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I have been getting calls that immediately start with, "Thank you for choosing Marriot Hotels!" for a couple years now. The message goes on to say how I am getting this great offer because I am a valued customer. On a couple occasions, I stayed on the line to get a human, they ask yes/no questions (are you over 28? do you have a valid credit card?). I just replied with questions of my own, and they immediately hung up. I can continue to ignore the calls, but they are always from a random local number and I get nearly twice as many of these calls than I get legitimate calls.
I did a search and found this has been around for a while and Marriot is aware:
http://news.marriott.com/2015/05/marriott-international-responds-to-continued-phone-scam-updated-oct-20-2015/
I have deliberated about posting, but I don't see the FCC [US Federal Communications Commission] as being able to act unless I can provide them something more than the spoofed phone number. Providing the number(s) probably won't help as they are spoofing the caller ID. I know that this is a long shot, but is there anything anyone can suggest beyond creating a spreadsheet of phone numbers, dates, and times to log these calls? Would that even be useful?
It seems that something is fundamentally broken with the current phone system, if this spoofing is even possible. But that is a side topic here, the real question is, what can I do, if anything, to get the data the FCC would need to shut this down?
(Score: 3, Informative) by SomeGuy on Wednesday March 15 2017, @11:00AM (11 children)
You seem to be assuming the phone company isn't in on it. That is not correct. They make money off of this, so they allow it.
On a side note, I get lots of telemarketer calls, but what boggles my mind is that when I happen to pick up the phone it is very often "dead air", eventually followed by a "bweeep" and then a "click" as the system hangs up. WTF? If they are trying to sell/scam/whatever shouldn't they have their pitch ready?
(Score: 2) by riT-k0MA on Wednesday March 15 2017, @11:04AM
Some companies pay their telemarketers a small fee if the user "cannot be reached". The telemarketers probably know that you're not interested, but want to make a little bit of cash for the call.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Rich26189 on Wednesday March 15 2017, @11:29AM (4 children)
My understanding is that the rob-dialers dial make multiple calls at a time, only the first one to pickup gets connected to the human the others are just left to ring. When/ if those others do pickup they get the 'dead air. We have FiOS so the caller ID is displayed on the TV, if we recognize the number we pickup, otherwise, the answering machine takes it. A little more than half the calls are legit, e.g. American Cancer Society; Big Brothers Big Sister; Red Cross; etc, still we let the AM take it. Lately I've noticed some of the 'human' spam callers don't realize they're talking to machine in spite of the out going message.
What wold it take to put together a 'smart' answering machine that would capture the caller ID and compare it to a contact list and deliver an appropriate message? If not on the list respond with a more generic message, if an obvious spam, deliver an even more appropriate message.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by marknmel on Wednesday March 15 2017, @12:46PM (2 children)
Done this. I have used Asterisk PBX to create a smart answering machine, Whitelisted numbers get to talk to us (rings then voicemail, blacklist numbers get played a SIT tone). There is lots of all in one distributions that allow you to do this. You'll need an old pc or RPi, and an ATA (analog telephone adapter). ATA's are about $50.
There is nothing that can't be solved with one more layer of indirection.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by shipofgold on Wednesday March 15 2017, @01:39PM (1 child)
I did exactly the same thing as I realize that 99% of telemarketers and political campaigns use robo-dialers as described above.
As a result I have implemented my version of CAPTCHA by doing the following:
-- numbers in my callername DB (aka Whitelist) ring through to the house phone
-- numbers in the special_action DB get one of three actions:
direct to VM with no announcement (automated messages from the school district),
direct to VM with announcement (people I don't want to talk to)
direct to Zapateller() which gives SIT tone (known PIA numbers like the Marco Rubio campaign)
-- if the callerID doesn't fall into either of these categories then they get an announcement "Please press 9 if you are not a computer". If they press 9 they ring the house phone...if they don't they go to voice-mail...robo-dialers never leave voice-mail
I generally don't mind talking to humans, and if '9' is pressed then I definitely know they are human. When I expect callbacks from somebody I don't have in my callername DB I don't need to add them immediately (ie. a repair guy calls me back).
I must say that this has killed almost all telemarketer calls. I still get the odd call from a Realtor asking if I want to sell my house, or a window washer asking if I need my windows washed, but I figure those guys are local and I don't mind supporting small business (or at least I am not rude to them).
