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Report Phone Spam – Shut down robocallers and text spammers

• nolongerthere 3y ago
  I recently got a spam sms from this number: +1-450-914-4061 realphonevalidation.com provides this info: Phone Number: 4509144061 Status: Connected Phone Type: Landline Subscriber Name: Unavailable Carrier: Canada Subscriber Type: Unavailable which isn't that helpful and the other link just flat out refuses to look it up...
• paultopia 3y ago
  Is there any reason to think that this would work for political party donation spam? Do the telecom carriers that provide services for all those horrific text messages about how the other party is going to install a dictator unless you donate to them right now actually care enough to punish those?
  • troydavis 3y ago
    From firsthand experience, yes, it works for unsolicited political party donation messages. Not 100% of the time, but way more than 0%. These wholesale carriers know that recipients will flag unsolicited political messages as spam (to the recipient's wireless provider), and they don't want consumer wireless providers to block or heavily rate-limit messages from their phone numbers. The political campaigns cycle through phone numbers, so their unsolicited messages can "taint" many phone numbers - which will affect other customers' campaigns. The wholesale carrier's incentives aren't perfectly aligned with your incentives, but they're not totally different.
    • simfree 3y ago
      It's also common practice to hard drop abusive campaigns that do not respond to STOP, HELP and similar keywords at the provider's SMSC, and just collect the revenue from them texting your clients. The 10DLC cartel wants to fine instances of unsolicited text messaging up to $20,000 per instance, hence why there is a big pushback against registering with this unsanctioned, not FCC mandated organization called The Carrier Registry (TCR). TCR has been a nightmare to work with for those that do participate in their bureaucracy. You fill out pages of forms with everything from EINs/SSNs to the owners and co-owners of the firm and exact examples of what they plan to text, then 6 months or so later the TCR says "Oh, sucks to be you, we're invalidating all current registered companies, pay $50 to register again and fill out entirely different forms! Also, T-Mobile is tacking on a new inactivity fee of $xx a month per business if your client doesn't message a T-Mobile number every few days :D"
  • solardev 3y ago
    In the US you can report them to the FCC: https://www.fcc.gov/rules-political-campaign-calls-and-texts https://www.fcc.gov/rules-political-campaign-calls-and-texts Keep in mind that sometimes they can skirt the rules by not using automation per se. Instead, they have a bunch of volunteers sit in a room (or online) with special apps that distribute a phone number list (often from NGPVan or the Republican equivalent, forget what it's called) between the individual devices. Then each human has to click "send" or "call". It still gets routed through their VOIP systems, but because there's a human in the loop, it's no longer fully automated... just like 90%, enough to get around the FCC rules. It's pretty sketch. I went to one of those volunteer parties before I realized that's what they're doing. Thankfully Google Fi does a really good job at blocking this kind of spam, texts or calls.
    • troydavis 3y ago
      Just to clarify for anyone reading, this meets the FCC's requirements (ie, it's legal and the FCC won't do anything about it), but it generally is not allowed by the terms of use of the underlying wholesale carrier. So, you should still report it to the sending carrier. Background: Most larger, reputable US-based wholesale carriers have policies that are similar to the CTIA's guidelines for political campaigns: https://www.ctia.org/news/political-text-messaging-engaging-and-organizing-voters-while-protecting-consumers https://www.ctia.org/news/political-text-messaging-engaging-... . CTIA sets a much higher threshold, including opt-in permission. This is a bit like the FCC's definition of email spam (a very low bar - what's legal) vs. a mainstream email service provider's terms of use (a much higher bar - what they permit you to send through them).
      • solardev 3y ago
        Thanks for this clarification/differentiation!
  • aendruk 3y ago
    I started receiving these in August and so far have filed 311 complaints with the FCC to no apparent effect.
    • troydavis 3y ago
      I think reporting to the FCC is a waste of time (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34570065#34570669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34570065#34570669). Following the steps on this site - reporting to the responsible carrier - is nowhere near perfect, but sure beats pretending like the FCC might do something.
  • barryrandall 3y ago
    No. There are no requirements that politicians respect your communication preferences, honor your opt-out requests, or handle your data. At the end of the election cycle, everything is torn down, voter files get copied to local party databases, state party databases, federal party databases, preferred contractors for campaign infrastructure, any interested consultants, and on and on. There are no limits and the data handling reflects this. You can, at best, opt out from a given campaign for the current election cycle.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• jwie 3y ago
  The first order problem with spam calls/sms is you probably opted in to something. Most spam, like it or not, you asked for, and they can almost certainly prove it. The TCPA lawsuit business was so lucrative for years that a lot of effort goes into producing proof that the contact is legal. Rather than stopping spam calls these laws basically guarantee spam, but legal spam. Also carriers have pretty well cracked illegal spam through their own analytics. Some still happens, but it’s cleaned up extremely fast.
  • Retr0id 3y ago
    I can assure you, I did not ask for the SMSes telling me to go pay outstanding postage fees at a fake website.
  • fortran77 3y ago
    This is easily proved wrong. If I get a brand new cell phone number, I still get calls for complete scams even though that number, as far as I've owned it, never opted in to anything.
    • billpg 3y ago
      Are numbers ever really brand new, as in you are the first to ever have that number?
      • fortran77 3y ago
        Probably not, but that's not the problem of the person with the new number.
  • troydavis 3y ago
    > The first order problem with spam calls/sms is you probably opted in to something. Most spam, like it or not, you asked for, and they can almost certainly prove it. At least in my case, this isn't true. When reporting SMS spam, I've often told the carrier to ask their customer for proof that I opted in (because I didn't). None have - again, because I didn't opt in to it or anything else. I don't know how true your assertion is among the general population, but my experience may at least be representative of other HN readers. Many of us don't randomly give out our mobile numbers.
