4 ms·

Reports of Unwanted Telemarketing Calls Down More Than 50 Percent Since 2021

33 points by impish9208 2y ago

0xPIT 2y ago
Maybe people just stopped reporting because it did not have any effect in the past?
stemlord 2y ago
Can't relate
nhggfu 2y ago
2024: They just buy / scrape email lists + linkedin and spam you to death.
- beretguy 2y ago
  Use email aliases https://simplelogin.io/ https://simplelogin.io/
fhfjfk 2y ago
Anyone anywhere in the world can pay money to steal some of your attention. Until that changes, we'll continue to decrease the duty cycle of personal agency in our lives.
pavel_lishin 2y ago
I'm not sure what's considered telemarketing, but I get half a dozen calls a day from a human operating a TTS in a call-center, who then forwards me to another call center. They're all about Medicare/Medicaid.
Molitor5901 2y ago
My wife never changed her phone number when we moved from Seattle, so any number that shows up as a 206 area code she assumes is spam, and blocks it. It's helped to at least avoid answering the phone when a telemarketer calls.
khaki54 2y ago
This is one of those "lying with statistics" moments. The implication is that "Unwanted telemarketing calls" have gone down significantly, maybe even "more than 50 percent since 2021" and the second order implication is that it was the efforts of the FTC that made the drop happen. The reality is simply that reports to the FTC have gone down which is going to be from myriad other reasons besides the implied ones. 1. Since many spam/scam calls utilize some form of spoofing, many savvy people aren't going to waste their time reporting the number. 2. Since many phones / carriers have the ability to report spam/scam, people aren't very likely to spend their time reporting the number to the FTC. 3. Many carriers and phones have services that come standard (or at least paid) that automatically filter or flag low reputation numbers, leading to fewer reports to the FTC. 4. People that have tried reporting in the past and have gone through the trouble of associating their email and phone number in yet another government database have given up reporting after no appreciable effect. Frankly, I don't think calls have dropped much if at all, and many of us have stopped accepting calls from unknown numbers unless we are expecting it, so those "ignored" ones certainly don't get reported either.
- deadlydose 2y ago
  Who's "us?" Personally I noticed a _dramatic_ decrease in spam calls. In 2019 and 2020 I was seeing, at times, three per hour (damn that extended warranty!). Now I might get one every week.
  - foobarchu 2y ago
    Many of us != The royal Us, your lower volume doesn't invalidate the many who have seen numbers continue to rise. That's not even mentioning the rise of text message spam/scams/marketing. This election season was made all the worse for me and many that I know by the unstoppable deluge of political spam (all of which has a "text stop to end" option that does nothing because each one is from a different organization, thanks Citizens United!)
- ashoeafoot 2y ago
  Xenophobia would go up though, although i don't know how you would measure that.
acomjean 2y ago
They don’t call anymore. They just text.
cptcobalt 2y ago
Anecdatally (& disregarding political SMS), my spam call/text frequency has substantially skyrocketed to about 2-4x that of around 2020, to the extent that I am tempted to change phone numbers.
silexia 2y ago
People gave up on reporting spam calls. We need to make telcos financially liable for carrying spam calls. And put the death penalty on those who make them.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
For me it feels like this problem has become far worse. I often see unsolicited text messages and phone calls coming from a couple problematic platforms like Sinch (who also acquired Mailgun, Mailjet, Inteliquent) and Bandwidth.com (a VOIP provider). These platforms have terrible anti abuse programs that are ineffective and basically force you to repeatedly submit reports so they can stop one source at a time, when in fact they’re just enabling businesses who are fundamentally built on abuse. They often also just reply and say it isn’t their responsibility because they’re just reselling to someone else and that it needs to be taken up with THAT third party. The FTC needs to do a lot more and fine these companies, and jail their executives. By the way, to help, people should: 1. Report text message spam to 7726 (“SPAM” on the dial pad), which will give your carrier info 2. If you get iMessage spam, click report junk so Apple takes action 3. Go to the FTC and FCC websites to report the abuse. For the FCC visit their site (https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/stop-unwanted-robocalls-and-texts https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/stop-unwanted-robocalls...) and click the text link for filing a complaint. For FTC visit their site (https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/) and click “report now”. These forms are painful to fill out and ask for a lot of information, but it will help regulators build a case against these companies. I personally don’t bother reporting abuse to those companies’ own abuse process anymore, because it just helps them temporarily hide what is a bigger problem with their business practice as a whole.
polski-g 2y ago
This is because of rule changes about account ownership from VOIP providers. A lot of them went under because they couldn't/wouldn't follow the rules. Sometimes government can make things better.

