6 ms·

My cell phone's the same way now. Maybe one in ten calls, at best, isn't phone-spam. And that's with being on the Do Not Call list. I've been trying to figure o

by ashark 10y ago

My cell phone's the same way now. Maybe one in ten calls, at best, isn't phone-spam. And that's with being on the Do Not Call list. I've been trying to figure out a way to do without an actual phone (except maybe a burner on the off chance I need to call 911) as a result. Text is by far the more valuable side of my phone plan, but mostly because everyone wants to use it for auth these days (I could switch to another messaging service for actual communication with people I know)

noir_lord 10y ago
I have important numbers set to come through, everyone else just rings out silently (and I disabled voicemail), either you are a contact and I'll ring back or I just delete the call notification.
dhimes 10y ago
In the US isn't there a law expressly prohibiting these calls to cell phones?
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Yes. But scammers don't care. It does actually work to ask to be put on the do not call list maintained by the caller (not the national registry), even for scammers. Nobody wants to waste resources.
- throwaway91111 10y ago
  Yes, but a number of difficulties remain: 1) there's little way of figureing out who is actually contacting you. 2) If you file the number with the FCC you don't get a response. 3) it's not always obvious there's a commercial entity on the other side. I've gotten a number of calls that appear to try and keep me on the line while preventing from Turing test esque conversation from taking place. 4) some of the spam is legal--technically they aren't for profit, but they serve as a funnel for commercial services. These have been the most persistent with me.
  - pfarnsworth 10y ago
    For #3, I no longer answer the phone with "Hello" from an unknown number. I wait for the person to say "Hello?" or if the person starts talking I just hang up.
    - groby_b 10y ago
      All unknown numbers go to voicemail. Spammers inevitably leave 2-3 seconds of silence, so I just ban based on message duration. Usually, I report about 5-10 numbers a day.
      - ChoGGi 10y ago
        I used to do phone surveys, that silence is the system connecting you to a human (or your answering machine).
        groby_b 10y ago
        Phone surveys are spam, as far as I'm concerned. And since they hang up when reaching my machine - definitely spam.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    We need a service that will collect complaints, sue on our behalf and send a check, taking their cut. Have an app that allows you to report a phone call quickly, automatically recording and uploading the entire call (it should record all calls and delete recordings after a few hours if not reported). Then for numbers that have been reported by multiple people, have someone investigate, and if the source is located, file lawsuits. It's $500 per violation, so if there's enough people lawsuits can work, and the company making the app can reduce investigation costs by distributing it among many different complainers (so even if a private investigator costs several thousand to get contact info, if they called 100 people and they end up getting a 50k judgement it works out).
- OliverJones 10y ago
  Yes. It's a federal criminal law. That means you have to get federal attorneys' offices interested if you want the miscreants stopped. But shutting down telemarketers isn't nearly as much fun as driving people like Aaron Swartz to suicide, or as profitable as seizing airplanes from drug smugglers. So, effectively, this kind of thing is legal.
camus2 10y ago
> My cell phone's the same way now. Mine as well. I even get fake vocal messages on my voicemail, starting with a first name I might or might not know asking me to call back like it's an emergency and obviously the number is a premium-rate one. I was like wow, that's a whole new level of spamming. I can't imagine the future of spamming : data mining personnal infos on social media + customized fake messages just to make you call back a number.
- new_hackers 10y ago
  Hi camus2, this is your mother. I'm in a bit of a pickle. Can you please send me $200 via Western Union. Love you bunches!
warcher 10y ago
Protip: I moved my legacy phone number (the number you get for customer service calls, that I hand out publicly, etc) over to google voice years ago. It follows me from phone to phone as I move carriers, everybody can reach me, and their "Press one to connect to the phone" feature throws off robodialers very effectively. The only downside is that google voice smells like the kind of service that google doesn't regard as a needle mover and it's probably a question of when it gets axed, not if.
- will_pseudonym 10y ago
  They did just update the Google Voice iOS (and presumably Android) apps. So that's a good sign.
- xanderstrike 10y ago
  Google Voice has been rolled into Fi now (when you transfer your number into Fi, it becomes a google voice number). I think Google Voice has a few more years in it at the very least.
- daurnimator 10y ago
  Google Voice had a revamp just this week: looks like it'll be around much more now. https://blog.google/products/google-voice/ringing-2017-updates-our-google-voice-apps/ https://blog.google/products/google-voice/ringing-2017-updat...