Asterisk runs great on Raspberry PI and can do amazing things if you take the time to learn it. I set mine up 10 years ago and never looked back.
The only thing I fear is when robo-dialers learn to press '9'...then I will need to randomize the digit...I figure I have a few years to go.
When I retire and have time, I am going to figure out how to transfer to 'lenny' and see if I can torture a few tele-marketers.
If only I could get it to work on my mobile.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Wednesday March 15 2017, @11:42PM
What ATA do you use with your Raspberry Pi?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @04:30PM
You could always redirect them to talk to Lenny. [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by anubi on Wednesday March 15 2017, @11:33AM (2 children)
I have been told the telemarketers are using a "Dial Ahead" or "Dial-A-Head". A slang term for a dialer which relentlessly dials one number after another, so statistically someone will be queued on the line immediately as the telemarketer completes his existing call. Every second, the telemarketer is not talking to somebody, he's losing money, so it behooves them to conserve their own marketing time, even if it wastes the ten or so people who end up being called but not connected.
It is just a statistics game. The losers likely never knew who called them anyway, as the machine is programmed to maintain at all times a queue of heads for immediate connection to the telemarketer. The rest were not selected as the telemarketer was still handling a call - so the machine just drops you. There is a whole flurry of fresh numbers being dialed as you are hung up on. Fresh heads answer the telemarketing call. Lined up for the telemarketer so his time is not wasted waiting for a head to talk to. The machine is already loaded with big lists of heads and the number of the head, so it can update the telemarketer as to what head it connected him to.
If it had dialed you, and the telemarketer wasn't ready for you yet, you were simply dropped for a fresher head that may be more receptive to the telemarketing call, as that head hasn't had time to get pissed off waiting for the telemarketer to complete his previous call.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Wednesday March 15 2017, @01:43PM (1 child)
ISTR being told that there's also a guard time and some simple detection for the robodialler to figure out if it's been picked up by an answering machine, voicemail or fax/modem line.
Essentially a number of calls will be waiting for variations on 'person says "Hello" and pauses' before it attempts to connect through further, and in some cases that logic can be fooled if you answer the phone in certain ways, such as remaining silent at your end.
(Although I can't find a good supporting link for that right now, so my memory could be playing tricks on me here...).
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday March 17 2017, @05:27AM
Oh yes, that's the reason the "Dial-a-Head" has to call so many numbers. Many people no longer answer calls, have their machine pick up a call, and are hostile to telemarketers, so finding those heads that still grant telemarketers the courtesy of a personally answered call is quite rare.
In order to maximize profit, heads do not cost anything to dial, but time costs a lot, so its worth it to burn through dozens of heads to get one delivered in a timely manner to the telemarketer.
Even as the telemarketer is handed a fresh lead by his Dial-a-Head, its already dialing up scores of new heads, as the head it just connected to the marketer is very apt to say "No thank you" and immediately hang up.
Its not profitable having the telemarketer to have to wait for reconnection to another head, so the machine stays busy dialing number after number, in rapid succession, to minimize the idle time of the telemarketer. All the heads that were dialed but not used was just blowby in a nearly infinite universe of heads in the database. Besides, they are available for use again as soon as the machine cycles through the several hundred thousand numbers on its list.
I understand there are bits in the database for numbers which have ever been answered by a human, as well as "naughty bits" for people to avoid - that is people who abuse the privilege of being presented with a telemarketing business call by deliberately toying with the telemarketer just for the fun of it.
It costs nothing to try even dead numbers over and over and over, as eventually that number will be reassigned and some head may answer it. Once answered, the telemarketer may have bad data, but he's gonna make money by just updating the database if he can talk the head that answered into providing the correct info so the database can be updated.
Heads are like sand being processed for little nuggets of gold ... a head that said "yes".
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by ankh on Thursday March 16 2017, @07:28PM (1 child)
> hangup robocalls
I'm told this is done to assemble a list of "valuable phone numbers where someone will answer the phone" for resale.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday March 17 2017, @05:31AM
I have the same info... about those "Dial-a-Head" machines... once you answer the call, you are logged as an answered line.
No sooner than you answered and said "Hello?", bits were flipped in the database.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]