4 ms·

I receive 3-5 robocalls per day, and answer none of them, and only pick up if the caller is in my contact list. Robocalls are ruining my trust in the phone sys

I receive 3-5 robocalls per day, and answer none of them, and only pick up if the caller is in my contact list. Robocalls are ruining my trust in the phone system. Both email and the telephone networks are saturated with spam. It would be nice to be able to microcharge callers like in one of those old pay-per-email schemes, to reduce some of this noise. From ads, to emails, to phone calls, these mass unsolicited efforts to compel our attention will ultimately result in the "cord-cutting" we've seen in the TV space.

aninteger 8y ago
It's coming to SMS and probably other "chat systems" too. It's quite easy to build a robocall system on top of Twilio now and they offer much more than just calls.
- toast0 8y ago
  I wish people built their robocall systems on top of twilio. Twilio doesn't let you spoof willynilly, and responds to abuse reports
  - edoceo 8y ago
    I have my own frustrations with Twilio but one cool feature is to just flat Reject a call. I porteted numbers I needed into Twilio and made a greylist app. You can rotate numbers in/out to de-spam them (a bit)
ravenstine 8y ago
I have a theory that phone companies are letting these crimes happen because they want to tank the old phone system so they can sell more data, or something along those lines.
- flyinghamster 8y ago
  They're cutting their own throat, then. Even though my Asterisk system blocks (and records) multiple robocalls daily, I finally got off my butt and ditched my AT&T landline for good. I should have done that a decade ago. Bonus: I'm paying less for VoIP service than what AT&T charged just for Caller ID. My monthly home phone bill has gone from about $45 to under $10. I also got my parents to ditch their landline as well... so that's two customers that AT&T no longer has. I guess it's time to yank the FXO modules off my TDM400P card and sell them to someone who could use them. :)
  - drewmol 8y ago
    Any recommendations for hardware, software and good service provider for home VoIP? I've used an Obihai OBI110 in the past and it was super reliable, the only maintenance was an ~ once yearly power-cycle. Had it setup with Google Voice (was free* for US calls) and Anveo for e911 (~$10/Year). Porting the existing landline # to Google Voice required porting to mobile first, as GV would only accept ports from mobile #'s. Ordering a Ting SIM card [SIM and port were free, line was $6/mo, only needed one month] and then to Google Voice [$20 fee] accomplished this for $26 total. With recent updates to Google Voice service combined with the OBI110 being past EOL, I need a new setup. It would be nice to ditch GV for a paid provider. *Google records your calls, monetizes the data with ad targeting, selling your voice profile, future blackmail, etc.
    - flyinghamster 8y ago
      For my folks, I got them an OBI300, and so far so good. My own setup is an old Atom-based Mini-ITX board and a Digium TDM400P card, with Asterisk handling the calls. We went with Callcentric for service, and we've been happy with it.
      - drewmol 8y ago
        Awesome, thanks for the reply. I've tinkered with roll my own Asterisk setup a few times over the years but I just ordered an OBI300 since I always loved having a portable, canned landline-in-a-box device for traveling, etc. Given the ever increasing volume of spam/scam calls, a couple hundred $ or less can probably get me through to telephone obsolescence!
- curiousgal 8y ago
  On my last visit to the U.S. I decided to go with Ting as a carrier. They have a pay as you go offer and that seemed logical for me as I only intended to use my sim card for data. On a daily basis I was not only receiving calls and messages, I was also being charged for them! There is no way they are not in on it! I ended up removing the sim card and not paying for the $20 bill that they racked up.
  - drewmol 8y ago
    I used Ting for a while, if I had better home coverage I'd still use them as my primary mobile provider, but I'm not in a great coverage area and it seems Verizon's 700MHz/Band 13 is my only consistently reliable service option at the moment. Adding lines for $6 with Ting was nice, I would use them with a dumbphone for a dedicated 2FA SMS line. It appears you can turn off the ability to recieve calls and texts, and with Ting that would probably take a whole 2 minutes since you can call and talk to a real person, usually with no hold time. From Ting support forum: "If you're looking to get a new SIM card to use mobile data, it requires a phone number... but it needs a phone number to be able to communicate with the tower...you can turn off calling and text messaging to it"
TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
Most people have a Google email address these days, it would seem. Google has made spam nearly a non-issue, insofar as its detection rates are 99.9%. First question: Who is still making enough money from email spam to be worth the effort? Second question: Who's going to step up to solve the phone spam problem? Bonus question: How long till spammers start texting like this?
- whorleater 8y ago
  I think traditional spam (the "Nigerian price" type stuff) is on the outs these days, but phishing/spear-phishing is definitely more popular than ever.
tonyquart 8y ago
I also ignore most of those calls now. It saves a lot of my time. I sometimes just Google those numbers and block them in the end without even talking to them. I have also read a nice article regarding this topic at https://www.lemberglaw.com/what-are-robocalls/ https://www.lemberglaw.com/what-are-robocalls/.