33 points by impish9208 2y ago

0xPIT 2y ago

Maybe people just stopped reporting because it did not have any effect in the past?

stemlord 2y ago

Can't relate

nhggfu 2y ago

2024: They just buy / scrape email lists + linkedin and spam you to death.

beretguy 2y ago
Use email aliases https://simplelogin.io/ https://simplelogin.io/

fhfjfk 2y ago

Anyone anywhere in the world can pay money to steal some of your attention. Until that changes, we'll continue to decrease the duty cycle of personal agency in our lives.

pavel_lishin 2y ago

I'm not sure what's considered telemarketing, but I get half a dozen calls a day from a human operating a TTS in a call-center, who then forwards me to another call center. They're all about Medicare/Medicaid.

Molitor5901 2y ago

My wife never changed her phone number when we moved from Seattle, so any number that shows up as a 206 area code she assumes is spam, and blocks it. It's helped to at least avoid answering the phone when a telemarketer calls.

khaki54 2y ago

This is one of those "lying with statistics" moments. The implication is that "Unwanted telemarketing calls" have gone down significantly, maybe even "more than 50 percent since 2021" and the second order implication is that it was the efforts of the FTC that made the drop happen. The reality is simply that reports to the FTC have gone down which is going to be from myriad other reasons besides the implied ones. 1. Since many spam/scam calls utilize some form of spoofing, many savvy people aren't going to waste their time reporting the number. 2. Since many phones / carriers have the ability to report spam/scam, people aren't very likely to spend their time reporting the number to the FTC. 3. Many carriers and phones have services that come standard (or at least paid) that automatically filter or flag low reputation numbers, leading to fewer reports to the FTC. 4. People that have tried reporting in the past and have gone through the trouble of associating their email and phone number in yet another government database have given up reporting after no appreciable effect. Frankly, I don't think calls have dropped much if at all, and many of us have stopped accepting calls from unknown numbers unless we are expecting it, so those "ignored" ones certainly don't get reported either.

deadlydose 2y ago
Who's "us?" Personally I noticed a _dramatic_ decrease in spam calls. In 2019 and 2020 I was seeing, at times, three per hour (damn that extended warranty!). Now I might get one every week.
- foobarchu 2y ago
  Many of us != The royal Us, your lower volume doesn't invalidate the many who have seen numbers continue to rise. That's not even mentioning the rise of text message spam/scams/marketing. This election season was made all the worse for me and many that I know by the unstoppable deluge of political spam (all of which has a "text stop to end" option that does nothing because each one is from a different organization, thanks Citizens United!)
ashoeafoot 2y ago
Xenophobia would go up though, although i don't know how you would measure that.

acomjean 2y ago

They don’t call anymore. They just text.

cptcobalt 2y ago

Anecdatally (& disregarding political SMS), my spam call/text frequency has substantially skyrocketed to about 2-4x that of around 2020, to the extent that I am tempted to change phone numbers.

silexia 2y ago

People gave up on reporting spam calls. We need to make telcos financially liable for carrying spam calls. And put the death penalty on those who make them.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

For me it feels like this problem has become far worse. I often see unsolicited text messages and phone calls coming from a couple problematic platforms like Sinch (who also acquired Mailgun, Mailjet, Inteliquent) and Bandwidth.com (a VOIP provider). These platforms have terrible anti abuse programs that are ineffective and basically force you to repeatedly submit reports so they can stop one source at a time, when in fact they’re just enabling businesses who are fundamentally built on abuse. They often also just reply and say it isn’t their responsibility because they’re just reselling to someone else and that it needs to be taken up with THAT third party. The FTC needs to do a lot more and fine these companies, and jail their executives. By the way, to help, people should: 1. Report text message spam to 7726 (“SPAM” on the dial pad), which will give your carrier info 2. If you get iMessage spam, click report junk so Apple takes action 3. Go to the FTC and FCC websites to report the abuse. For the FCC visit their site (https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/stop-unwanted-robocalls-and-texts https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/stop-unwanted-robocalls...) and click the text link for filing a complaint. For FTC visit their site (https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/) and click “report now”. These forms are painful to fill out and ask for a lot of information, but it will help regulators build a case against these companies. I personally don’t bother reporting abuse to those companies’ own abuse process anymore, because it just helps them temporarily hide what is a bigger problem with their business practice as a whole.

polski-g 2y ago

This is because of rule changes about account ownership from VOIP providers. A lot of them went under because they couldn't/wouldn't follow the rules. Sometimes government can make things better.