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Ringless voice mails from telemarketers
- Overtonwindow 9y agoBut HOW does it work? It's not clear by the article precisely how this is done. Possibly a triple call system. Three calls to that same number at once, each a millisecond after the other, and when the third hits the voicemail the other two disconnect immediately.
- 13of40 9y agoWasn't thinking of that. I assumed the phone company was complicit and selling this as a service to the telemarketers, but we can't really know if the article avoids any implementation details.
- mee_too 9y agoOr bribe the phone company and get direct access to the mail box.
- edoceo 9y agoYou really only need a double call. It's quite easy. I wrote this ages ago http://edoceo.com/exemplar/call-to-voicemail http://edoceo.com/exemplar/call-to-voicemail Oddly, my number gets blown up by these things.
- rgj 9y agoHow about call waiting?
- edoceo 9y agoIt's a far from perfect system. But it hits right like 90+% of the time. YMMV
- Overtonwindow 9y agoThat's why I was thinking triple call. Only double call would cause call waiting.
- Overtonwindow 9y agoI've never gotten them. -shrugs- How strange.
- yusyusyus 9y agoAnother way of doing this is looking at LRN database and hitting the voicemail access numbers for the carrier. Often times the pilot number will let you dial a mailbox directly.
- Overtonwindow 9y agoLRM database? Could you please elaborate?
- dqv 9y agoLRN database is kind of like the DNS of telephony. Since local numbers can be on any switch, LRN tells everyone which switch manages the number. See: Location Routing Number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location_Routing_Number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location_Routing_Number
- mee_too 9y agoI was planning to switch to data-only SIM anyway, don't need no phone number or voice mail.
- thrill 9y agoI assume one can make either-direction VOIP calls (i.e. Google Voice) via a data-only SIM? I wonder if I could get that via Verizon.
- extrapickles 9y agoThe article doesn't describe how the technology works. Due to the slow speed (100 voicemail/min) its likely what they are doing is initiating a call far enough for the phone system to busy out your phone, then very quickly placing a second call that the phone system sends straight to voicemail as your phone is busy. Once this call starts to hit voicemail, the original call is dropped. I doubt phone companies let people directly send voicemail to people as they wouldn't be billing for that.
- eli 9y agoIf I call my T-Mobile voicemail I can leave a message on someone else's T-Mobile line. Definitely possible.
- zeronight 9y agoVoicemail are just other phone numbers, most of the time they are internal to the network though.
- Crosseye_Jack 9y agoIn the uk we have had the ability to send direct voicemail for years, one operator actively marketed the system before text messages took off as a method to message another orange customer without having to ring their phone. EDIT: just called my voicemail and the option to direct leave a voice mail for someone else is right on the main menu (Three UK).
- cschmittiey 9y agoFor what it's worth, I've been able to do this in the US as well -- don't remember which carrier, I think Tracfone
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- abalashov 9y agowhat they are doing is initiating a call far enough for the phone system to busy out your phone, then very quickly placing a second call that the phone system sends straight to voicemail as your phone is busy. I can tell you that's exactly what they are doing.
- matt_wulfeck 9y agoIn early 2000s this used to be a feature of my phone and I actually liked it. It allowed me to call someone and leave some information quick and easily. Text messages have largely replaced the need for that now. So much so that I've often pondered disabling my voicemail altogether.
- bifel 9y agoThe method (at least here in my country) is really simple (and not really a secret): The voicemail can be reached from a special number. This number is easy to derive from the actual phone number (usually inserting one or two digits, depending on the provider). When the "owner" calls the mailbox, he gets the "admin" functionality. Anyone else calling it can only add messages. The rest is just simple call forwarding. So all that is needed is finding out the number of the mail box.
- ilanco 9y agoNot sure if it still works, but in Israel it is as simple as prepending the voice mail prefix to the phone number. Some voice mail boxes can receive faxes, so there is some legitimate use for it.
- tjoff 9y agoPeople still use voice mail? I don't believe I've encountered one in at least a decade...
- thejosh 9y agoWhere abouts are you? Here in AU, it seems everyone uses voicemail for their mobiles.
- tjoff 9y agoSweden. A text message is faster and infinitely more accessible for the recipient.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoHeck, a voice message over the chat client of their choice is faster, infinitely more accessible, and still voice.
- tjoff 9y agoWell, half of the point is that you don't want voice in the first place...
- thaumasiotes 9y agoVoice is by far the least of the problems with voicemail. - If someone leaves you voicemail, you don't necessarily know that that happened. - Checking your voicemail is effortful. - Any random idiot can dial your phone number and leave you voicemail. - Voice is harder to process than text. Leaving someone a voice message doesn't help with #4, but that's a very minor issue. It solves all of the first three.
