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Sample size of 1 here but I recently (a month ago) moved from the USA to the UK. I got a UK number and I have not received one spam call or text since. In the U

by domh 4y ago

Sample size of 1 here but I recently (a month ago) moved from the USA to the UK. I got a UK number and I have not received one spam call or text since. In the USA I used to get at least 4/5 calls a week and it rendered the phone portion of my phone completely useless, to the point where I would miss important phone calls. I would also never make "real" phone calls and opt to call via Signal/Whatsapp instead. What is it about the US telecoms system that makes it so susceptible to spam? Is it just the size of the market that makes it attractive to robocallers anywhere in the world? 99% of the time when I'd answer a spam call (typically whilst expecting an important phone call) it would just be a dead line anyway - are they just verifying if the phone number is valid, potentially to resell it later?

junon 4y ago
USA to Germany, same thing. Lots of scammer calls throughout the week until my US phone provider told me they wouldn't support me in Europe anymore and I had to switch over. I actually miss trolling "Jeff from the IRS" every few days.
aubergene 4y ago
When I moved from the UK to USA it was the same in reverse. I had just got a new phone and number and immediately started getting spam calls and texts. I asked my colleagues how I could report or block these and they didn't really have an answer. OFCOM in the UK largely deals with spam and when I've had spam it's usually been that it comes from outside the UK but will still eventually get blocked
- ljm 4y ago
  If I get spam in the UK it's often just a one-off tax scam doing the rounds (which stops once you forward it to, say, HMRC), but mainly recruiters. Once one recruiter has your email and phone number you can bet that every other recruiter in the country also has it.
- domh 4y ago
  I'm fairly certain I was told to sign up to the Do Not Call Registry (https://www.donotcall.gov/ https://www.donotcall.gov/) which did absolutely nothing.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Telecom in the US makes money from spam, and the US government allows it. The saw about "free" facebook/etc is that "you are the product". But spam has always been allowed. The US government has unenforced laws to protect you from spam. In the US, you pay taxes to be the product. Corporations pay lobbying (that is, much much much less than taxes) to keep you being the product. I'm surprised there hasn't been the mother of all class action lawsuits over this. Telecoms are so deeply ingrained in byzantine government regulation that their in-house legal teams know how to defeat anything. Municipal fiber, cooperatively shared starlink connection, or this, they know how to gum it up. Did I only blame telecom? Email spam: ISPs and the internet ad tracking industry, all legal and allowed. The worst though: US Mail. They exist on the backs of spam mail, which is an atrocity when you consider the amount of trees that must be killed for it. Again, we pay taxes to get a firehose of spam from our own government.
dboreham 4y ago
> What is it about the US telecoms system that makes it so susceptible to spam? You should instead examine the US political system. Corruption.
- jollybean 4y ago
  This is exactly the answer and nobody should downvote it. The myopia among people is abysmal. Just a tiny hint of cynicism will lead you down the obvious paths, it's not that hard. AT&T has more influence over governance than the other way around, that's a bit of the 'American character'. It has some advantages in that innovation abounds, but comes along with lack of regulatory apparatus. A Russian on YouTube today was trying to explain to Westerners how Russians are default trapped in a kind of despair and it's all they know, they have never known another way of living, there's no hope for change etc.. Europe is far from perfect but if every America lived 3 months in Europe there'd be a revolution instantly. FYI the opposite would be a bit true as well. Some 'things happen' in America at a pace Europe cannot match.
ftrobro 4y ago
The dead line happens because telemarketers place several calls at once and then start talking to the first one that answers. They dont bother with terminating the other calls.
bityard 4y ago
> I used to get at least 4/5 calls a week and it rendered the phone portion of my phone completely useless, I get many more than that and I still find my phone to be pretty usable. The "one weird trick" here is to screen your incoming calls. Add all of your friends/family/work associates to your contacts and enable the setting on your phone that sends all other calls to voicemail. And then set your phone to notify you when you have new voicemail. I find that scammers/spammers almost never both with leaving voicemail but Real People generally will, or will follow up with a text.
- cmckn 4y ago
  I tried this, but after missing a handful of important calls from doctors offices, banks, etc. I had to allow unknown callers. It’s unfortunate that regulators in the US seem to have no desire to actually solve this problem.
- flerchin 4y ago
  You don't get a voicemailbox full of car warranty recordings? That's what I get.
ecf 4y ago
> What is it about the US telecoms system that makes it so susceptible to spam? Probably some C-Suite mandated KPI that involves # of raw calls/texts per day, network wide. Eliminating spam would make the number go down, which is “eliminating shareholder value” and a corporate primeval sin.
gnopgnip 4y ago
It is more that it is a profitable market than any technical reason
nicbou 4y ago
My German phone number is on my website since 2017. I get a phone call every few days at most, always from the same lot: German housing guys. Otherwise it's dead quiet. It's definitely worse in the US, by quite a bit it seems

by domh 4y ago

junon 4y ago

USA to Germany, same thing. Lots of scammer calls throughout the week until my US phone provider told me they wouldn't support me in Europe anymore and I had to switch over. I actually miss trolling "Jeff from the IRS" every few days.

