Could you add an exception for law enforcement? There are 600,000 missing persons reports annually (especially concerning when a person is being prevented from calling their loved one) and it would make their job easier and could start with a very small consent question. Feel free to email me if you need any more background or information.
Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
221–230 of 339 posts
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#222I'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…
Like others, I'm confused about how there's so much variation between countries on this one. In the US, the calls and texts are a plague. If you've had a phone number for a few years you're probably getting multiple texts and calls a day, even if you are on the Do Not Call registry, from advertisers of every type and scammers alike. Lots of people have apps for blocking spam and they still get through. In the Netherl…
Could the percentage of occupied Dutch phone codes be lower than the USA? There may be a smaller pay off.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#223The 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…
This is easily proved wrong. If I get a brand new cell phone number, I still get calls for complete scams even though that number, as far as I've owned it, never opted in to anything.
Are numbers ever really brand new, as in you are the first to ever have that number?
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#224What about people who are spamming/scamming on WhatsApp? There's some spamming scammer claiming to be working as a recruiter for my biz, but we've never hired a recruiter, certainly aren't hiring, and this guy is running around without any credibility saying he works for us. Doesn't even have an email address at our domain, just some random UK cellphone number, but is apparently based in China after he forgot to tran…
Real question: What is the end goal? Do you think if the person agrees to the test for recruitment, they will be groomed for a bigger financial scam?
I would imagine they're outsourcing crap time-consuming jobs they get given on Fiverr and its ilk that ChatGPT can't blag a passable end result for, i.e., multimedia or research about present stuff. They may spend money, but the contractor has simply outsourced it—they're still going to make something.
As it's a "test", the candidate is likely to put a lot of time and effort into making it as good as they can to impress.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#225I 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.
Just disable all calls. That’s what I do. Real people call you on whatsapp or other similar apps.
Not in my experience. I’ve used WhatsApp while in China on one business trip because other things were blocked/less reliable, but so many people I know or interact with don’t even know what WhatsApp is. Voice call, text, email, Facebook messenger, Slack, Teams, LinkedIn, sure, but not WhatsApp. I can’t trade WhatsApp messages with most of my friends, family, bank, mechanic, doctor, or hairdresser. The more traditional of those are going to call or email, the younger ones will text or facebook messenger, and work stuff is currently mostly Slack.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That’s when I realized we’ll never win. The spammers have won. It's tough, but it's not helpful that people don't know the face of the enemy. The fight isn't with just some stereotypical "spammers". Advertisers and marketing departments are spammers, and they've destroyed phone as a medium, much like they did it to physical mail, radio, broadcast TV, cable TV, and now streaming and the Web in general. We won't make…
Nah. We're talking about spam texts and phone calls. That stuff isn't legal. Yeah what everyone else does is creepy af, and _should be illegal_, but that's not the facts on the ground today.
Imho the normalisation of agressive advertising and inhuman communication with customers is what make spamming profitable.. they are not that different from legit orgs.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like others, I'm confused about how there's so much variation between countries on this one. In the US, the calls and texts are a plague. If you've had a phone number for a few years you're probably getting multiple texts and calls a day, even if you are on the Do Not Call registry, from advertisers of every type and scammers alike. Lots of people have apps for blocking spam and they still get through. In the Netherl…
Could the percentage of occupied Dutch phone codes be lower than the USA? There may be a smaller pay off.
You mean area codes (all Dutch mobiles are on one area code - 06) or do you mean the proportion of available phone numbers to phone users?
The latter would imply that spammers are 'wardialing' phone numbers but that seems really unlikely to me as it would be incredibly easy for telcos to detect and prevent.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#228In the uk you can just forward the SMS to 7726 ('SPAM' on an old phone). You'll get a text back from your provider with details.
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#229Earlier 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…
I usually answer the spam calls and then try to keep a human on the line as long as possible. I get almost no spam calls on my phone now (although I'm not necessarily claiming this is a direct result).
Re: Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers
#230We had a quite interesting case around text spam in Norway recently. A foreign student was arrested by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) for allegedly spying and doing signal intelligence. What he was actually doing was driving around Oslo with an IMSI catcher, which he used to send SMS messages that tried to scam the recipient to devices that was intercepted.
He had his dorm raided by the security services, was put in custody with no visitation or communication for quite some time. According to his lawyer it was quite a traumatic experience, which I can believe. The guy was likely just recruited by some foreign scammers to deliver the messages for them.
In that case the carriers network wasn't even involved. Not sure how you'd stop something like that from happening.