- tjoff 9y agoI wholeheartedly agree with all your points (and that is exactly what I meant with accessible). But it being voice is also a major issue of its own. You can't check voice messages in many situations where you can read and possibly respond to a text. Also, if you listen to music/podcasts/whatever there will be an annoying interrupt.
- dboreham 9y agoHmm. I worked on voice mail systems in the 90s (by then they were already old and encrusted with feature bloat). This is actually how they work: like email or any other message delivery system. Messages are sent and delivered into mailboxes. The typical "ring-no-answer -> automated attendant" workflow that everyone sees as the face of VM is in fact an application layered on to of the base messaging service. If you know how (and it hasn't been administratively disabled) you can log in, compose a message and give it a recipient list just like email. Yoh can even schedule delayed delivery, ask for read receipt and on and on.
- tomjen3 9y ago>“responsible marketing.” The only responsible marketing is a nose around your fucking head. If I want your services I will contact you. Got it?
- Animats 9y ago"noose", probably.
- tombrossman 9y agoFirst thing I thought of was these annoying Afrin ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSZOWggCa-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSZOWggCa-E Imagine telemarketers were forced to wear that all day, I'm OK with that instead of a noose.
- dang 9y agoRegardless of how you feel about marketing, or other things you feel strongly about, would you please not post like this here? You've done so countless times in the past (which was a real problem), but fortunately not so much recently. That's a good trend.
- jumpkickhit 9y agoI should be able to charge people to leave a voice mail. Not much, say 25 cents or around there. If it's important that's a negligible cost.
- praptak 9y agoI never got the appeal of having voice mail in the first place. Send me a text, call again or wait for me to call back.
- bsamuels 9y agoi dont answer phone calls from numbers i dont recognize because 90% of the calls i receive are telemarketing if they dont leave a voicemail i assume it's not important enough for a phone call
- zzzeek 9y agoMy phone already alerts me to "spam" phone numbers for incoming calls, this will become just another spam control issue based on audio analysis / transcription of the message content. Regulations would be awesome but considering how poorly enforced even simple things like "do not call" are, well established spam control techniques probably where this will end up.
- spc476 9y agoYou might very well be using the software my company produced. I'm not sure how the database is constructed, but there is a query we make that returns the type of call, it's reputation (on a -4 to +4 scale---low score is bad), the category, the carrier network and line type, which we pass on to the phone. I suspect it might be partially created from complaints about calling numbers, or even carrier (one recent spammer call I received came from the "Onvoy" carrier, whoever they are).
- dewiz 9y agoI disabled voicemail a long time ago, never going back. I educated my contacts to retry or send a text, worked well so far.
- su3aseuo9 9y agoSo what happens when, for example, you're trying to get a home loan to buy a new house, and the loan officer is an older person who doesn't use texts? (This is something real that recently happened to me, and for which a phone and voicemail were indispensable.) I find that while I can do what you suggest for friends and family, there are just enough situations where I can't do that, that I need to still have voicemail. Doctors offices that robocall to remind you of an appointment are another one. The occasional lawyer, or other professional who have a particular way of doing things. Getting rid of phone and/or voicemail just isn't a realistic option for a lot of people.
- dewiz 9y agoI disagree, people have used phones without voicemail for decades, they know they can retry. And when I miss a call from an unknown number I can easily look it up if I'm expecting important calls. There are also apps that helps with that, showing who called you even when it's a new number. About robocalls from doctors and pharmacies etc I also manage those comms via email, I take care of telling doctors and pharmacies to give me an electronic prompt, most have a computerized system that does that anyway. There might be people who need voicemail, but I don't buy that it's so common, it's more about people being used to it and not knowing they can turn it off.
- dmnd 9y agoAs if voicemail wasn't already in danger of being routinely disabled.
- sillysaurus3 9y agoAnyone else in a situation where you're receiving robocalls ten times a day? Hard to believe, but I can show screenshots as proof. I just counted. It's four times per day, like clockwork. Then there are various other robocalls that come in every couple days. So sometimes it's 4 per day, sometimes it's up to 7. It's mildly annoying, but is there any other option than to just ignore it or keep blocking the endless new numbers that pop up?
- chrsstrm 9y agoThe spam call filter is arguably one of the best benefits of using a Google Voice number. My spam call and voicemail folder is full of SEO, payday loan, and other outright scam messages. Just activate the filter and you never see these calls unless you go into the spam interface on the Voice site. You can manually add a number to your spam block but most calls are auto-blocked against a list of known offenders.