• fortran77 3y ago
  My Voip provider allows for sending receiving text messages as well, and I can certainly set the outgoing number. In our office, there are about 10 different phone numbers, but all outgoing texts are set to come from our "main" number no matter who sent it. And I've been able to change this number to my cell phone number and other numbers that aren't from the VOIP provider.
  • troydavis 3y ago
    This is good to know. If you're comfortable sharing, could you email me your VoIP provider or a phone number they're sending from? Address is in my profile. I'd like to learn more. For anyone else reading, this service is called "10 Digit Long Code" AKA 10DLC. Many business-oriented VoIP providers eventually use a vendor like Syniverse or Sinch for the outbound SMSes. Those wholesale carriers usually either strongly encourage their customers to require verification of sending numbers, or outright require it in the contract. This appears in the wholesale carriers' guidance to their customers, like https://syniverse-web.s3.amazonaws.com/10DLC-Carrier-Pricing-and-Policy-Info-Consolidated-Updated-02082023.pdf https://syniverse-web.s3.amazonaws.com/10DLC-Carrier-Pricing... and https://www.sinch.com/sites/default/files/file/2023-03/Inteliquent-Messaging-Best-Practice-Guidelines-2022-09-21_0.pdf https://www.sinch.com/sites/default/files/file/2023-03/Intel.... From your experience, it's clear that there are exceptions.
    • simfree 3y ago
      SMS enabling offnet numbers has gotten stricter over the last few months, Bandwidth.com will not enable wireless numbers for SMS, and if there is an existing routing record (eSPID/NNID) most vendors require this be removed by the losing SMS provider prior to enabling a number for offnet SMS. I used to be able to SMS enable my T-Mobile numbers offnet, but every 30 days TMobile would take this back. 10DLC is being strongly pushed by some carriers, while others are still permitting conversational traffic (for every one message that goes in, one should come back, with a 10% margin in either direction) to go over P2P rails. With The Carrier Registry invalidating all registered organizations and campaigns every few months, triggering everyone to fill out a ton of paperwork, pay $50 or more to re-validate every business, and also the recent sudden devalidation of every sole proprietor 10DLC registration, I don't blame those who don't want to participate in this unsanctioned cartel formed by the big three wireless carriers.
• mnadkvlb 3y ago
  This is really nice. Would be great if you can also include some examples for Europe. Of couse, i would be up to do some digging if you need help.
  • troydavis 3y ago
    Thank you! I put what little I knew in https://reportphonespam.org/#not-in-the-us-or-canada https://reportphonespam.org/#not-in-the-us-or-canada , but that's not much :-) I'd welcome any other ideas or additions. My email address is in my HN profile. One of the carrier lookup APIs that the site recommends, Twilio's "Line Type Intelligence" API, may support numbers in other countries. That might be a place to start: https://reportphonespam.org/#How-do-I-look-up-more-numbers https://reportphonespam.org/#How-do-I-look-up-more-numbers
  • timthelion 3y ago
    Do you get unsollicited phone calls in Europe? In Czechia it almost never happens, maybe once every three months...
• giancarlostoro 3y ago
  The amount of spam I get since I left Googles old number service is insane. Whats worse is some will say reply stop to stop and just send you more bullshit.
  • davchana 3y ago
    most of the time, STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE (or clicking any link) marks the phone number or email as hot, and gets sold for more money in the market.
    • conception 3y ago
      I wanted to note that for email this generally isn’t the case. Really spammy spam generally is easy to catch, I don’t think I’ve seen any in over a year. Any legitimate business generally adheres to unsubscribe requests. So if you unsubscribe from stuff hitting your mailbox generally you’ll stop getting it. My mailbox pretty much only gets signal to it, almost zero noise.
      • otteromkram 3y ago
        Sir, this is Wendy's. No need to note; the topic is telephone and SMS. Everyone is probably familiar with spam mail and unsubscribing from it. Email is still manageable and less personally invasive than someone calling you or sending a message at random.
      • davchana 3y ago
        just wanted to add an exception, the non-generally part example. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSdZyRvDd0ESrc8IpOstqrXmI_bPjkwS_uUJDEFesIK2RsqEcP7ub9yV2_TMZNQLCmbNwJTmSPQFsMZ/pubhtml# https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSdZyRvDd0ES... this is the log of email spam I am getting since about few years now. The sheet doesn't list any email link, but each one of that link is unique, the soam machine sends me 10x spam if I accidentally click it.
      • delfinom 3y ago
        Yes, but there are also "fake legitimate business" spam and phishing emails. If you hit unsubscribe on that, you will absolutely be marked as a hot email to target.
• phkahler 3y ago
  Step 1 - ignore the callerID and engage with scammer to get their real number. Because us carriers can't be bothered to tell you where a call is actually coming from.
  • Someone1234 3y ago
    In 2023, if you're using a major commercial provider, and the caller ID is a US-originating number you're more likely to see accurate Caller ID than not. STIR/SHAKEN has been widely adopted, and networks now have permission to drop calls providing inaccurate digital signature. Even as of last year caller ID accuracy was bad.
    • barkerja 3y ago
      It is still ridiculously easy to spoof a number. I'm on Verizon with the enhanced caller ID, and it happens consistently on a weekly basis.
      • yellow_lead 3y ago
        That's an issue with Verizon then. They should be able to see that the number is spoofed, as it will have a lower/lack of attestation from the originating carrier. Stir shaken doesn't prevent spoofing but it lets terminating carriers validate that the number is legit before sending the call to their customer. My old team implemented stir shaken for one of the large voip carriers.
• dboreham 3y ago
  My solution since 2002: don't answer the phone.
