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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: 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]