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Why not just target the businesses that the spam is promoting? It seems that with enough spam complaints on file, an investigator could subpoena records to see
by andrewpi 11y ago
Why not just target the businesses that the spam is promoting? It seems that with enough spam complaints on file, an investigator could subpoena records to see where a business is paying for robospammers.
- sebastianavina 11y agoyou could lease promotion for a competitor and wait for them to get fined.
- danielweber 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job
- bhouston 11y agoCan not this be done with spammers as well? I could pretent to be Microsoft or a smaller company? I think all the countermeasure and spam prevent techniques for phone spam can be taken from everything we learned regarding email spam.
- e40 11y agoWhy not just target the businesses that the spam is promoting? Many times they are boiler rooms and are after CC #'s. Sometimes, though, they are for real, local businesses. A carpet cleaning business in my area used a robot call service and I played along to get the name of the business. I then hung up and called them, and asked to speak to the owner. After a while I got him. I gave him a piece of my mind, politely, and told him I would never, ever hire him and I would tell everyone I know the same. You know what? He didn't give a shit, and was pretty surprised at my call. That means that people don't do what I did and there's little downside for what he did (hiring scumbags).
- bhouston 11y agoI heard that many of the boiler room operations are based in Pakistan, especially those for carpet cleaning or duct cleaning where there are actually people on the call rather than recordings.
- e40 11y agoUsually it's a staged thing. Robocall -> level 2 operator -> boiler room. The level 2 people appear very, very bored and are unfazed by you yelling or swearing. They just immediately hang up when they feel you are not a mark. The boiler room guys are slick as fuck. I once kept one of them on the phone for 10-15 minutes, playing dumb (I told him I was looking for my CC statement). When I hung up, my phone rang immediately. I told him to fuck off and take me off his list. He said "you'll regret this" and hung up. My phone rang immediately and the person at the other end was just yelling. It was someone like me that was redirected to my phone #. I unplugged my phone for 30 minutes. I googled for the phrases they used ("credit card services") and found a law suit in Texas from the early 2000's. The company was shutdown and fined. There was a lawyer's name on the press release. I called information, found him, dialed the number. He answered. I introduced myself and told him briefly what had happened and he was pretty interested. He lectured me, though, to not get involved. He said they were pretty nasty people. He recommended I call AT&T (my provider at the time) and file a complaint. I started the process, but AT&T made the process so fucking horrible that I abandoned it after putting in an hour or two over a few days. Useless.
- wpietri 11y agoMy tip for getting under their skin: sincerely try to persuade them that they deserve a better job than the shitty, exploitative thing they're going. They are prepared for yelling, but not so prepared for compassion and honesty. I've also had some luck opening with, "Does your family know that you lie to people for money?" That can be a good lead-in to suggesting they do something actually worthwhile.
- unclebucknasty 11y agoI don't know, but it doesn't seem that people with a conscience and a host of better options would voluntarily do this instead.