3 ms·

A small percentage could hurt their profits a lot, but it's not like they are without counters to this. They could slap on a max length at which point they know

A small percentage could hurt their profits a lot, but it's not like they are without counters to this. They could slap on a max length at which point they know they're wasting their time, and also start to blacklist numbers that waste their time. They could use audio recognition to avoid known automated honeytraps, but even humans would adapt after enough calls. I still think it would be difficult to even reach that target %. As much as I would like to waste their time, I'm strapped for time myself. There would need to be a way to receive a call on your phone and send it to the honeytrap in two 'clicks', where it plays scripted responses in the background. If we reached that magic percentage, I think they could have a counter. They could discourage this by using targeted harassment. Someone screws with them, they send a mass of random calls over the course of a day.

bediger4000 10y ago
After a few years of monkeying with the "Cardholder Services" calls, I'm convinced there's two layers of crooks involved. The first layer is the autodialers, they just run through series of phone numbers, and play a recording. I'm pretty sure these bastards don't screen numbers, because I can at least get through to the (Indian) boiler room almost 100% of calls. I think the boiler rooms are actually seperate organizations/crime clans. The boiler rooms do screen, but not universally. After years of being "Edward Snowden" and giving out fake card numbers that pass the Luhn checksum, only maybe 25% of the boiler rooms cut me off. A few days ago, the "service rep" had a bad headset and I could hear a recorded voice telling him to hang up, which he did. Even Trump's FCC would have to deal with targeted harassment. That's the kind of crap that nobody puts up with. Besides that, harassment calls probably ruin the NSA's data retention practices, so that just can't happen.

bediger4000 10y ago

After a few years of monkeying with the "Cardholder Services" calls, I'm convinced there's two layers of crooks involved. The first layer is the autodialers, they just run through series of phone numbers, and play a recording. I'm pretty sure these bastards don't screen numbers, because I can at least get through to the (Indian) boiler room almost 100% of calls. I think the boiler rooms are actually seperate organizations/crime clans. The boiler rooms do screen, but not universally. After years of being "Edward Snowden" and giving out fake card numbers that pass the Luhn checksum, only maybe 25% of the boiler rooms cut me off. A few days ago, the "service rep" had a bad headset and I could hear a recorded voice telling him to hang up, which he did. Even Trump's FCC would have to deal with targeted harassment. That's the kind of crap that nobody puts up with. Besides that, harassment calls probably ruin the NSA's data retention practices, so that just can't happen.