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Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

bloomberg.com

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Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#11

Post by commandlinefan »

mancerayder wrote: post #3

I'm glad something is being done and it's being reported. But it's only one guy, and there's an epidemic of these annoying calls. My elderly father gets dozens of them a week on his landline, and I get a spoofed number at least once a day, from an exchange very similar to my own. It's funny how freedom of speech is considered in light of for-profit stuff like this (in the Bloomberg article it was the misleading natur…

It's gotten to the point where I don't even answer the phone anymore unless the number is in my contact list - it's starting to cause issues at work, because I occasionally get calls from coworkers (or even my boss) from numbers I don't recognize. This is long since past the point where something needs to be done.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#12

Post by danielecook »

fosco wrote: post #9
rco8786 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is the first domino that ends all this crap. Myself and everyone I know has been getting hammered with spam robo-calls for the past year or two with no signs of slowing down. I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling.

> I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling. I have considered enabling a feature that blocks all calls unless the caller is in my contacts list but I am concerned about missing something important. Any thoughts on this?

Please do - but how would you go about doing that?

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#13

Post by nkrisc »

fosco wrote: post #9
rco8786 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is the first domino that ends all this crap. Myself and everyone I know has been getting hammered with spam robo-calls for the past year or two with no signs of slowing down. I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling.

> I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling. I have considered enabling a feature that blocks all calls unless the caller is in my contacts list but I am concerned about missing something important. Any thoughts on this?

I've considered it. Important-but-not-emergency calls would theoretically go to voicemail where they can leave a message. I would worry about missing calls that really are emergencies though. This is why I haven't done such a thing.

Perhaps there would be an override if they kept calling back.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#14

Post by epalmer »

I am 64 and am approaching the date I can enroll in Medicare. I am getting 30+ robocalls a day at home and a handful at work and on my mobile phone trying to sell me medicare supplemental plans.

We just let the home phone roll to VM now. I don't answer the work phone and only my mobile phone if I know the caller. Grrrr.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#16

Post by ghaff »

inetknght wrote: post #4

I've frequently wondered why, in this day and age, telcos are permitted to provide telephone service without any guarantee whatsoever of the originating phone number being accurate.

Part of it is that their are legitimate reasons to spoof CallerID such as when a company wants to set all outgoing calls to show the main company name and number, even when the call originates from a direct inbound dial line. Carriers could block calls from numbers that supposedly don't exist or dial out--and I believe some are starting to offer than as a service. But if they spoof as a real number, that won't work.

I suspect a higher-level issue is that illegal junk calls fall into the mild annoyance category for most people. If the average person was getting a hundred calls a day to the point where they couldn't use their phone service, something would happen.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#17

Post by notyourday »

fosco wrote: post #9
rco8786 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is the first domino that ends all this crap. Myself and everyone I know has been getting hammered with spam robo-calls for the past year or two with no signs of slowing down. I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling.

> I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling. I have considered enabling a feature that blocks all calls unless the caller is in my contacts list but I am concerned about missing something important. Any thoughts on this?

Set default ring tone to silence. Create separate ring tones for people in a contact list or people for whom you must pick up a phone.

I have been using this for 3 years. No issues at all.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#18

Post by jrobn »

fosco wrote: post #9
rco8786 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is the first domino that ends all this crap. Myself and everyone I know has been getting hammered with spam robo-calls for the past year or two with no signs of slowing down. I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling.

> I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling. I have considered enabling a feature that blocks all calls unless the caller is in my contacts list but I am concerned about missing something important. Any thoughts on this?

T-Mobile will sometimes display "Scam Likely" for me in place of the phone number. It's way to conservative though. It would be nice to have a way to report scam phone numbers back. Kinda like Apple's "was this voicemail translation helpful" in voicemail. I'm sure this would weed out scammers phone numbers pretty fast. Although, once a number is flagged its gone for good and phone numbers need to be recyclable.

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#19

Post by munk-a »

fosco wrote: post #9
rco8786 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is the first domino that ends all this crap. Myself and everyone I know has been getting hammered with spam robo-calls for the past year or two with no signs of slowing down. I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling.

> I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling. I have considered enabling a feature that blocks all calls unless the caller is in my contacts list but I am concerned about missing something important. Any thoughts on this?

I'd suggest against it. There are important calls that can come in from true unknown sources, people who just legitimately need to contact you out of the blue, especially officials (police, utility companies, etc...). If you feel like ignoring those, there's also the possibility that a contact of yours needs to contact you in an emergency can can't use their normal phone. As an example, assuming you're married, maybe your spouse gets into an accident and calls to you for help from a nearby house?

Re: Man Accused of Making 97M Robocalls

#20

Post by rudedogg »

jrobn wrote: post #10
rco8786 wrote: post #2

Hopefully this is the first domino that ends all this crap. Myself and everyone I know has been getting hammered with spam robo-calls for the past year or two with no signs of slowing down. I don't even answer my phone anymore unless I know who's calling.

I agree. I receive at least one a day. It's more frequent than spam mail. I'm sure there is a viable business venture to basically make "spam assassin" for telecom. I've gotten to the point where I don't trust anyone calling from a non-local exchange that isn't returning one of my calls, because for the past 8 months 90% have been scam calls.

I've found some apps/services that do this, but I don't think I should have to pay because the phone companies are sacks of shit. So I'm holding out hoping someone (the FCC, my service provider, or the robocaller's service provider) will do something about it.
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