- plorkyeran 9y agoGoogle Voice filters out most of the spam calls I get, but there's still one or so per day that make it through.
- reustle 9y agoI use google voice (hangouts?) and get 3 to 6 robo voicemails a day. They are 2-5 seconds in length, and empty.
- gech 9y ago>They have been hearing from ringless voice mail providers and pro-business groups, which argue that these messages should not qualify as calls and, therefore, should be exempt from consumer protection laws that ban similar types of telephone marketing. There's no limit to how low pro-business thinking can go.
- rhizome 9y agoThere is no "low" in business thinking. Capital is amoral.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoTrue - for all businesses in which there is only capital involved and no people [or animals, or environmental concerns, or ...]. Capital may be amoral, but the people using it certainly are not.
- rhizome 9y agoPeople can be amoral. The word wasn't coined only to apply to things that aren't people.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoSeems I'm wrong. I was working on amoral as meaning without morality rather than without concern for morality, so excuse my ignorance. Under my (wrong) definition I was expressing that people's actions always have moral consequences as that appeared to me the contrary of what the parent was suggesting. Thanks for calling it out The sibling comment by s73ver however remains valid I feel, capital is unconcerned with morality but people are concerned with it in general (not being so is considered a mental illness).
- rhizome 9y ago(not being so is considered a mental illness) It absolutely is not. Here's just one example, and note that the defendants did not plead insanity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal I can find many, many more examples of both overt and subtle rejections of moralities you appear to think is a requirement for a functional life in society, but even without that we can find capitalist amorality all day every day in the form of fraud.
- crooked-v 9y ago> The Republican National Committee, which is in favor of ringless voice mail, goes as far as to argue that prohibiting direct-to-voice-mail messages may be a violation of free speech. Absurd. The right to free speech does not include forcing others to listen to you.
- oneweekwonder 9y agoThe right to free speech does not include forcing others to listen to "it".
- BenjiWiebe 9y agoObligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/ Also the mouse over text applies very well to this situation as well.
- Banthum 9y agoThis comic is really pernicious because it frames free speech as just a quirky law that restrains the government. That's like saying honesty is just about not breaking perjury laws in court. In reality, free speech and free inquiry are social virtues that, like honesty, should be applied and upheld at every level of society, public and private, commercial, academic, and personal. Because free speech is a key mechanism to reach consensus and keep society functioning. This is becoming even more and more relevant as our "public squares" of discussion are no longer government-owned physical public squares, but rather online fora owned and controlled by mega-corporations. It's disturbing enough that Facebook or Google could easily turn an election on their whim, and it would be legal. It's even more disturbing that a whole lot of people are loudly proclaiming that this is fine, totally okay, and ethical, just because they think their views will never be the ones that get silenced. So yeah, that cartoon is terrible.
- s73ver 9y agoExcept when we're talking about other entities, they also have their own rights to free speech/free association. It's nice to say that free speech is a social virtue, but would you be willing to hold a Klan rally/BLM rally in your front yard?
- gumby 9y agoA nail in the coffin for voice mail, which I hardly check at all anyway. Automatic transcription has made thee easier to ignore, but if the volume goes up I'll just disable voice mail completely. I'm not sure anybody actually listens to their messages any more and so I rarely leave them. After all, if it's important, why would you call at all?
- dredmorbius 9y agoI see death of conventional telephony. POTS is dow to <10% in many areas. Mobile is abysmal. VOIP, voice chat, highly constrained accept policies.
- amingilani 9y agoHow does this even work? How can you not ring the phone and have a voicemail?
- 0898 9y agoI expected the article to cover this, but it doesn't. I suspect they call a number from two lines simultaneously, causing it to reach voicemail.
- delinka 9y agoPermission from the carrier to dump an audio file directly into your voicemail box.
- dragonwriter 9y agoIf that's the mechanism and this takes off, there'll be a strong incentive for one carrier to offer spam-free voice mail and either steal all the customers or cause the entire industry to fall in line.
- jameshart 9y agoBut the carrier who provides the service to advertisers to target messages and directly load them into subscriber inboxes can charge their subscribers lower prices because they have another customer, so your hypothetical ethical carrier will lose out to them. Hell, if they can open up the ad sales channel enough they could probably give away calling for free, just like a proper modern internet business. Does the existence of ad-funded free search engines mean the market naturally ought to produce spam-free search engines that steal all the customers?
