Since the DNC lists became moot a couple of years ago, our junk calls have increased dramatically - and, so far, I've been too cheap to spring for CallerID and Simultaneous Ring in order to use NoMoRobo...
Last week, I did a count of one day's calls and wound up with five junk calls to one legitimate call.
Is anybody keeping track ?
If so, what's your ratio ?
We're currently just letting everything go to an answering machine -- with the ringer turned off. We *know* we receive calls that "fail to leave a message" -- cuz we can see the light come on when the machine detects the incoming ring (if we happen to be looking at it, at the time). We try to remember to check the machine for messages once every day or two.
But, the only *messages* that we get are from "desired callers".
I.e., it seems like having an answering machine is enough to discourage the "spam" -- though not enough to prevent the *attempt* (call without leaving a message).
Earlier, leading up to our local election, we would occasionally get a "robomessage" on the machine -- from someone who couldn't afford live volunteers to place the calls (resorting to a machine, instead).
And, many months (year?) ago, there were frequent messages for "extended automobile warranty" offers -- often one a day! We also caught a "blind" (machine wasn't smart enough to listen for an appropriate time when *it* should start it's spiel but, instead, started babbling as soon as the machine "picked up") call from the IRS scam a few months back.
Bottom line, if you can live with deferred contacts, the answering machine approach seems to work very well at filtering out the folks with whom you don't want to speak (or be disturbed)
Before I got the ProCaller Id I was averaging 5-7 calls per day. The next day it would start all over again with perhaps a new telemarketing company thrown in the mix.
Yes, I could let these go to the answering machine but MOST were hang-ups when the machine picked up. I just got fed up with ring-ring, ring-ring, ring-ring all day long. I'd stop what I was doing to check the caller id to only see something like "ABC" or "XYZ" on the screen or "Unavailable."
Once I had these dumbasses blocked the phone would ring ONCE as the ProCaller would disconnect them. Wasn't but a week or so that I was down to one or two calls per day. When the phone rings once that was my cue it was a blocked number.
Ahhhhhh, peace and quiet.
I'm not keeping track and also have VoIP and land line phones.
My land line is listed under my name with Sr and I'd say over 90% of the calls are junk. I figure thieves particularly go after seniors.
VoIP phone, with caller ID, I'd say at least 50% junk.
What really pisses me off is that the phone company and government must know where these calls are coming from but don't do anything about it.
Sure, most are out of the country but they could do something like block them or send them back a virus to destroy their computers.
I'm sure I will never see and ISIS terrorist but these phone and internet criminals try to break in my house every day.
I have a new phone number from Ooma as of March. Zero junk calls. Even with my old Verizon number that I had for
20 years, the junk calls were close to zero.
What do you mean moot? The list is as good as it ever was.
I have copper and IIRC nomorobo required FIOS to work, or something like that. I don't have caller-id either.
Not in detail.
I get maybe one junk call a day. I always answer the phone if I"m here, and I hang up when I see it's junk. If they're raising money for the volunteer fire department, I say Good Luck and Goodbye.
I used to loads of calls from cardholder services, some sort of scam.
I rerecorded my outgoing message so that it plays ooo-eee-ooo before my message. The web says that spammers are wise to this and ignore it now , but you remind me that they never call anymore. Maybe it's just normal rotation and they'll be back.
Per Frank:
My outgoing non-local/non-800/non-911 all go out via VOIP but my incoming is still POTS.
I am tempted to go 100% VOIP in order to implement Challenge/Response, but am still wary of losing 911 - although I *think* it is still supposed to be there even with the POTS account closed.
Or set up honey traps..... sooner or later, money has to change hands and once it does...
In the case of my state (Penna) I am guessing they made a decision to spend the money on more pressing matters.
OTOH, if the whole thing is offshore (including the money recipients) it would seem like there's nothing to be done.
I am drawn to Challenge/Response because it involves spending less money on my phone service instead of more.
OTOH, the crowdsourcing solutions like NoMoRobo would seem simpler in that they get around the need for a WhiteList that seems to me to be part of a decent Challenge/Response implementation.
There was a long story on the radio recently about how cell phones' location is not known to the police department. They may or may not have made reference to VOIP phones. It wa probalby on NPR and probably on the Diane Rehm show drshow.org in the last week, at most two. Two topics per day, 5 days a week, so you should be able to find it. Very user-friendly webpage, that plays well.
On 30 Nov 2015, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote in alt.home.repair:
I've been keeping track, logging all junk calls on a spreadsheet for about 3 years. My goal has been to try to detect patters so I can block numbers, and I'm curious to know who (that is what type of scammer) is calling. I haven't totaled things up in the way you're asking, but I can get as many as 20 - 30 calls per month, though that number can arbitrarily go down some months. February and August of this year were unusually high. I don't think there's any connection between the DNC list and number of junk calls.
