Half of all phone calls in 2019 will be from telescammers

boing
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These days, Android does a pretty good job at properly identifying these calls and shunting them directly to voice mail. I only get about one or two spam calls a week that actually ring through.

The interesting thing to me is how the onslaught of spam calls has changed our relationship with the telephone over the last 20-ish years. Back before cell phones existed and before most had voicemail or answering machines, we would run to the phone to answer it when it rang. It was sort of seen as rude to ignore a ringing phone. When a spam call occurred (usually in the form of a local business trying to sell you something), you were only annoyed when they called late at night, during mealtimes, or on Sunday.

These days, we view all incoming calls with suspicion. No one picks-up calls from numbers that are not already on their phone directory. It’s for good reason when a large percentage of incoming calls are nuisance or spam calls.

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I do too, but I still have my Texas number even tho I now live in California. So I never answer them.

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Are the offering a helicopter ride?

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I’ve had my number spoofed and used by scammers quite a bit this year, but the reverse has also happened to me. Thankfully i have a number from a different state and legitimately no one i know also has numbers from there so its super easy for me to detect scams. But if i had a local number it’d just be impossible for me to screen legitimate vs fake calls, so yeah i’m happy i can tell quickly which is which.

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Same for me. About once a week I get something in Cantonese.
And then I delisted my house. Since then I get about 10 calls a day offering to sell my house. :sob:
Phone calls make me extremely anxious. I’m not sure why. But I will do just about anything to avoid making or taking a phone call.

Since I never use my phone for calling, my telescammer ratio is closer to 100%.
I just never answer any call. Anyone that knows me knows there are better ways to contact me.

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Just see the calls as a chance to blow off some steam by telling the callers to f*k off.

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I actually use my phone as a phone; I’m old school like that.

But I never answer calls from numbers that I don’t recognize; they go straight to vmail.

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I was just thinking about this very topic this morning. I was using – I think – Nomorobo on my iPhone, but it was missing enough that I decided to save the money and canceled my subscription.

This is probably coincidence, but after I cancelled I started getting a ton of spam calls from a variety of New Jersey area code numbers. Far more than Nomorobo was blocking before I cancelled.

My paranoid brain is considering that they added my number to a bunch of lists as a penalty for dropping their service. They may not have done that, and there might have just been a natural upswing of BS calls. But man, talk about a way of drumming up business and no way to prove it one way or the other.

Whether they did or didn’t, my new policy is if I don’t know the number, I do not answer the phone. Period.

I’m thinking of putting together a voice message explaining the situation to any actual people trying to get in touch with me; I’ve just not done it yet.

I wish there was an easy way to block an entire area code, and maybe whitelist specific numbers. If I could do that, I would just block the world. Keep my phone for text messages and calling out as needed.

Yes and no, the odds of talking to an actual living person is already slim. I’ve heard that answering gets you flagged as a number that answers – no idea if that’s true or not, but I’ve noticed an uptick in robo calls once I made the mistake of answering a few “neighborhood” spoofs, so I’m guessing it’s internally noted from the call center if nowhere else.

If I want to blow off steam, I’ll fire up GTA5 and get destructive. I don’t have to yell at people who took on shitty jobs for reasons, or robots that could not care any less.

Hell, if I want to yell at an annoying robot, I’ll activate Siri.

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Only 2 weeks ago i started getting calls from California in Chinese. Only gotten 2 calls so far but my older brother tells me he’s been getting those for a while.

And yeah i hardly ever make phone calls myself, so i typically am able to figure out rather quickly if its a scammer or not. That being said getting the calls in the first place is beyond annoying, reminds me of the days of spam emails being out of control.

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You know that sound used in horror movies with the string instruments at a scary moment? That’s what I hear in my head when the phone rings. I should make my ringer that sounds just to trolley myself. :joy:

if I need to contact a business I will spend any amount of time looking for an alternative way to contact them. If there isn’t a way, I’m willing to drive up to an hour to avoid the call.