  • bhpm 3y ago
    Same here but every time I post that on this site I get replies about how they have to answer the phone because their kid could have fallen down a well and their wife could be in a coma and the police would be trying to contact them and if they don’t jump to answer the phone every time it rings their entire family could be murdered. So IDK. It seems to be a problem, I just don’t have enough of a life for it to be for me.
    • otteromkram 3y ago
      Every time you post...with a brand new account? You don't even have any submissions, yet.
      • zamadatix 3y ago
        Some folks cycle throwaways over time instead of allowing a consistent identity to be built. The guidelines request nicely against doing so but some always do anyways of course.
        • nvy 3y ago
          That's because HN prioritizes aesthetics over privacy and won't allow you to delete your account and all its comments.
          • zamadatix 3y ago
            Being able to delete an account allows you to decide to remove your information from the site after a certain point. Cycling accounts is about not letting someone who looks at a single account at any time find enough information to piece together your identity at any point. Both are privacy related but the former is not a lead-in to the latter. As one who'd also like to see the ability to fully delete your HN account for privacy reasons I still think summarizing the alternative reasons as only aesthetics sells the counterarguments a bit short... ... but overall I'm getting myself and the whole conversation extremely off topic here. Probably best to discuss this in a thread about privacy on HN instead of one on robocallers.
• jdanyow 3y ago
  Would it be possible to build an app to automate all this?
  • troydavis 3y ago
    Great question. I think the biggest challenge would be maintaining high-quality reports/complaints. Basically, preventing people from reporting things that they opted in to but are frustrated with (just because it's really easy to do). There's a chance that the reports would actually become worse (less actionable) if it was too easy or too automated. A small challenge is that the high-quality carrier lookup APIs charge a fee for each query. The fee is tiny (like 1/10th of a cent per number), but enough to add up. If anyone is interesting in discussing this, my email address is in my HN profile.
    • whoopsie 3y ago
      I see no downside to frustration also blocking a business. Dark pattern sub/unsub? Messaging hourly because marketing thinks you’re that important? Either pay to design an experience respectful to customers or pay after the fact for losing access.
    • tiffanyg 3y ago
      You'd undoubtedly have to design, at least at some point, for such a system to be explicitly attacked. I'm not assuming you haven't considered that, just pointing out that this might factor into how one might approach building something from the start. I'd suggest it will depend on goals / scale - if not many are using, probably would be ignored even if bad actors were aware of it. If it started to have real effects, there'd undoubtedly be very intentional efforts to attack it. Beyond just the sporadic script kiddiez / for the lulz set ... Edit: sorry, "app" - to potentially use the app in some malicious way ... Not sure my comment is so useful, but, I'll leave it since it's unfortunately all too easy to end up with unintended consequences. Though, I favor fighting this garbage wholesale and support any efforts to interfere with the deluge of BS / noise with modern communications tech.
    • aio2 3y ago
      Off topic but your HN profile doesn't have your email
• mullingitover 3y ago
  I wish we could euthanize this garbage, antiquated phone system. It shouldn't be expected/required that every adult has a phone number when the system is so irredeemably broken and dangerous. If the web didn't have HTTPS, it would be illegal to conduct sensitive business over it. Yet we're stuck with this entrenched telephone system, the best we can do is STIR/SHAKEN, and that's not real security.
  • AgentOrange1234 3y ago
    100%. My son got sick at school last week and I ignored the call from the school nurse because I have been so thoroughly conditioned by daily scam calls to ignore any unrecognized number. It’s insane that this is still a problem.
    • hackernewds 3y ago
      get an android and use "screen my call"
      • Terr_ 3y ago
        Useful for an individual tactic, not really a solution to the large scale problem.
        • viraptor 3y ago
          The solution (well, one at least) to the large scale problem is for everyone to call their representative as long as it takes to implement necessary penalty regulation. All the US based people complaining here can start doing it today.
    • steelframe 3y ago
      The exact same thing happened to me last week. My son got sick at school, enough so that they ended up calling the paramedics. But I had been spammed so much the week before with spoofed phone numbers from my area code that I had my phone on "Do Not Disturb" allowing only people in my contact list through. I thought it would be fine since the school's phone number is in my contact list. Unfortunately the school's systems were down and so they weren't able to call me from the school's regular phone system. They called from random personal cell phones, so that went straight to voicemail. It wasn't until someone was literally sent to my house to bang on my door that I got notification of my child's medical emergency. They were about to administer medication that would NOT have been okay to give him, and I was lucky to be able to contact them and tell them to hold off before they did it. Never mind reporting them to a phone provider. If something had happened to my son I swear to God I would have gone full Liam Neeson "what I do have are a very particular set of skills" on the jackass who's running that specific phone spam operation.
• varelse 3y ago
  Or simplify a white list for all cell phones by default. But just like they make it hard to keep your snail mailbox from being clogged from garbage, this remains hard.
• kornhole 3y ago
  I mainly stopped using phone calls years ago, and I hope more people also do. I ported my main number to voip.ms and created a couple others to use for pseudonymous accounts. The service is cheap at about $1/month per number, but it is a little technical to configure and is sometimes spotty. My phone number has sometimes been unregistered/out of service for long periods which has been a bonus. Nobody who really knows me calls me on the phone. Instead they know to go to my web page that has many ways to call me including a URL to a Nextcloud Talk conversation, Simplex, Session, XMPP, and Matrix. If you want a slightly more expensive but simple and reliable number on Android, I highly recommend jump.chat.
  • nick__m 3y ago
    I also use voip.ms and the only time they where unreliable was when they were under a DDOS attack. What equipment do you use to bridge the voip to your physical telephone? I suspect that it would be your principal source of unreliability.
    • razakel 3y ago
      It's possible, but not cheap, to have a SIM card that can roam on any cell network on Earth, and present as a SIP client.
