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Complaints about automated telemarketing calls jumped steeply last year, and have quintupled since 2009, according to a recent FTC report. The report says that in fiscal year 2017, the agency received over 375,000 complaints per month about automated robocalls, up from only 63,000 per month in 2009. That’s a total of 4.5 million robocall complaints, plus an additional 2.5 million complaints about live telemarketing calls. For comparison, there were 3.4 million robocalls and 1.8 million live calls in 2016. (The FCC also regulates robocalls, but has received far fewer complaints — only 185,000 since August of 2016.)
The report says that robocalls are steadily increasing because of cheap access to internet calling services and autodialing, and because it’s getting easier for spammers to hide their true identity and location. People reported more “neighborhood” number spoofing, where calls appear to come from a local area code, in 2017. The most popular topic by far, according to complaint responses, was debt reduction. People also reported spam calls about vacations and timeshares; warranties and protection plans; prescription medication; and “imposter” calls ostensibly from businesses, the government, or family and friends.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/1/16837814/robocall-spam-phone-call-increase-2017-ftc-report
(Score: 5, Informative) by Justin Case on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:21PM (14 children)
I have completely solved the robocall problem. Zero in over 6 months:
1. Disconnect land line.
2. Make sure all my legitimate callers are in my contacts list. (Yeah, I know that won't work for everyone.)
3. Put phone on permanent Do Not Disturb. No sound, no flashing, no nothing.
4. Allow those on my contacts list (2) to bypass Do Not Disturb.
Presto! A white list* of authorized callers. To get by that, they'd have to spoof the caller ID of one of my whitelisted contacts. Not saying it is impossible, but hasn't happened yet.
* Security 101: you can never list all the bad people / bad things / bad words / bad numbers....
P.S. I hate hate hate hate advertisers.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:35PM (1 child)
What do you about businesses which may have more than one outgoing number as is the case with some small businesses?
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:40PM
Yeah that is why this won't work for everyone.
However, in my case, there are no businesses I want to give the power to interrupt and annoy me. So I don't. Sooner or later most of them end up abusing it anyhow.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:42PM (8 children)
What happens in an emergency when someone on your approved list needs to contact you from a phone you don't know?
I'm more on the side of the guy a couple posts up: summary execution, especially the shitass politicians who make them after exempting themselves from the rule.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Justin Case on Tuesday January 02 2018, @11:47PM (6 children)
Hasn't happened yet, but if it were a really serious emergency I hope they'd call 911.
If I (could / bothered to) take advantage of all the capabilities of the computer in my phone, I'd make it require a user ID and password (or similar) on every call. In that case, the (easily faked) caller-ID wouldn't matter.
I mean, I don't let just anyone demand resources from my server, why should my phone be any different?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday January 03 2018, @12:25AM (5 children)
That whooshing sound you just heard was my entire point flying over your head. 911 has already been called. Parent/child is dying, can't use the cellphone for reasons, but they have your phone number.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Justin Case on Wednesday January 03 2018, @12:34AM (3 children)
Probably not much I can do about it. Call 911. I'm sure I'll find out eventually.
Again, I didn't claim this would work for you. But it works great for me.
The phone used to be a useful communications device. Advertisers have almost completely ruined it, like email, and those un-skippable things at the beginning of a DVD, and pay TV channels, and... everything they touch. Fire is too good for them.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday January 03 2018, @02:24AM (2 children)
That's cold. You don't have a single person in your life that, if they had a major emergency, wanted you there, and couldn't use their cellphone for reasons.
Sad. I hate to trump the cheeto in charge, but sad.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday January 03 2018, @02:29AM
Forgot to say: 911 was called yesterday.
/ I like to think I don't have any friends that think like you do
// Dad's going to die alone, and it will take us 3-4 days to find him. But that's how he wants it and, well, we all can't visit him every day
/// FFS, if my sister finds dad and her cellphone ain't working I'll be pissed as hell if she doesn't borrow a neighbor's phone
//// and Vice Versa.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 03 2018, @02:43AM
My sisters friend pull that 'but what if it was an emergency' shit on me at 3AM once. I had just got off the phone from using the net. She apparently had been calling every 5 mins for 4 hours straight. "what if it was an emergency?" "call 911" then I hung up on her.
My phone is at my pleasure. Not yours.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday January 03 2018, @01:24AM
I have a system similar to Justin's. However every caller is allowed to leave voicemail, even if my phone does not ring. Spammers very, very rarely fo that - the only time it happened was a piece of an ad speech, meaning that the robot was broken. The parent/child in your example can leave a message. If there is sound associated with this event, the phone beeps and the owner can check it immediately.
(Score: 2) by chewbacon on Wednesday January 03 2018, @04:52PM
They’re just fucked. Shame on them for not calling from an approved device.
(Score: 2) by shipofgold on Wednesday January 03 2018, @02:39AM (1 child)
My VoIP numbers got lots of robocalls. Now they arrive at my asterisk box where I have a simple captcha method. Anybody not in the address book gets a recorded message: "please press nine of you are not a computer".
Robocalls are almost always autodialers which only distribute the call to a call queue after answer by human. They determine that a human answered by the fact that initial greeting is a single word like "hello". An answering machine will have a longer greeting. Autodialers mostly bail after my greeting, but human callers will press 9. It is now very rare for a telemarketer to dial the number themselves so my telemarketers are down to about one a month.
Vendors, doctors, etc. press 9 as it is an easy captcha...Now I don't worry about missed calls.
System works, but only because nobody else does it. It everybody did it the autodialers would recognize and press 9...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday January 03 2018, @06:41AM
Well, if many people did it the first line of defense is to use longer entry codes. Nothing special about 9 is there? 1492 would would just as well. Different people using different entry codes would mean the caller would need limited speech recognition. Then it would get more complicated, but if they're already using speech recognition, then you start with simple math problems "What's 2 plus 3?". "What's the third prime number?", etc. When they can handle that, you're probably dealing with an AI sophisticated enough to swear at.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 03 2018, @03:57PM
Wow. Land Line. I had forgotten all about those. How quaint. Something from a previous millennium long ago swept away in the sands of time.
Yes, land lines are a major robo and telemarketer call cesspool. I have an older friend who still has a land line.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.