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The spammers have won only because the phone system (in which the phone companies are complicit) is designed to let them win. When you get a call from Verizon'

The spammers have won only because the phone system (in which the phone companies are complicit) is designed to let them win. When you get a call from Verizon's number, they know the actual originator of the call (or perhaps they know it up to some known-to-be-not-so-trustworthy-source). They know that the number is not Verizon's phone number. But the phone company chooses to blindly display the spoofed caller ID. Note that T-Mobile will block their equivalent of these calls (not that T-Mobile isn't to be blamed for other things, such as sending their own spam texts). So it is Verizon's choice to lie to you on behalf of these scammers, and the FCC allows them to do it.

tiborsaas 3y ago
What systems rely on spoofed called ID-s? I would assume carriers don't like this too much, but so much legacy crap is built on this that they are just rolling with it and just accepting the bad rep for spam.
- immibis 3y ago
  AFAIK, just about any time you get a call from a business - the specific desk phone that you were called from has a number, but they prefer to ID as the receptionist or the menu system so you'll get that when you call back.
  - account42 3y ago
    Is that really caller ID spoofing though? Presumably the desk phone does not have an individual external line and it all goes trought a central phone exchange. If that exchange is responsible for both the public phone number and the internal phones then it using the public number for outgoing calls is not really the same as a third party claiming to be calling from a number that they don't own.
    - MiddleEndian 3y ago
      The point is that there is no validation of these numbers. I can call you and list my caller ID as your own number, and when you get a call from me, it will show up on your phone as being from your number. And the phone company will say "Oh no there's nothing we can do about this!"

tiborsaas 3y ago

What systems rely on spoofed called ID-s? I would assume carriers don't like this too much, but so much legacy crap is built on this that they are just rolling with it and just accepting the bad rep for spam.

immibis 3y ago
AFAIK, just about any time you get a call from a business - the specific desk phone that you were called from has a number, but they prefer to ID as the receptionist or the menu system so you'll get that when you call back.
- account42 3y ago
  Is that really caller ID spoofing though? Presumably the desk phone does not have an individual external line and it all goes trought a central phone exchange. If that exchange is responsible for both the public phone number and the internal phones then it using the public number for outgoing calls is not really the same as a third party claiming to be calling from a number that they don't own.
  - MiddleEndian 3y ago
    The point is that there is no validation of these numbers. I can call you and list my caller ID as your own number, and when you get a call from me, it will show up on your phone as being from your number. And the phone company will say "Oh no there's nothing we can do about this!"