      • ossguy 3y ago
        I'd be interested to hear more if you don't mind posting about which service(s) offer(s) this. If you'd rather tell me privately, email denver@ossguy.com
    • kornhole 3y ago
      I have tried various clients on my Graphene phone and am currently using Sipnetic. I have it excluded from VPN through split tunneling, but I still have periods when number just doesn't register. I know there are various settings that can be tried which I have done, but this configuration is a constant source of frustration for many. This is why I recommend jmp.chat with Cheogram client for those looking for a solution that just works. What client or configuration have you found to give you consistent connection with voip.ms?
• WillAdams 3y ago
  This is enabled by essentially free communication --- while it's probably not feasible to go back to the rates Ma Bell used to charge so as to fund their infrastructure (and generous pensions, and stock dividends).... Why not have a system where a small amount of money is put in escrow when a call is placed? If the person who answered the call is displeased by it, they can punch in a command at the keypad after the call to claim the money.
  • xyst 3y ago
    This is equivalent to having a “premium number” (like the pay by minute or per txt)
  • TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > Why not have a system where ... Because phone operators make money on all those robocalls, and have so far decided they'll make more money allowing it, than trying to obstruct it. And, I mean, what are you going to do? Change your phone operator? They're all the same. Switch to using WhatsApp/Signal/etc. for calls? Sure, but you're still paying some telco for the mobile data plan. That's the problem: all the actors with leverage here are happily making money on the scheme; regular customers... have no leverage.
• dmckeon 3y ago
  My spam calls are down to 1 or 2 per month after using nomorobo.com for 5 years. It is not direct action as TFA suggests, but it works well for me. Callers reach voicemail, almost never leave messages, and the phone almost never rings. Free for VOIP numbers, $20/year for mobile. Several similar alternatives exist.
• Rapzid 3y ago
  It's a sad state. We are right on the cusp but I seem to have no way to block all unverified numbers. But the verified number system is in place!
• naveen99 3y ago
  Use iPhone focus feature, whitelisting contacts phone calls. Just need to manually add notifications from frequent contacts. Works pretty well.
  • zamadatix 3y ago
    The iPhone calling app has a more direct native setting for this "Silence Unknown Callers". Anyone in your contacts or recent outbound calls will still ring, everyone else is silenced (without having to change your global focus).
    • baby 3y ago
      I used to have that but it still was too annoying
  • steelframe 3y ago
    I did something similar to this last week after getting recently inundated with phone spam/scam calls and ended up missing a very important phone call about a medical emergency with my child at school because the school's system was down and they weren't able to call me from their number that I have in my contacts list. We need to stop trying to get end users to deploy ad-hoc solutions to the problem and update our phone systems to be resilient to these attacks.
    • naveen99 3y ago
      Yes, I worry about this also.
    • baby 3y ago
      Your school needs to use whatsapp
• AlexITC 3y ago
  This is very helpful, in Mexico, we have a couple of government-provided services where you register to not get advertise/financial calls, when you do, you can report them, and, in theory, the organizations could get considerable bills due to this violation. I have been thinking that we should make an app to automate the reporting process. A fun detail is that the government sells the lists of people that do not want to get contacted. Also, lately, I have been getting many calls that are supposedly coming from the UK.
  • Namidairo 3y ago
    Australia has a similar program running called the Do Not Call Register. Does not really stop anything apart from the legally running telemarketers. Obviously does nothing to stop the phishing calls from overseas (typically compromised) voip services that overstamp local numbers. Additionally the register has carveouts for calls such as charities, political groups, and research calls (polling). > Also, lately, I have been getting many calls that are supposedly coming from the UK. Anecdotally, I have been getting the ocassional spam texts from the UK, but all from numbers registered with O2. It's pretty useless to associate any origin and come to conclusions without a large amount of data. (That and the use of CLI overstamping means that it could be from anywhere)
• jupp0r 3y ago
  It already takes me 45 minutes of my time to get a hold of a support person of my own carrier and I'm a paying customer. I commend the effort, but getting a human to answer a support hotline call in order to report a spammer number is so comically difficult and ineffective that I can't see a significant amount of people participating. Why doesn't my carrier have an automated system allowing them to communicate with the originating carrier, triggered by the "report spam" button in my telephone OS?
  • viraptor 3y ago
    Because contrary to the page, they don't really care about the spam that much. Now, if more people started calling the support for every spam they get... that would translate to some real cost.
    • sk0g 3y ago
      Who would bear that cost though? My prediction would be the customers again, because they would make the phone support harder to reach than it already is as a "solution" to the increased demand for phone support.
      • viraptor 3y ago
        Partially yes, longer support waits. But there's a threshold where the agents either need to be available or the reviews / opinions about a telco go too low, so it can't be just ignored. I just don't have sympathy though - ideally people would DoS all the telco and local government lines until the issue is fixed. It's just stupid how many years this exists without obvious solutions.
      • imacomputertoo 3y ago
        Now if someone were to make one of those pizza ordering LLM agents do the calling for them... I suppose that would be like spamming the carriers. Not sure that's better, but it might make them act.
    • zx8080 3y ago
• habosa 3y ago
  I got a spam call seemingly “from Verizon” (their main number) on my Verizon phone. I called them and told them and they said “oh yeah that happens all the time don’t pick up when we call” That’s when I realized we’ll never win. The spammers have won.
  • 7373737373 3y ago
    What an utter technological failure. How and why is this even (still) possible?
    • TeMPOraL 3y ago
      Why are ads a thing on cable? On the web? It's literally the same problem, and since this site's audience is likely more familiar with the latter, it should be clear it's not a technological failure, but a social/legal one.
      • sk0g 3y ago
        YouTube ads have no ability to interrupt my day-to-day life out of the blue, and also don't poison a legitimately useful communication medium for personal relationships. Phone spam is much more harmful than ads you kinda-sorta opt into, IMO.