aubergene 4y ago

When I moved from the UK to USA it was the same in reverse. I had just got a new phone and number and immediately started getting spam calls and texts. I asked my colleagues how I could report or block these and they didn't really have an answer. OFCOM in the UK largely deals with spam and when I've had spam it's usually been that it comes from outside the UK but will still eventually get blocked

ljm 4y ago
If I get spam in the UK it's often just a one-off tax scam doing the rounds (which stops once you forward it to, say, HMRC), but mainly recruiters. Once one recruiter has your email and phone number you can bet that every other recruiter in the country also has it.
domh 4y ago
I'm fairly certain I was told to sign up to the Do Not Call Registry (https://www.donotcall.gov/ https://www.donotcall.gov/) which did absolutely nothing.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

Telecom in the US makes money from spam, and the US government allows it. The saw about "free" facebook/etc is that "you are the product". But spam has always been allowed. The US government has unenforced laws to protect you from spam. In the US, you pay taxes to be the product. Corporations pay lobbying (that is, much much much less than taxes) to keep you being the product. I'm surprised there hasn't been the mother of all class action lawsuits over this. Telecoms are so deeply ingrained in byzantine government regulation that their in-house legal teams know how to defeat anything. Municipal fiber, cooperatively shared starlink connection, or this, they know how to gum it up. Did I only blame telecom? Email spam: ISPs and the internet ad tracking industry, all legal and allowed. The worst though: US Mail. They exist on the backs of spam mail, which is an atrocity when you consider the amount of trees that must be killed for it. Again, we pay taxes to get a firehose of spam from our own government.

dboreham 4y ago

> What is it about the US telecoms system that makes it so susceptible to spam? You should instead examine the US political system. Corruption.

jollybean 4y ago
This is exactly the answer and nobody should downvote it. The myopia among people is abysmal. Just a tiny hint of cynicism will lead you down the obvious paths, it's not that hard. AT&T has more influence over governance than the other way around, that's a bit of the 'American character'. It has some advantages in that innovation abounds, but comes along with lack of regulatory apparatus. A Russian on YouTube today was trying to explain to Westerners how Russians are default trapped in a kind of despair and it's all they know, they have never known another way of living, there's no hope for change etc.. Europe is far from perfect but if every America lived 3 months in Europe there'd be a revolution instantly. FYI the opposite would be a bit true as well. Some 'things happen' in America at a pace Europe cannot match.

ftrobro 4y ago

The dead line happens because telemarketers place several calls at once and then start talking to the first one that answers. They dont bother with terminating the other calls.

bityard 4y ago

> I used to get at least 4/5 calls a week and it rendered the phone portion of my phone completely useless, I get many more than that and I still find my phone to be pretty usable. The "one weird trick" here is to screen your incoming calls. Add all of your friends/family/work associates to your contacts and enable the setting on your phone that sends all other calls to voicemail. And then set your phone to notify you when you have new voicemail. I find that scammers/spammers almost never both with leaving voicemail but Real People generally will, or will follow up with a text.

cmckn 4y ago
I tried this, but after missing a handful of important calls from doctors offices, banks, etc. I had to allow unknown callers. It’s unfortunate that regulators in the US seem to have no desire to actually solve this problem.
flerchin 4y ago
You don't get a voicemailbox full of car warranty recordings? That's what I get.

ecf 4y ago

> What is it about the US telecoms system that makes it so susceptible to spam? Probably some C-Suite mandated KPI that involves # of raw calls/texts per day, network wide. Eliminating spam would make the number go down, which is “eliminating shareholder value” and a corporate primeval sin.

gnopgnip 4y ago

It is more that it is a profitable market than any technical reason

nicbou 4y ago

My German phone number is on my website since 2017. I get a phone call every few days at most, always from the same lot: German housing guys. Otherwise it's dead quiet. It's definitely worse in the US, by quite a bit it seems