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US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

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Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#81

Post by WaitWaitWha »

sonofhans wrote: post #42

Some weeks ago I broke my iPhone and had it replaced. During the process I had to get re-authorized with Verizon. They tried to call my partner to get her permission, since she's the account owner. Of course she never picked up the phone, because it was from an unknown caller. The irony is incredible: the literal phone company cannot use their own product to contact their own customers, because they have let that pro…

Could she not leave a message? I have the same setup as someone here mentioning Tasker. I route all calls to voice mail, where I can decide if I need to call back. If they are not willing to leave a voice mail with a return number and reason, the call was not that important.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#82

Post by browningstreet »

I have two contacts on my ATT iPhone to enable and disable cell network calling, based on this that I found somewhere:

"You actually can turn off cellular network calling altogether, if you are willing to do that. Dial (star)#67# (or call 611 if it doesn't show up there) to see what number your voicemail center is. Then dial (star)21(star)1(that number)#. That will automatically forward all calls, at the network level, to your voicemail. To cancel this, dial #21#."

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#83

Post by kabdib »

onetimeusename wrote: post #68
lotsofpulp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My wide-open Verizon cell-phone number is my least preferred method of contact by far, due to the fact that I cannot trust that unknown numbers are high-value incoming calls. I thought it was a legal requirement for phone network operators to leave phone numbers accessible to all, and hence their inability to effectively fight spam. Otherwise, what would stop the situation from becoming like email, where email is mo…

Over the last few years the FCC rules on carriers were relaxed so that they can discriminate against calls originating from domestic networks. Previously they could not block calls even if it was obvious it was a scam call. However, it's not always obvious which robo calls are legitimate and which aren't. The bigger issue though is not about domestic origin calls, it's about foreign originated calls that the FCC has…

I never, ever get legitimate calls from overseas. Just turn those calls off for my phone.

Well, perhaps callbacks from helpdesks located in other countries, in which case give me time-boxed control over foreign calls, and perhaps a passcode that I can communicate along with my callback number.

There are billions of dollars at stake, of course. This is a solvable problem, and the FCC doesn't even need to get involved. The carriers care more about the money than their customers (so what else is new?)

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#84

Post by fullshark »

brk wrote: post #18

It is unfortunate that the cellular companies have allowed their core product (voice calls) to be so devalued that they need to be forced to solve this problem instead of just doing it naturally. The carriers are clearly customer-hostile, as this is really a very solvable problem. Instead, we now are moving to alternate mechanisms to manage audio calls (eg: Signal, Whatsapp, Facebook, etc.). My wide-open Verizon cell…

How did they allow this? I think text is just an alternative that most people prefer for large number of use cases.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#85

Post by dymk »

NavinF wrote: post #66
dymk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because lots of legitimate callers to me are located in the US, calling from a cell phone or landline, and I don't have them in my contacts. For instance, contractors coming to do work on the house may be calling from any number of cell phones, or people buying things from Craigslist. For Craigslist, if I were to filter out all the non-US originating calls and texts, would probably result in all the spam being droppe…

Those are all VoIP callers. Few businesses have enough copper phone wires for everyone in the building.

They’re not VoIP callers. I’m primarily dealing with small to medium sized businesses, which use landlines, or cell plans like Verizon for Small Business, which are basically normal lines on normal cellphones.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#86

Post by matsemann »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #81
sonofhans wrote: post #42

Some weeks ago I broke my iPhone and had it replaced. During the process I had to get re-authorized with Verizon. They tried to call my partner to get her permission, since she's the account owner. Of course she never picked up the phone, because it was from an unknown caller. The irony is incredible: the literal phone company cannot use their own product to contact their own customers, because they have let that pro…

Could she not leave a message? I have the same setup as someone here mentioning Tasker. I route all calls to voice mail, where I can decide if I need to call back. If they are not willing to leave a voice mail with a return number and reason, the call was not that important.

I have never in my life received or listened to a voice message. To me that's something from 90s movies. Weird how different things can be.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#87

Post by mikeortman »

A trick I've used to get certain robocalls to stop: once you get someone on the line, especially after they say the call is recorded. Offer them X amount of bitcoin, in escrow, if they callback to your number at later time and share details about who they work for and for access to their systems.

Nobody has called my bluff, but usually that call center stops trying that scam to your number. I guess that's enough to trigger a do not call by their supervisors or they don't want to get in trouble by even hearing that opportunity.

Unfortunately, I do occasionally get stuck in a system where I get a robocall, but once I get past the sweet robot named Mary asking for final living expense coverages, I now get a 'this number is no longer available' when transferred. After a couple of weeks, I do drop off that list too.

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#88

Post by ruined »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #27
onepointsixC wrote: post #17

It's absolutely insane that they are so ineffective. Major phone networks should be held responsible. I've been getting texts like crazy from spammer tries to get me to click their links. The messages are 100% identical and would be trivial to block.

From other areas where spam is prevalent, I think it's an arms race issue. Sure, right now, that spam that's identical every time would be easy to detect and block. But if it's blocked, they start adding variation. Block that too and they get more and more creative. Every time a way to block the spam is found, the spammers just get more creative with getting around it. It's an arms race, and is essentially un-beatabl…

you're right. we should just give up, and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed now, instead of wasting all that time pointlessly resisting the inevitable. none of this will ever get better

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#89

Post by Evidlo »

Semi-related project I worked on: https://github.com/evidlo/nanpa_lookup

Simple bash script to lookup what companies own spam numbers. Almost all of my spam calls are from domestic VOIP companies.

    >>> ./lookup.sh -n 907-200-1234
    "GCI COMMUNICATION CORP. DBA GENERAL COMMUNICATION"
    >>> ./lookup.sh -f path/to/numbers.txt
    "GCI COMMUNICATION CORP. DBA GENERAL COMMUNICATION"
    "CELLCO PARTNERSHIP DBA VERIZON WIRELESS - NC"
    "ONVOY, LLC - TN"

Re: US Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force

#90

Post by lamontcg »

onetimeusename wrote: post #68
lotsofpulp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My wide-open Verizon cell-phone number is my least preferred method of contact by far, due to the fact that I cannot trust that unknown numbers are high-value incoming calls. I thought it was a legal requirement for phone network operators to leave phone numbers accessible to all, and hence their inability to effectively fight spam. Otherwise, what would stop the situation from becoming like email, where email is mo…

Over the last few years the FCC rules on carriers were relaxed so that they can discriminate against calls originating from domestic networks. Previously they could not block calls even if it was obvious it was a scam call. However, it's not always obvious which robo calls are legitimate and which aren't. The bigger issue though is not about domestic origin calls, it's about foreign originated calls that the FCC has…

> However, it's not always obvious which robo calls are legitimate and which aren't.

I can make this real simple. I don't want any robocalls.

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