3 ms·

This baffles me as a Canadian, I get maybe 1 spam call a month, no flyers, pihole blocks most ads, and gmail seems to filter out most email I don’t want to see.

This baffles me as a Canadian, I get maybe 1 spam call a month, no flyers, pihole blocks most ads, and gmail seems to filter out most email I don’t want to see. How come robocalls and junk mail are so much worse for you?

refurb 6y ago
Really? I gave family in Canada and they get a ton of random spam calls on their phone and a ton of spam email. I'll give you the lack of flyers though.
Frost1x 6y ago
From what I've read about the research here, there is something around 1% of the population that regularly answers and interacts with spam calls. Obviously, there's a lower rate for which portion of those follow through and result in a transfer of money. Apparently, the cost of robocalling is less that that fraction of 1% penetration rate. Since almost every aspect of America is about money anymore, that's why we have so much robo call spam: there's enough money to be made doing it by those who do it that it's economically viable for them... so they do it, everything else be damned. Note, this was about 6 years ago. I don't know if the current market is the same.
- sumtechguy 6y ago
  Watch a few Jim Browning vids on YT or some of the other scammbaiter calls and you will understand better. People are mailing these guys 20k in cash in fedex boxes. Then mules here in the US pick it up at an airbnb/hotel/whatever (they hang around and wait for the truck to show up and claim it), take it home take a small cut and wire the rest along up the chain. You get a couple of those and it pays the whole call center for a few months... They estimate the straight out scams are around 20 billion a year. The quasi 'legal' 'cold call' stuff is probably much higher. They are targeting older people who maybe let their spouse take everything and that spouse is dead.

3 ms·

This baffles me as a Canadian, I get maybe 1 spam call a month, no flyers, pihole blocks most ads, and gmail seems to filter out most email I don’t want to see.

by katbyte 6y ago

refurb 6y ago
Really? I gave family in Canada and they get a ton of random spam calls on their phone and a ton of spam email. I'll give you the lack of flyers though.
Frost1x 6y ago
From what I've read about the research here, there is something around 1% of the population that regularly answers and interacts with spam calls. Obviously, there's a lower rate for which portion of those follow through and result in a transfer of money. Apparently, the cost of robocalling is less that that fraction of 1% penetration rate. Since almost every aspect of America is about money anymore, that's why we have so much robo call spam: there's enough money to be made doing it by those who do it that it's economically viable for them... so they do it, everything else be damned. Note, this was about 6 years ago. I don't know if the current market is the same.
- sumtechguy 6y ago
  Watch a few Jim Browning vids on YT or some of the other scammbaiter calls and you will understand better. People are mailing these guys 20k in cash in fedex boxes. Then mules here in the US pick it up at an airbnb/hotel/whatever (they hang around and wait for the truck to show up and claim it), take it home take a small cut and wire the rest along up the chain. You get a couple of those and it pays the whole call center for a few months... They estimate the straight out scams are around 20 billion a year. The quasi 'legal' 'cold call' stuff is probably much higher. They are targeting older people who maybe let their spouse take everything and that spouse is dead.