      • stetrain 3y ago
        Ads are not the same thing as impersonation, lying about who you are and where you are calling from. Cable is not full of ads that say they are from AT&T and you need to contact them about your bill at <number> but the ad isn't from AT&T and the number goes to a scam call center.
        • TeMPOraL 3y ago
          Yes, but most scam calls aren't impersonations either. I bet if you tallied it up, there's many more people being tricked into taking on bullshit contracts with legitimate companies[0] and losing much more money in total, than there are victims of actual impersonation scams. I firmly believe both schemes are morally equivalent, and that one of them is still considered legal only means we should push firmly for a change in laws. Even the impersonation angle isn't clear-cut. When a telco calls me with their newest scam, it's always via a third-party call centre they outsource this job to. Where I live, it's also historically has been a major source of contact and personal information for scammers - always a "disgruntled employee" leaving and "covertly" taking the customer database with them. -- [0] - Telcos are my go-to examples here, they're notorious for borderline fraud. For example, just under a year ago, a billion-dollar telecommunications corporation named after a color, one of three major telcos in my country, tried to scam my own grandmother hard, after my grandfather passed away, and almost succeeded. More generally, after many years of near-misses and one or two mistakes, most people in my family learned to never talk to phone companies cold-calling with offers.
• xyst 3y ago
  A case where LLMs or ChatGPT would be very handy. Setup honey pot number. Route all phone numbers to be answered by ChatGPT. Use ChatGPT to extract phone number. Use twilio api to lookup phone number. Route report to appropriate carrier(s)
  • hackernewds 3y ago
    > route report to appropriate carrier hilarious to assume that would exist, it is very manual. if any carrier attempted to automate it, it would be used offensively for fraud as well
• underseacables 3y ago
  Why can't we reverse the flow? A phone number that is spam, what if we throw it right back at them? Especially text spam. A lot of times it's not even a phone number, and that's just wrong. But if it is a phone number, it would be nice to put that into a website and have that phone number up voted by other people who have gotten spam. If it reaches a certain vote total, then it can be confirmed as a spam number, and the software starts overwhelming it with messages and calls.
  • green-salt 3y ago
    Unfortunately most of the source numbers are spoofed, and this would cause collateral damage to any legit users of those numbers.
• aimor 3y ago
  I've been reporting spam calls and texts to the FCC for a few years now. Does it do anything? I don't know, certainly not immediately, and the problem persists. I tried the method spelled out here for my latest batch of "Your USPS package has arrived" texts, but the phone numbers (example: +63 936 631 6676) just give an "invalid number" response. Not unexpected. Every official channel seems to be failing us on this one. Spam calls still exist, spam texts still exist, and even fake government websites still exist. I don't understand why a .com site like https ://usps.com-helpnk.com/ is still up.
  • Scoundreller 3y ago
    My own experience is that reporting to Google's Safe Browsing whatever is a waste of time. A lot of scam sites geo-block or redirect to a random news site when visiting from $OutsideTargetArea, so that seems to break a lot of/most automated screening.
  • stainablesteel 3y ago
    yeah i don't understand whether the government even does anything or if they treat it like an off and on switch due to attention or negligence there's some impressive anti-scammer youtube content, and it seems to be a growing trend, maybe this is just capitalism doing what it does best? advertisers putting money in front of combative interventions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzz3NeDz3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzz3NeDz3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUHFpfVPUYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUHFpfVPUYc
  • jimmydddd 3y ago
    I disagree with the posted page that the telecoms are interested in stopping spam. If they really cared, they would have addressed it by now. I suspect they are somehow making money from the spam callers.
    • BLKNSLVR 3y ago
      I can't see how it can be any other way than you mention. Is it conceivable that they don't have control of who is using their network, and how they're using it? It's not like they've just landed on the planet with this big telecoms network to manage. They created them, they set the rules, they own the gates. It's purely profit driven, no question. In the exact same way that Google and Meta claim to not be able to police advertising on their own fucking networks.
• nilamo 3y ago
  It's so funny(?) that we passed the TCPA in order to stop robocalls, but then never decided to actually enforce it.
  • xkekjrktllss 3y ago
    Who is we? The US government is controlled by multinational corporations.
    • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > US government is controlled by multinational corporations As far as oversimplifying political hypotheses go, this is a stupid one. Multinational corporations have fragmented power structures. They're broadly owned, publicly audited and subject to coups through market-based means. If you want a secret cabal, America's emerging aristocracy is at least concentrated, opaque and difficult to dislodge.
  • ipython 3y ago
    The TCPA deputizes you as a private citizen to enforce it. It’s empowering, so much so I would be amazed if anything like it would be passed these days.
    • davidmurdoch 3y ago
      Uh, it gives us zero power to enforce anything whatsoever.
      • ipython 3y ago
        It provides a private right of action for you to sue the culprit in civil court. I have personally received thousands of dollars in compensation for every case I’ve brought under the statute. Unfortunately most of the culprits nowadays are overseas scammers, in which case it’s no help. I would agree in that case- the only way to stop these folks is through the carriers themselves and they don’t seem too keen on doing anything.
• BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  If the telecoms industry wasn't making a profit from it, it would have disappeared a long time ago. It's just a pity that we all need to pay these companies for one fairly crucial thing, but it enables these undesirable things. It's somewhat surprising that the rules or enforcement are so lax, given that everyone, including politicians, have elderly relatives that are susceptible to this BS. (but then, maybe the politicians ARE the elderly relatives, and therefore they don't see the problem).
• coin 3y ago
  > report the phone number that the call instructs you to contact They never reveal a phone number and Caller ID is spoofed.
• zx8080 3y ago
  What is the percentage of spam calls from total nowadays? Does anyone know the numbers?