by ashark 10y ago

noir_lord 10y ago

I have important numbers set to come through, everyone else just rings out silently (and I disabled voicemail), either you are a contact and I'll ring back or I just delete the call notification.

dhimes 10y ago

In the US isn't there a law expressly prohibiting these calls to cell phones?

maxerickson 10y ago
Yes. But scammers don't care. It does actually work to ask to be put on the do not call list maintained by the caller (not the national registry), even for scammers. Nobody wants to waste resources.
throwaway91111 10y ago
Yes, but a number of difficulties remain: 1) there's little way of figureing out who is actually contacting you. 2) If you file the number with the FCC you don't get a response. 3) it's not always obvious there's a commercial entity on the other side. I've gotten a number of calls that appear to try and keep me on the line while preventing from Turing test esque conversation from taking place. 4) some of the spam is legal--technically they aren't for profit, but they serve as a funnel for commercial services. These have been the most persistent with me.
- pfarnsworth 10y ago
  For #3, I no longer answer the phone with "Hello" from an unknown number. I wait for the person to say "Hello?" or if the person starts talking I just hang up.
  - groby_b 10y ago
    All unknown numbers go to voicemail. Spammers inevitably leave 2-3 seconds of silence, so I just ban based on message duration. Usually, I report about 5-10 numbers a day.
    - ChoGGi 10y ago
      I used to do phone surveys, that silence is the system connecting you to a human (or your answering machine).
      - groby_b 10y ago
        Phone surveys are spam, as far as I'm concerned. And since they hang up when reaching my machine - definitely spam.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  We need a service that will collect complaints, sue on our behalf and send a check, taking their cut. Have an app that allows you to report a phone call quickly, automatically recording and uploading the entire call (it should record all calls and delete recordings after a few hours if not reported). Then for numbers that have been reported by multiple people, have someone investigate, and if the source is located, file lawsuits. It's $500 per violation, so if there's enough people lawsuits can work, and the company making the app can reduce investigation costs by distributing it among many different complainers (so even if a private investigator costs several thousand to get contact info, if they called 100 people and they end up getting a 50k judgement it works out).
OliverJones 10y ago
Yes. It's a federal criminal law. That means you have to get federal attorneys' offices interested if you want the miscreants stopped. But shutting down telemarketers isn't nearly as much fun as driving people like Aaron Swartz to suicide, or as profitable as seizing airplanes from drug smugglers. So, effectively, this kind of thing is legal.

camus2 10y ago

> My cell phone's the same way now. Mine as well. I even get fake vocal messages on my voicemail, starting with a first name I might or might not know asking me to call back like it's an emergency and obviously the number is a premium-rate one. I was like wow, that's a whole new level of spamming. I can't imagine the future of spamming : data mining personnal infos on social media + customized fake messages just to make you call back a number.

new_hackers 10y ago
Hi camus2, this is your mother. I'm in a bit of a pickle. Can you please send me $200 via Western Union. Love you bunches!

warcher 10y ago

Protip: I moved my legacy phone number (the number you get for customer service calls, that I hand out publicly, etc) over to google voice years ago. It follows me from phone to phone as I move carriers, everybody can reach me, and their "Press one to connect to the phone" feature throws off robodialers very effectively. The only downside is that google voice smells like the kind of service that google doesn't regard as a needle mover and it's probably a question of when it gets axed, not if.

will_pseudonym 10y ago
They did just update the Google Voice iOS (and presumably Android) apps. So that's a good sign.
xanderstrike 10y ago
Google Voice has been rolled into Fi now (when you transfer your number into Fi, it becomes a google voice number). I think Google Voice has a few more years in it at the very least.
daurnimator 10y ago
Google Voice had a revamp just this week: looks like it'll be around much more now. https://blog.google/products/google-voice/ringing-2017-updates-our-google-voice-apps/ https://blog.google/products/google-voice/ringing-2017-updat...