Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/22/stop-robocalls-and-phone-scams.html
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Except they spoof the caller ID now.
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Can i opt out of boingboing shop posts in my rss feed?
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To the extent that you can get a fake call from your own phone number, or from anyone in your contacts.
I will continue to just not answer the phone.
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Is it better than TrueCaller? If so, how?
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It sucks that we’re in a position where we have to pay money to keep from getting robocalls. I thought several years ago they were supposed to be really clamping down on them. Why does it seem that nowadays we get more than unusual? Also the amount of calls that coming through my office line with caller IDs such as “anonymous” and “unavailable” is too damn high. I actually had one come through the other day and the caller ID simply said “ILLEGAL SCAM”. At least they’re making it easy. 
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That’s my strategy too. Anyone who needs to get ahold of me knows how. Anyone who only wants to can leave a message or fuck off.
I was helping my youngest daughter buy a new car, starting on Saturday and finishing on Tuesday. During that window of time I answered “local” calls in case it was the dealership. It never was and now it’s like that set off the bat-signal for telemarketers. At least 15 in the last two days. Fucking parasites.
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Yea, I send any strange area codes to voicemail, and I wonder if I missed 1-2 clients that way. But your robocalls aren’t going to come from official robocall numbers any more, so I wonder how this app even works.
These phone scammers are also customers of the phone company. And if the phone company cared enough,it is uniquely positioned to make sure that some of its customers are not harassing other customers.
But holding communication companies acountable for the crimes of the customers - only seems to apply with digital messages, when sex is involved, at least in USia. Weird.
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John Oliver did a good piece on this -
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There are multiple phone companies, and the most prolific robo-call scam centers are not located in the US. While US telcos should be doing more, there’s only so much private enterprise can do to thwart criminals in another country.
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Dear credit card companies.
You can actually solve this by creating (and issuing) lock-out credit card numbers that instantly freeze merchant accounts, with alerts to the local authorities to confiscate these ill gotten gains.
To protect (innocent?) larger merchants (amazon), allow a grace of $50 before dropping the hammer on the eventual subsequent merchant accounts, and add these charges to the final merchant account.
I would like to see credit card companies honeypot these phone scammers by using these lock-out numbers internally.
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TrueCaller is free and works fine.
And as soon as the telcoms stop lobbying millions to SUPPORT robocalls, we’ll have free protection built right in. Should have happened years ago, but…money in suitcases is running the US.
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This is by design! Step 1 lobby the FCC to take no action on robocalls… Step 2 …make an app i guess?.. Step 3 PROFIT!
I wonder who these guys handlers are. Likely the koch corporation. (i kid, but hey, maybe…)
Where do you think the Robocallers got your number from?
All i really want is to block all numbers from a certain area code, EXCEPT those that are in my contacts list. I don’t need anything smart, just something like an inbox rule.
The “do not disturb” setting on my android has saved my sanity. If the caller isnt on my whitelist, it doesnt even ring.
If they’ve a legitimate reason to call despite my never having called them, they leave a message. Win/win!
…but I still resent all the 17 second messages left on my voicemail that I still need to delete. Hell, I resent having to mess with it in the first place. If the Do Not Call registry were taken seriously, it could be enforced, this is a deliberate case of ‘benign’ neglect.
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Random number generator. Why do you think the damned things are called “robo-callers”, eh?
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This was an informative post and it is very useful and knowledgeable
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