from Spamcop altogether and spam really didn't get 'solved' until Gmail came out and Google's spam filtering software actually worked.
I also use Google Messages for this same reason as they will just catch the majority of bogus SMS spam & I have Bitdefender which catches the majority of phishing attempts.
Other than that there are premium options like Robokiller and YouCall which admittedly have pretty funny ways to answer phone calls and waste their time or answer phone calls with the disconnect/SIT tones.
But when people ask me how to deal with this problem I typically point them to https://ftc.gov/robocalls that has handy info.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#219In my country political parties can spam you. The leaders need to lead.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#220What I usually do is keeping them on the phone as long as possible with questions and then tell them I don't want what they are selling. I worked in a place that had call centres as part of their business and I know that they classify calls into hit or miss. Miss calls must finish as quickly as possible and they know that if they keep miss calls under a given duration they are gaining money. I want to be the person t…
Absolutely est advice! I never talk to them and keep them on the line for as long as they care to wait. They block me.
I also do that sometimes. Like when they put you on hold when you need them? I put them on hold when they need me. I go like "sure, I'm very interested.. can you just wait one second?" and then I put the mic on mute and go on with my life. Some of them are desperate enough to call back.