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I did a cross-continent drive last month with my T-Mobile US phone and got a rude awakening of how real-time this is when the “source” area codes of all the spa
by Lammy 1y ago
I did a cross-continent drive last month with my T-Mobile US phone and got a rude awakening of how real-time this is when the “source” area codes of all the spammy phone calls followed me from state to state.
e: I thought I had opted out of everything that was opt-out-able in TMo's privacy settings <https://www.t-mobile.com/privacy-center/dashboard/controls https://www.t-mobile.com/privacy-center/dashboard/controls> years ago when I first set up my line/account, but I just checked again and more than half of the settings were enabled. Hate that I have to be in the habit of looking for new settings that default to enabled.
- pavel_lishin 1y agoWeird! 99% of my spam calls come from the same area code as my cellphone number.
- Terr_ 1y agoI think they mean scammers have adapted to targeting the area-codes your phone appears to be located now, as opposed to (just) the area code where you originally got your phone number. For a lot of people the difference won't be apparent, because they haven't moved.
- Lammy 1y agoExactly
- pavel_lishin 1y agoI have definitely moved.
- gkoz 1y agoHow are the economics supposed to work here? Is the data so cheap they can get everyone's location several times a day despite having no need for it? What's in it for the carrier then?
- saltcured 1y agoI relocated during the pandemic and brought my existing (Los Angeles area code) number to the SF Bay Area with Mint Mobile. I really don't get local area code spam after five years. The few calls that do happen, I can trace by topic back to local business interactions I've had. I'm not sure whether to think the Mint MVNO on T-Mobile is better about privacy than T-Mobile. Or do you have some phone apps that are really the guilty party linking your phone number to your travel locations...?
- stronglikedan 1y agoI got barely any spam calls on Tmo, but I recently switched away and am crying for mercy. They have an opt-in service that prevents 90% of them from reaching your phone, and it's free. ATT has a similar one. I wish Consumer Cellular did, and I'm almost thinking about going back to big carrier prices for big carrier features like that.
- ycombinatornews 1y agoThis! I did a long drive last week and was surprised that spam calls knew exactly the area code I was in. Realtime … Chilling realization
- radicaldreamer 1y agoIs it possible that some background app is polling and selling this info rather than your carrier?