• mikeytown2 3y ago
  Where can I report Google Voice and Text Mail subscribers? Those are usually the sms spam accounts
• hammyhavoc 3y ago
  What about people who are spamming/scamming on WhatsApp? There's some spamming scammer claiming to be working as a recruiter for my biz, but we've never hired a recruiter, certainly aren't hiring, and this guy is running around without any credibility saying he works for us. Doesn't even have an email address at our domain, just some random UK cellphone number, but is apparently based in China after he forgot to translate one of his messages to someone from Chinese. Asks people if they would like a "task" to complete for £10 as a test for recruitment.
  • throwaway2037 3y ago
    Real question: What is the end goal? Do you think if the person agrees to the test for recruitment, they will be groomed for a bigger financial scam?
    • hammyhavoc 3y ago
      I would imagine they're outsourcing crap time-consuming jobs they get given on Fiverr and its ilk that ChatGPT can't blag a passable end result for, i.e., multimedia or research about present stuff. They may spend money, but the contractor has simply outsourced it—they're still going to make something. As it's a "test", the candidate is likely to put a lot of time and effort into making it as good as they can to impress.
• a_wild_dandan 3y ago
  "People still use phones?" For my social circle, phones have become fax machines -- archaic tech that you forget exists until required for some abnormal situation. My pocket computer's "phone" reference feels quaint, like those floppy disk icons on save buttons; except disk drives aren't so persistently, actively detrimental to my day that I must disable them. So now, all unknown callers are automatically ignored. If it's important, they'll submit a proof-of-work voicemail. Otherwise, modern apps work perfectly for everyone, and the vestigial phone system can remain in the graveyard where it belongs, thank you very much.
  • katzgrau 3y ago
    This is the way I wish it could be (for me, personally), but some standardization among my friends is required. Which app do we tie our interdependence to? A very real question.
    • baby 3y ago
      Literally everybody I know uses whatsapp
      • MissTake 3y ago
        Personal anecdotal knowledge does not a standard make. I’d not be shocked if many in my circle use WhatsApp but since I’ve never used it myself - ever - I’d not know for certain. Neither statement makes the case for usage of WhatsApp a “standard” or not.
        • ghaff 3y ago
          There are 2 or 3 international people I use WhatApp with once in a great while. I've never used it with someone in the US and I bet a number of the people I communicate with via SMS would stare blankly if I suggested using WhatsApp.
  • callalex 3y ago
    Are you young enough that most of your friends don’t have children yet?
• knodi 3y ago
  I'm getting so much political spam its crazy and even when trying to opt-out it doesn't nothing. I get another message from a new number.
  • troydavis 3y ago
    Your experience is typical. The process covered on this site is the only realistic shot of getting anything done. It's far from perfect and it shouldn't be necessary, but it's much better than nothing. (It's still worth reporting to your wireless provider as well (see https://reportphonespam.org/#Reporting-abuse-to-your-wireless-provider https://reportphonespam.org/#Reporting-abuse-to-your-wireles...), but only because it's so quick to do, not because it's likely to help.)
• chriscjcj 3y ago
  Years ago, I switched my home "land line" to a VOIP service provider. This provider allows you to build a simple set of actions which will occur when a call comes in. Mine works like this: Is the call from a fax machine? If yes, take the fax and send the fax to my e-mail. If no, move to the next step. Is the call from a number that's on my whitelist? If yes, ring my phone. If no, move to the next step. Play a recording of my voice saying, "Please press 5 to be connected." Keep repeating this recording for 30 seconds. If the caller presses 5, ring my phone. If 30 seconds elapse and 5 is not pressed, hang up. No more robo-calls for me. Zero. Gone. I check the logs and I'm still receiving many calls a day from random numbers, but none makes it through the test. I know that if everyone did this, scammers would figure out a way around it, but for the last 7 years, it's completely solved my problem.
  • nolongerthere 3y ago
    I'm very curious to know what service this is and how much it costs? I would love, LOVE to implement something like this for myself.
  • imiric 3y ago
    That's a simple phone CAPTCHA that can stop robocalls, but human spammers can easily bypass it, so you likely don't get such calls. I think just sending all calls to voicemail and urging callers to leave a message if it's important should stop all spam. No human spammer will want you to call them back, and most of their numbers are spoofed, so you couldn't anyway.
• chronogram 3y ago
  Why has this not been such a problem in the Netherlands? Can't be any recent laws, because I haven't heard it be problematic all my life. Maybe too small scale, or too high a price, or I live in a bubble?
• gboza1 3y ago
  [flagged]
• yonatan8070 3y ago
  Who's actually benefitting from these spam/scam/advertising phone calls? Whenever I get one I pick up, realize I'm listening to a recording, and hang up immideately, I don't know what it was trying to shove in my face. Who's listening to these calls and doing something that benefits the spammers?
  • InCityDreams 3y ago
    At the end of the recorded speech is a human. Let the speech play, then don't talk to the human. Let them listen to ... silence. They'll soon stop calling.
    • immibis 3y ago
      If you're bored, you can also choose to waste their time by pretending to be a gullible human, but not sending any money.
      • Anamon 3y ago
        I tend to try and give them the impression that I'm gullible enough to maybe fall for it, then say I quickly need to do an urgent thing like move the washing to the dryer, put them on hold, and later check how long they stayed on the line, all hopeful that they may have found a victim. The record so far is almost a quarter hour. It's definitely the best target to optimise – the more time they waste on you, the less time they have to work on some poor soul who's actually vulnerable.
• viknesh 3y ago
  For me, the operative part of the comment is > To keep it simple, consider starting by reporting SMSes. > For robocalls, expect that many robocall CIDs are spoofed I pretty much only get spam calls (texts are pretty rare), and I'm 99% sure all the source numbers are spoofed and I assume it's infeasible to actually trace them. If this is wrong, please let me know. Otherwise, I guess I'll just keep waiting for STIR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN).