Strangely, I can call and gab with close friends all day long. It’s just the unknown call that gives me an anxiety attack.

For me it’s been maybe 6 months. I was wondering if it was because I signed up for the EVA airlines frequent flyer program around that time. Thought maybe they sell the list of names.

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A few weeks ago I started responding to the Windows Support scam (always live callers) with “is your mother proud that she raised a criminal?” Not in a loud or aggressive way, just as a normal question. You can be sure two people will hear it: the agent, and the supervisor monitoring calls. They hang up within two seconds.

It’s too soon to say if it’s making any difference to my incoming junk calls, but I have no qualms whatsoever about directly calling these people criminals, “reasons” for taking the job be damned. It’s what they are, and if enough of them get called one often enough, it will eventually get harder and more expensive for their bosses to fill those jobs.

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Well, it’s my job. And I’m pretty damn serious about it. In addition to being a postmaster, I’m a general. And we both know, it’s the job of a general to, by God, get things done. So maybe you can understand why I get a little irritated when someone calls me away from my golf.

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At my former job, our client was the USPS* and I used the name “Henry Atkins” (Wilford Brimley’s character) throughout the test data.

*and that’s why it’s my “former job” – as the USPS’s fortunes dried up, so did ours.

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I imagine it was so if the recipient tried to call back, they’d connect to customer service instead of some individual person’s desk extension. Presumably there’s a better solution for that (e.g. why/how neighborhood spoofing doesn’t happen in Europe).

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I’m genuinely curious to know why blocking scam calls – at the telco level – is so hard.

I understand that the scammers are using VoIP, which allows them to spoof any number that they choose. But there must be a point of entry into the telco’s network that can recognize the incoming call as originating as VoIP. If the caller claims a number that is known to be assigned to a landline or mobile, wouldn’t that be grounds for at least flagging it as suspicious?

Or does modern telephony eliminate all distinctions, such that a VoIP connection from Calcutta is literally indistinguishable from a call made using a cellphone in Brooklyn or a landline in Houston, and the exchange can’t do any better than to take whatever the caller claims as a number at face value?

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I love what you are doing, but…

I have my doubts about that. Especially as things continue to slide sideways around the world; there will always be someone willing to take the coin. And if not, they’ll figure out a way to automate the first part and only bring in a human operator as a closer.

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It both is and isn’t.

Where these calls originate from - mostly VOIP gateways - there’s a problem: that there’s not a clear “phone number” with VOIPs, because a VOIP gateway might have 10 business lines based in New York, but they happen to be handling VOIP service from New Delhi, Albuquerque, Toronto, and Zimbabwe.

One way around that is using Caller ID to abstract the caller from the VOIP gateway’s lines… But then you have a clear method by which to spoof call numbers, and that’s being abused.

I personally think it should just show (NO ID) for all those, not a faked one. But then the VOIP gateway business would practically collapse overnight, and the telcos don’t want to lose them dollars. So now we’re in a stalemate where the “consumer” (you and me) are being treated as a “product” for the scammers. It’s pretty gross, TBH.

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Yeah, I’m probably too optimistic about my approach making a difference.

Still, if I can inspire even one person to find their conscience and quit (or to start asking questions if they’ve been duped into believing they’re doing a legit job), that’s a position the boss has to hire and train all over again…

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My sweetheart has been getting a lot of these spoofed calls lately. Today she answered it and let it sit there, waiting for them to say something. I picked up her phone and started breathing heavily into it, because why not.

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Wow, 50% would be a massive improvement for me.

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I used to screen calls by only answering if it was a local number, but recently I was getting these scam calls from local numbers and waking up some days to find 4 to 6 missed calls from random local numbers - but consistently only one of the two area codes available in my area - the newer one, never the older one. I’d wondered why and, well, this answers my question.

I’ve basically accepted that I don’t answer my phone anymore unless it’s a number I’d already put in my phone. I figure anyone else will figure out how to email me or whatever, since I never did get my voicemail to work and it doesn’t seem like I want it anyway since it’d just fill up with this nonsense.