Who says the DNC list is "moot"?
Anyone who ever filed a complaint or 50. Virtually all of my calls are junk.
On 30 Nov 2015, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote in alt.home.repair:
That doesn't mean much. The DNC is only respected by honest American business callers. Complaints only affect them, and I believe it has been effective as far as that goes - I get no telemarketing calls from legit companies. Junk callers may or may not be calling from within the country, but in any case they are calling via the Internet, making their real location almost impossible to trace.
The DNC is no more moot than it ever was. There are just a lot more scammers who know how to operate without being caught.
Pete Creswell wrote: "Since the DNC lists became moot a couple of years ago, our junk calls"
What do you mean "became moot"? Is there something I don't know?
I"m sure that's true, but the number of spam calls I get went down tremendously when DNC started and it's still down. So it got rid of the people who obey the law, and that was the vast majority of the callers.
It's really just cardholder services (which has stopped at least for now) and one other I forget, I guess because they stopped too.
Side story, tonight I was in the other room and heard the phone ringing, but the cordless phone next to me didn't ring. When I tried to answer on the cordless, it said "Out of Range". It was up to 10 rings or more by the time I got to the other room, and no one was there when I picked up. Maybe they had just hung up.
Then I noticed the screen of the base station was blank, and the power cord was unplugged. This also must explain why the ringer sound of the base station had changed -- it was ringing on phone company power only. I should have have noticed that and known the power was unplugged.
I *69'd and it was someone in Georgia. I pressed 1 to call them, reluctantly because I thought it was spam, but I got a busy signal. They probably misdialed someone who should have been home, and probably were calling another number by the time I called.
card services is the worst.......
they waste my time and are a real PIA...
at least 1/3rd of my calls are spam.
You do know that many of the numbers shown are not the number the caller is using? Blocking them works today, but they have a different one tomorrow.
Never tracked them but we average about 5 junk calls a week, about 5 legit calls too.
Exactly. There are really only two blacklisting criteria that can be reliably applied:
- block any incoming call that lists YOUR number as that of the caller (this is obviously bogus!)
- block any call that fails to provide a CID
In either of these cases, the phone shouldn't even RING -- you know you don't want to answer it!
(Many TPC's will sell you the latter service for a monthly fee)
Given that a caller can (not legally, in the US) spoof CID to report
*anything* they select (e.g., your own phone number), blacklisting anything other than the cases above just leaves you playing wack-a-mole: they "get through" using the CID of "XXXX", you blacklist "XXXX"; they change to using "YYYY" and get past your blacklist, you add "YYYY" to the blacklist; etc. ad nauseum!This leaves you with whitelisting as the only viable option.
But, an unconditional whitelist suffers from the same spoofing problem. They can spoof the local hospital, some doctor's office "nearby", etc. They don't have to know YOUR doctor's number... or, that of your friends, etc. (of course, google already knows all of those if you use google phone! ditto with TPC and who knows what other sources!)
And, unconditional whitelisting won't work if someone from whom you would *accept* an incoming call happens to be calling from a phone other than the one you expect them to be using. Or, if someone calls ON THEIR BEHALF ("Your wife is in the doctor's office with your son -- he's had an accident -- and she wanted me to call you...")
You need an authentication mechanism that doesn't rely on anything that you can't control (CID being one of the things that you can't control!).
You also need for it to be personal to the people you want to hear from. And, not inconvenience them -- much.
E.g., your MD's office may call with results of a test -- or to reschedule an appointment. You have no control over who will be calling (lots of "help" behind the desk!) nor the phone number from which the call will originate. Likewise, a friend you bumped into the night before -- after a long absence. A clerk from a retailer can call to tell you that your order has arrived. The pizza delivery guy can call claiming he can't locate your home. etc.
I.e., it's not a trivial problem to solve. And, whatever you do risks annoying callers that you *do* want to receive!
Forget legality. How is it technically possible to spoof? I thought it was all done by the telco equipment.
If it's simply a matter of it being easy for foreigners, I suppose a possible solution would be to block calls from outside the US & Canada. (I put US & Canada together not for legal similarity, but because they use the same 'International Country Code'.)
Then we can use the adaptive spammer technique I saw on the news the other night. I can't remember the telco, but one of the cell carriers offers a phone app that lets you 'flag' callers as spammers, and you can set your answering prefs to reject callers with a reported spam call rate above a certain threshold.
Nope. Set up an asterisk VoIP server and you, too, can spoof The White House, Joe's Pizzeria, your wife's suspected lover, etc.
You can even spoof "call waiting" calls using cheap, COTS gear (I could write an app for your smartphone that would generate the required tones). But, this requires an accomplice and some ignorance on the part of the calling party (IME, ignorance is one thing we always have PLENTY of!)
That's blacklisting. Won't work. They can call back half a second later using a DIFFERENT spoofed phone number.
Wack-that-mole!
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