• deleted 3y ago
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• deleted 3y ago
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• baby 3y ago
  I get spam calls and texts every day, interestingly now the spam even reached my whatsapp and telegram, although most of it is text and calls. The texts and calls are always from a different number. So what I did: I disabled calls entirely. At this point people only call me on whatsapp so it hasn’t been an issue in the last few years. Text is annoying because people in the US still use it instead of whatsapp so I can’t disable it completely.
• tigroferoce 3y ago
  What I usually do is keeping them on the phone as long as possible with questions and then tell them I don't want what they are selling. I worked in a place that had call centres as part of their business and I know that they classify calls into hit or miss. Miss calls must finish as quickly as possible and they know that if they keep miss calls under a given duration they are gaining money. I want to be the person that makes them lose money.
  • InCityDreams 3y ago
    Absolutely est advice! I never talk to them and keep them on the line for as long as they care to wait. They block me.
    • tigroferoce 3y ago
      I also do that sometimes. Like when they put you on hold when you need them? I put them on hold when they need me. I go like "sure, I'm very interested.. can you just wait one second?" and then I put the mic on mute and go on with my life. Some of them are desperate enough to call back.
• farhanhubble 3y ago
  Crowdsource blocking can be quite effective at weeding out actual spam. For example Truecaller helps me block most spam calls based on how many others have flagged a particular number. It's not foolproof but usually any new numbers that telemarketers grab get quickly blacklisted. On a few occasions I've had to unblock numbers because I needed them temporarily but I can't remember missing anything important like payment reminders or OTPs. In contrast, I've remained opted into the Indian Do Not Call registry forever but that hasn't deterred telemarketers much.
  • rishav_sharan 3y ago
    If you are Indian, its so much easier to report spam (but of course not easy enough! TRAI, while seems to have good intentions here, is pretty much a luddite where tech & UX are concerned). make sure your number is register in DnD. Use the official DnD app to register a compliant https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=trai.gov.in.dnd&hl=en_IN&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=trai.gov.in.dn... The app rating should have given you a clue that the app is quite a crapfest, but it is still better than the steps folks in US have to wade through. it takes a couple of clicks and a short few typed words to raise the complaint. Another way is to simply send a sms to 1909 as > “<Content of UCC, including Referred Telephone Number (RTN) if any>, <header/telephone number from which UCC has originated>, <dd/mm/yy, hh:mm>” the schema is different for all ISPs, but in general none seems to adhere strictly to the schema as long as the datetime, phone number and comma delimiters are correct. Here is the link from airtel on the way to file such complaints; https://www.airtel.in/business/commercial-communication/assets/documents/Help_Modules/Cop_docs/CoP_Complaints_08_11_2018.pdf https://www.airtel.in/business/commercial-communication/asse... ISPs are required by law to folloup on these and once you have sent the sms, you will get update smses for your complaint. I usually just use the DnD app and when that isn't working, I send the sms. the schema i can get from my sms history and just change the caller id, phone and date. And in return I get the satisfaction of getting the update about the phone number of the violater being barred or limited to 20 calls in a month.
• teknico 3y ago
  “Should I Answer?” uses a crowdsourced approach, and works quite well for me. https://www.shouldianswer.net/ https://www.shouldianswer.net/
• pogue 3y ago
  I remember in the mid/late 2000s/2010s using Spamcop.net prodigiously to report every spam email I got because there were just so many. Spamcop automated the reporting process by looking up the mailhost that the spam was sent from and sent a report to the ISP hosting it along with any URL included to the site hosting it, as well as sites like Phishtank, the APWG, the FTC & etc. Spamcop also ran their own RBL for the emails that got reported to them. Eventually, the vast majority of hosting companies just refused reports from Spamcop altogether and spam really didn't get 'solved' until Gmail came out and Google's spam filtering software actually worked. I also use Google Messages for this same reason as they will just catch the majority of bogus SMS spam & I have Bitdefender which catches the majority of phishing attempts. Other than that there are premium options like Robokiller and YouCall which admittedly have pretty funny ways to answer phone calls and waste their time or answer phone calls with the disconnect/SIT tones. But when people ask me how to deal with this problem I typically point them to https://ftc.gov/robocalls https://ftc.gov/robocalls that has handy info.
  • Anamon 3y ago
    I still do the Spamcop thing diligently. Heck if I know whether it does any good, but it's not a big effort and if it helps in a few cases, why not. A surprising amount of the spam and phishing mails I get come through major providers: Gmail, Amazon, Outlook, Sendgrid, etc. – I'd hope they actually do something (getting blacklisted can still be a very costly thing, I heard). I also report all phishing sites I find to hosts, domain registrars, and Google+Microsoft blacklists. A similar service to Spamcop for that purpose is Phish Report. There, it's a bit easier to measure success. A surprising number of hosts are very quick to kill reported sites. As for the blacklists… when I report ridiculously obvious phishing sites such as PayPal logins hosted on "verify-paypa1.business", usually the site is blocked on Edge around 15 minutes after I report it to Microsoft, but is often still reachable without warning on Chrome two or three weeks after I reported it to Google…
• ssss11 3y ago
  In my country political parties can spam you. The leaders need to lead.
• logicallee 3y ago
  Could you add an exception for law enforcement? There are 600,000 missing persons reports annually (especially concerning when a person is being prevented from calling their loved one) and it would make their job easier and could start with a very small consent question. Feel free to email me if you need any more background or information.
  • akerl_ 3y ago
    Calling random phone numbers is not a viable strategy for finding missing persons.
• trollied 3y ago
  In the uk you can just forward the SMS to 7726 ('SPAM' on an old phone). You'll get a text back from your provider with details.
