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posted by martyb on Wednesday March 15 2017, @10:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the with-a-90dB-horn? dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Oakenshield on Wednesday March 15 2017, @03:43PM

    by Oakenshield (4900) on Wednesday March 15 2017, @03:43PM (#479452)
    Thank you! Thank you so much for making these bastards' lives miserable. I had a similar problem nine years ago when a debt collector called my house for many months before I even knew who it was calling. They pestered me morning, noon, and night looking for someone with a similar name as my minor child. When I finally hit my limit, I ran up the food chain at this outfit and told them I was reporting them to my state AG's office, the phone company for harassment, and contacting my lawyer for a possible lawsuit. They never called back.

    I did get a couple more calls a year or so later asking for the same name. I assume the deadbeat ran up more debt or they sold the debt to another bottom feeder.

    A few years later, I starting getting debt collection calls for my ex-wife asking for her maiden name. We had been divorced for over five years at the time. Now I have NoMoRobo and I don't get any telemarketers, scammers, or debt collectors. Fuck 'em all!
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