aninteger 8y ago

It's coming to SMS and probably other "chat systems" too. It's quite easy to build a robocall system on top of Twilio now and they offer much more than just calls.

toast0 8y ago
I wish people built their robocall systems on top of twilio. Twilio doesn't let you spoof willynilly, and responds to abuse reports
- edoceo 8y ago
  I have my own frustrations with Twilio but one cool feature is to just flat Reject a call. I porteted numbers I needed into Twilio and made a greylist app. You can rotate numbers in/out to de-spam them (a bit)

ravenstine 8y ago

I have a theory that phone companies are letting these crimes happen because they want to tank the old phone system so they can sell more data, or something along those lines.

flyinghamster 8y ago
They're cutting their own throat, then. Even though my Asterisk system blocks (and records) multiple robocalls daily, I finally got off my butt and ditched my AT&T landline for good. I should have done that a decade ago. Bonus: I'm paying less for VoIP service than what AT&T charged just for Caller ID. My monthly home phone bill has gone from about $45 to under $10. I also got my parents to ditch their landline as well... so that's two customers that AT&T no longer has. I guess it's time to yank the FXO modules off my TDM400P card and sell them to someone who could use them. :)
- drewmol 8y ago
  Any recommendations for hardware, software and good service provider for home VoIP? I've used an Obihai OBI110 in the past and it was super reliable, the only maintenance was an ~ once yearly power-cycle. Had it setup with Google Voice (was free* for US calls) and Anveo for e911 (~$10/Year). Porting the existing landline # to Google Voice required porting to mobile first, as GV would only accept ports from mobile #'s. Ordering a Ting SIM card [SIM and port were free, line was $6/mo, only needed one month] and then to Google Voice [$20 fee] accomplished this for $26 total. With recent updates to Google Voice service combined with the OBI110 being past EOL, I need a new setup. It would be nice to ditch GV for a paid provider. *Google records your calls, monetizes the data with ad targeting, selling your voice profile, future blackmail, etc.
  - flyinghamster 8y ago
    For my folks, I got them an OBI300, and so far so good. My own setup is an old Atom-based Mini-ITX board and a Digium TDM400P card, with Asterisk handling the calls. We went with Callcentric for service, and we've been happy with it.
    - drewmol 8y ago
      Awesome, thanks for the reply. I've tinkered with roll my own Asterisk setup a few times over the years but I just ordered an OBI300 since I always loved having a portable, canned landline-in-a-box device for traveling, etc. Given the ever increasing volume of spam/scam calls, a couple hundred $ or less can probably get me through to telephone obsolescence!
curiousgal 8y ago
On my last visit to the U.S. I decided to go with Ting as a carrier. They have a pay as you go offer and that seemed logical for me as I only intended to use my sim card for data. On a daily basis I was not only receiving calls and messages, I was also being charged for them! There is no way they are not in on it! I ended up removing the sim card and not paying for the $20 bill that they racked up.
- drewmol 8y ago
  I used Ting for a while, if I had better home coverage I'd still use them as my primary mobile provider, but I'm not in a great coverage area and it seems Verizon's 700MHz/Band 13 is my only consistently reliable service option at the moment. Adding lines for $6 with Ting was nice, I would use them with a dumbphone for a dedicated 2FA SMS line. It appears you can turn off the ability to recieve calls and texts, and with Ting that would probably take a whole 2 minutes since you can call and talk to a real person, usually with no hold time. From Ting support forum: "If you're looking to get a new SIM card to use mobile data, it requires a phone number... but it needs a phone number to be able to communicate with the tower...you can turn off calling and text messaging to it"

TheRealDunkirk 8y ago

Most people have a Google email address these days, it would seem. Google has made spam nearly a non-issue, insofar as its detection rates are 99.9%. First question: Who is still making enough money from email spam to be worth the effort? Second question: Who's going to step up to solve the phone spam problem? Bonus question: How long till spammers start texting like this?

whorleater 8y ago
I think traditional spam (the "Nigerian price" type stuff) is on the outs these days, but phishing/spear-phishing is definitely more popular than ever.

tonyquart 8y ago

I also ignore most of those calls now. It saves a lot of my time. I sometimes just Google those numbers and block them in the end without even talking to them. I have also read a nice article regarding this topic at https://www.lemberglaw.com/what-are-robocalls/ https://www.lemberglaw.com/what-are-robocalls/.