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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: 1) by oregonjohn on Thursday March 16 2017, @07:47AM
I pay $22 a month to avoid these kids of calls, and still they occasionally get through.
I have my cell number which is only given to friends or businesses I trust explicitly.
I have a $22 a month service that uses my 25 year old phone number. I recorded my message, "... Dial 1 for technical assistance, 2 for design services and 3 for other reasons." Any of the three forward to my cell phone. I was once contacted at that number hundreds of times by a valid call for collections but had been sick and unable to consciously function. Those calls added an extra five or so dollars for two months to the auto phone bill but I never received any of them until I looked up why my regular bill was higher ... and saw who was calling (honest collector as I said).
Worth $22 a month? Not really, but the lose of aggrivation is worth while in other ways.