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This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

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Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#31

Post by daigoba66 »

nmeofthestate wrote: post #5

People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replace…

I too follow the whitelist approach for phone calls. Most ligitmate callers (my bank, doctor, friend, family, or coworkers) will leave a message. This effectively confirms their identity and I'll add the number to my contacts list so that I know to answer next time. It works really well.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#33

Post by teddyh »

Gargoyle888 wrote: post #30

There is a technical solution to this. Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash was created to stop email spam but is equally valid for phone calls. It /could/ be fully implemented by your phone carrier.

If it is “equally valid”, why didn’t it succeed in stopping spam? Is the reason it failed maybe equally valid when applied to phones?

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#35

Post by sdramsey00 »

jamesbrownuhh wrote: post #3
biff wrote: post #2

(from the article:) In fact, late last week, the CTIA wrote the FCC to tell it that the kind of blacklist approach taken by Foss’s company wouldn’t work. According to the lobbying group, it raises privacy concerns—and causes other problems too. “Even assuming an accurate database of blacklisted and whitelisted numbers can be compiled and maintained, the ease with which modern equipment and software can allow a caller…

So perhaps the CTIA would welcome FCC intervention to prevent the spoofing of caller ID as well? :)

see this - http://www.fcc.gov/guides/caller-id-and-spoofing

Bad actors are always going to act bad. Especially now that anybody, anywhere in the world can get cheap calls to the US.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#36

Post by uptown »

maxerickson wrote: post #8
nmeofthestate wrote: post #5

People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replace…

If you pick up the phone and say "Please put me on your courtesy do not call list", legitimate companies will stop calling you. That leaves the you've won a free cruise/insurance/alarm scam companies, but they mostly don't call over and over again. The point is not to argue with them about whether they should be calling you etc., it is to advertise yourself as a dead lead.

"That leaves the you've won a free cruise/insurance/alarm scam companies, but they mostly don't call over and over again."

I was receiving the same robo-call regarding my "innactive Google+ page" that they wanted to build for me for weeks from a different number each day meaning that blocking a number was pointless. Eventually I took the call, and stayed on the line till I got a person who I was able to fish enough information about the business to file a complaint. Filed one with the Better Business Bureau and also contacted the company CEO directly using info I found in an old Whois record that hadn't been cleaned up (their public one had since been masked). I cold called their office till I got ahold of him, and told him about the claim I'd filed regarding their business calling a number on the do-not-call list.

This is what it took to stop this one instance. I've received others. Sometimes I block, but when it's a recurring call from different numbers, the Better Business Bureau is the way to go. Particularly if you can get the name and number of the company that the lead-generation firm hands you off to. It catches their sales guy off-guard everytime.

This all takes time ... but I recently was receiving a lot of calls from people I needed to speak with, but knew I didn't already have their numbers in my phone, so I had no choice but to answer. The ones I've taken-on have been effective and the BBB complaints have been answered and addressed quickly.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#37

Post by yebyen »

maxerickson wrote: post #10
jimhefferon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I have to waste part of my life on these scum?

Do you expect a revealing answer to that question? I don't think I'm suggesting something that wastes part of your life. What I suggest directly restores usefulness to the phone, and it likely forces the call center companies to report unsuccessful calls instead of no answers to their customers (and if done in large numbers it should have an impact).

He's right. I work in a call center (not calling on the phones, I keep up the infrastructure) where we do mostly market research for our clients which involves calling their customers. Utility companies, medical offices, consulting services, they will all honor do-not-call requests and so will any legitimate call center business.

That is thankless work, the people on the phones are mostly not scum, but the number of people that answer the phone and treat them as such makes me feel for them so I'm happy to look the other way at some minor bad behavior like being short with a person or hanging up, when every third person they talk to is some jerk who only knows how to yell "IM ON THE DO-NOT-CALL LIST I JUST TALKED TO YOU LAST WEEK I ALREADY TOLD YOU NOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS ILLEGAL GIVE ME YOUR MANAGER RIGHT NAO!!1one" Just because you talked to _some_ call center somewhere, it does not follow that every call center in the fleet automatically knows you are not to be contacted.

We have do-not-call lists, and the best way to make sure you get that treatment is to ask for it. You don't have to ruin your day and someone else's by getting mad about it. Five magic words can liberate you: "do not call me again".

Second best way: when you sign up for services, don't give them your phone number! They can't give it to us if they don't have it to begin with. If hearing the phone ring makes you so mad, seriously just don't give it out to any companies that could just as easily deal with you by post.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#38

Post by gallerytungsten »

mtmail wrote: post #6
tinfoilman wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telecoms guy here. Firstly CLI blocking is easy to get around. Faking CLI is very easy. There is a field within SIP that is refereed to as P-assert. The idea is that this field always contains the billable number. However I know of at least 3 sip carriers you could sign up today with, have numbers within 10 minutes and they allow you to put ANY CLI and P-assert. Then you can bridge in to the TDM and almost untraceabl…

Phone systems are also global. You create legislation and fines for not setting that value, but calls from legacy systems around the world still have to be supported. Or has anybody ever tried to call a number and got a "sorry, your phone is too old, you need to upgrade" response?

I used to have this great little compact cell phone made by Sony. At some point, it just stopped making calls, and Sprint's explanation was that their network no longer supported this phone.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#39

Post by maaku »

daigoba66 wrote: post #31
nmeofthestate wrote: post #5

People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replace…

I too follow the whitelist approach for phone calls. Most ligitmate callers (my bank, doctor, friend, family, or coworkers) will leave a message. This effectively confirms their identity and I'll add the number to my contacts list so that I know to answer next time. It works really well.

I wish there was a way to send these calls to a specific voicemail message. "You have been sent to voicemail because the number you're calling is not in my contacts list. Please leave a short message telling me whose phone you are calling from." etc.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#40

Post by sdramsey00 »

Having managed the "global black list" for a major VoIP company (millions of subscribers) I can tell you it does make customers happy. However ... if you implement one you will inadvertently block valid calls. The FCC and big phone companies are correct about that. It's just not possible for someone like AT&T to take the risk.

Real life problems you will see and have to deal with: - blocking of valid calls from legitimate voice broadcasts (i.e. schools / municipalites) - managing trouble tickets from other phone companies opening tickets constantly for "blocking the call" - managing trouble tickets from customers about not getting calls they should have - how to deal with call attempts that do not provide proper signaling information (i.e. "anonymous" as the actual caller ID and not using RPID, PAI, or SS7 appropriately)

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