4 ms·

I think in the EU you're only allowed to call someone who you already have a customer relationship with.

mcpackieh 3y ago
Most of these phone scammers are in India, so two observations: they don't care about local laws, and they're far more likely to speak English than French or German. It makes sense for them to target a very large population of wealthy English speakers, e.g. Americans. Yeah, they could call a German and try to scam them in English, but that's probably less likely to work than scamming somebody in their native language.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  The systems that let them spoof numbers appears to be uniquely American.
  - jeeeb 3y ago
    I’m in Australia and get calls and messages from spoofed numbers all the time. The Wikipedia page on Caller ID spoofing is quite informative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing I think it’s much more common in English speaking countries because collectively they’re the most attractive target with 450m+ wealthy consumers.
- floomk 3y ago
  No one would answer calls from an Indian phone number and it would be incredibly expensive. This is relevant because number spoofing is blocked by the telcos in the EU.
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
  What's funny is that Americans can very quickly distinguish an Indian accent. So any time I answer the phone and hear an unexpected caller with an unknown voice and an Indian accent calling himself "Kevin" I know it's a scammer immediately and I hang up.
  - johnea 3y ago
    You must not be applying for tech jobs....
dreamcompiler 3y ago
That's essentially the law in America too. For the last 20 years or so, we've had the "Do Not Call List" and if you add your number to it, you don't get these calls. Unfortunately that law only works for land lines. Cell phone spam was virtually unknown 20 years ago because cellular minutes were not free, and anybody who wasted your time on a cell call could be sued for costing you money. Also back in those days there were no comprehensive databases mapping people to mobile numbers. Finally there didn't exist easy ways of spoofing your caller ID number so if you spammed someone you would likely be caught. That's all different now, which is why the old law needs to be updated for mobile phones.
LaundroMat 3y ago
In Belgium, that's not the case for phone calls. You can't email or fax someone without their prior permission, but you can call them, as long as they're not on the do-not-call-list. Of course, that list is dead in the water. It has to be _bought_ by companies trying to call people and no effort is being done to make the existence of the list known to the public. "Surprisingly", the board of the non-profit managing the list consists of representatives from call-centers, marketing associations and telco's. (I had a major run-in with them once, because their previous website allowed adding phone numbers to the do-not-call-list without verification. So I tried adding all of Belgium's phone numbers with a script).

Most of these phone scammers are in India, so two observations: they don't care about local laws, and they're far more likely to speak English than French or German. It makes sense for them to target a very large population of wealthy English speakers, e.g. Americans. Yeah, they could call a German and try to scam them in English, but that's probably less likely to work than scamming somebody in their native language.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
The systems that let them spoof numbers appears to be uniquely American.
- jeeeb 3y ago
  I’m in Australia and get calls and messages from spoofed numbers all the time. The Wikipedia page on Caller ID spoofing is quite informative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing I think it’s much more common in English speaking countries because collectively they’re the most attractive target with 450m+ wealthy consumers.
floomk 3y ago
No one would answer calls from an Indian phone number and it would be incredibly expensive. This is relevant because number spoofing is blocked by the telcos in the EU.
dreamcompiler 3y ago
What's funny is that Americans can very quickly distinguish an Indian accent. So any time I answer the phone and hear an unexpected caller with an unknown voice and an Indian accent calling himself "Kevin" I know it's a scammer immediately and I hang up.
- johnea 3y ago
  You must not be applying for tech jobs....

dreamcompiler 3y ago

That's essentially the law in America too. For the last 20 years or so, we've had the "Do Not Call List" and if you add your number to it, you don't get these calls. Unfortunately that law only works for land lines. Cell phone spam was virtually unknown 20 years ago because cellular minutes were not free, and anybody who wasted your time on a cell call could be sued for costing you money. Also back in those days there were no comprehensive databases mapping people to mobile numbers. Finally there didn't exist easy ways of spoofing your caller ID number so if you spammed someone you would likely be caught. That's all different now, which is why the old law needs to be updated for mobile phones.

LaundroMat 3y ago

In Belgium, that's not the case for phone calls. You can't email or fax someone without their prior permission, but you can call them, as long as they're not on the do-not-call-list. Of course, that list is dead in the water. It has to be _bought_ by companies trying to call people and no effort is being done to make the existence of the list known to the public. "Surprisingly", the board of the non-profit managing the list consists of representatives from call-centers, marketing associations and telco's. (I had a major run-in with them once, because their previous website allowed adding phone numbers to the do-not-call-list without verification. So I tried adding all of Belgium's phone numbers with a script).