• vegardx 3y ago
  We had a quite interesting case around text spam in Norway recently. A foreign student was arrested by the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) for allegedly spying and doing signal intelligence. What he was actually doing was driving around Oslo with an IMSI catcher, which he used to send SMS messages that tried to scam the recipient to devices that was intercepted. He had his dorm raided by the security services, was put in custody with no visitation or communication for quite some time. According to his lawyer it was quite a traumatic experience, which I can believe. The guy was likely just recruited by some foreign scammers to deliver the messages for them. In that case the carriers network wasn't even involved. Not sure how you'd stop something like that from happening.
  • razakel 3y ago
    >According to his lawyer it was quite a traumatic experience Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
• boffinAudio 3y ago
  Burn this statement into your brain: "Take my contact details off your list and never contact me again!" Do whatever you can to make the scam caller hear you make this statement, loud and clear. The moment they hear it they are supposed to comply, or they will face immense fines. This statement is anathema to the scammer. I've had a lot of fun with this over the years. My favorite variety of scamming the scammers involves leading them to believe that I am an old senile guy scared to death of "Windows Security" and that I will do anything to let them fix the problem, including giving them my password, which is of course, the above statement, which I often have to spell out, letter for letter, before they get it: "Take my contact details off your list and never contact me again!" ;)
• Llamamoe 3y ago
  Does this work internationally?
  • troydavis 3y ago
    If you can find a Web site or API that offers carrier lookup for a given country's phone numbers, the same process should work. That's far from guaranteed, but Twilio's "Line Type Intelligence" API claims to support other countries. I'm not sure whether that includes carrier name, so you'll need to try it: https://reportphonespam.org/#not-in-the-us-or-canada https://reportphonespam.org/#not-in-the-us-or-canada , https://reportphonespam.org/#Twilio https://reportphonespam.org/#Twilio
• stetrain 3y ago
  The best part of all of the number spoofing is now I get real calls from real people who are "calling back" the spam call they received from my number. So I'm getting double-hit by the fact that somehow you're just allowed to place calls from a number you don't own and that's considered a valid part of the phone system still in 2023.
  • HumblyTossed 3y ago
    I get that this is for businesses (mostly) so every outward call seems to originate from a single number, but why in the hell can't there be a verification that the number originated from that specific business? Isn't everything digital now? Just do NATing with phone numbers.
    • mattficke 3y ago
      That’s basically what STIR/SHAKEN is designed to do, what you’re talking about is going to be handled by the certificate authorities. Carriers are ramping up the way they flag or restrict unverified calls as the system is more widely implemented. Echoes of how HTTPS slowly became universal.
    • Saris 3y ago
      Yeah that's what I don't understand. It should be 100% impossible to spoof some random number no matter what, and spoofing a business number should be heavily authenticated to make sure that only the business the owns that phone number can do it.
• thrownaway561 3y ago
  This whole system needs to be automated. It should be as easy as clicking a "Report" button on my phone or in my SMS application.
  • troydavis 3y ago
    I actually emailed the FCC[1] last month and asked about/offered to try to make this available to more consumers. A realistic MVP would be an FCC-operated wrapper for Twilio's Line Type Intelligence API, so that any consumer could find the carrier responsible for any US phone number. That's not perfect, but it's a great start. One step better would be that plus a unified contact form - basically, the process I described here, but without needing to find the carrier and then map that to a contact. The FCC already operates a robocall reporting form that goes to an FCC-operated Zendesk, but reports don't go to the responsible carrier. The FCC did not reply. [1]: Loyaan Egal, Bureau Chief of the Enforcement Bureau: https://www.fcc.gov/about-enforcement-bureau/loyaan-egal-2 https://www.fcc.gov/about-enforcement-bureau/loyaan-egal-2 (the person most often cited in robocall enforcement actions)
    • thrownaway561 3y ago
      The easiest thing honestly would be someway to block all foreign numbers. right now you only have the choice of blocking any number that isn't in your contacts which really isn't an option as it blocks legitimate numbers from doctors, pharmacies, amazon, etc. I really don't need to be getting a text or call from India.
    • troydavis 3y ago
      Update that Mr. Egal responded and forwarded my message to the team responsible for robocall enforcement. It would be a great start if the FCC changed their reporting flow to also notify the originating carrier.
      • thrownaway561 3y ago
        cool!!!!
• teddyh 3y ago
  This feels like “I created a free public service to report when you find you bought toys with lead paint!”. Phone spam is not an appreciable problem in many, many other countries
• drawkward 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • tzs 3y ago
    That's clearly wrong. For many technical and hobbyist publications the ads are one of the reasons people buy the publication. E.g., probably 80% of the time I bought an issue of "Computer Shopper" [1] it was to see the ads. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36206526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36206526
    • drawkward 3y ago
      If that is the reason someone is buying the publication, it's not an ad; it's the content.
• emeril 3y ago
  I came up with a pretty bulletproof solution years ago though it is a bit of a nuclear option... (1) change your phone number to somewhere you don't know anyone that ideally has a single area code (e.g., north dakota with "701") (2) use some sort of app (e.g., numbershield on iOS) on your phone to block all calls from 701-XXX-XXXX (3) use this new number going forward (or transfer the existing number to google voice which seems to have an effective blocker and have it forwarded to new 701 number now I can confidently pick up all unknown calls especially if they are local to me knowing they are legitimate - I now only get a few spam calls per year since doing this
• doesnotexist 3y ago
  Wouldn't it be nice if you could give out a revokable token in place of a phone number to various businesses. If you ever received spam through a token just revoke it and move on. Puts the power back into the hands of the recipient rather than having to rely on some centralized service or your carrier.
  • Anamon 3y ago
    Unfortunately, many spam callers don't even use number lists, but just iterate through. phoneNumber++ ad infinitum. With parallelised robocallers that only involve a human when a connection is established, it's cheap and effective.