- delinka 9y agoAll carriers will eventually charge customers to block this "service." Until consumer-friendly legislation bans the practice ... I'd estimate approximately two decades from the time this "service" is allowed.
- stefanpie 9y ago
- dragonwriter 9y agoThere may be (depending on the mechanism used to acheive this) a good policy argument to be made that these shouldn't be governed by laws governing phone calls, but they are exactly the same arguments that would lead to the conclusion that they should be governed by laws concerning unsolicited commercial email.
- kop316 9y agoSeeing this and some of the other people who get spam calls (I get them too from time to time), I am wondering if they allow this legally, why not do something to make the effort of it not worth it? https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/ https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/ I am reminded of this, where the goal is to waste to telemarketers time as much as possible, and my thought is enough people used it, it would make spam calling not worth it. I would gladly pay for a program in which I could load that up on my phone and have it distract/annoy them back. Thoughts?
- 15155 9y agohttp://www.jollyrogertelco.com/ http://www.jollyrogertelco.com/ No affiliation.
- RandomInteger4 9y agoIn a way, this is a huge relief. I never listen to voice mails, so not having to be bothered by my phone ringing for something unimportant saves me a bit of time and anxiety. Now I just have to worry about people I know, phone interviews, and debt collectors (who seem to be harassing me less often via phone these days).
- r00fus 9y agoHow about just disabling VM?
- RandomInteger4 9y agoThen I would get the call no? VM isn't the problem. The problem is the ringing.
- thescribe 9y agoPerhaps a shrink-wrap style TOS in my voice mail message? By leaving a message you agree to pay a fee per ringless message?
- su3aseuo9 9y agoI have heard that this works legally, but that you have to be willing to take them to small claims court, and good luck getting them to actually pay when you win a judgement against them. (You'll have to hire someone else to actually collect the money from them, and that likely makes it not worth your time and/or money.)
- MichaelBurge 9y agoMy first impression is that having the government regulate them is unnecessary, since you can block them on your phone(and phone providers can sell phones that block them by default). All you need is one company to sell a "telemarketer-resistant" phone with an automatically-synced blocklist and some other settings enabled by default.
- Macha 9y agoIf they're using the approach described elsewhere in the thread, sounds like you can't.
- cmurf 9y agoI get maybe a dozen calls per week that become 2 second hangup voicemails. It's been going on for a few years. Mark the number spam in Google Voice, but I still get a voice mail notification on my phone for those numbers unless they're also blocked. But it's a different number every time, endless.
- coding123 9y agoMarriots is a company that should probably be bombed into oblivion. I signed up for a free night at a hotel. Ever since, I have probably received 2000 calls over the years from them. I think it's not just them but affiliates and other scammy/scummy businesses. If anyone is out there, please please do not ever pay Marriots a single penny. They need to go under.
- tlb 9y agoWhen a particular company calls you, just ask to be put on their "do not call" list. Real organizations always seem to honor that list, and there are large fines from the FCC if they don't. (The robocallers described in the article are a different beast, who spoof numbers and pop up under a new identity as soon as they are shut down.)
- coding123 9y agoOne of the times I answered I told him to put me on the do-not-call list and the live person said: "FUCK YOUUUUUU" and hung up. My calls increased considerably after that day. Yes I have considered suing many times, but chicken out realizing how much work would be involved. Most of the calls don't ring anymore as I migrated to Google Voice and just turned on Do Not Disturb for everyone. I can read that it's telemarketing spam or someone that's real. Regarding spoofing - 100% are spoofed now. In the last 6 months all of the spam calls I have in my GVoice inbox match the same first 6 digits of my phone number. The last 4 digits are random numbers.
- Sunset 9y agoYou could always show up to their office IRL and start some shit.
- jimhefferon 9y ago> Regulators are considering whether to ban these messages. They have been hearing from ringless voice mail providers and pro-business groups, which argue that these messages should not qualify as calls and, therefore, should be exempt from consumer protection laws that ban similar types of telephone marketing. What's the point of a death penalty if not for this?
- bjacobel 9y agoIf you'd like to submit a comment on this to the FCC, the link is here: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings The proceeding code is 02-278.
- s73ver 9y agoThis is pure evil, and I hope those doing it end up living under a bridge.
- mirimir 9y agoOK, so if the spammer wants you to call back, they must leave a number. So say, if someone offered suitable SaaS, you could put that number on a list to be voicemail spammed. At one minute interval, from random numbers.
- sgustard 9y agoThe weird thing is I get plenty of telemarketing calls now, but they almost never leave voicemail. I had assumed their whole business model was to get a live victim on the phone, not in leaving spam behind.