Spam calls remedy?

[sodderboy]

I am doing a job in a town and have different contractors calling me from the town. Somehow a spam company started calling using the same town displayed on my phone. Every ten minutes. After four calls, I started calling THEM.
I am quite stressed now with many spinning plates, so I put them on blast. For four minutes I kept calling the number and responding to the, obviously Indian, operators how I could get my number off their list. Sometimes politely, sometimes with mild profanity. I got the same people multiple times, and kept hammering THEM.
After four minutes they started blocking MY number!
And they never called again.
It was a very cathartic four minutes, totally worth the heartbeats.
Maybe this procedure will help someone here with the same sitch. . .
Mike

 

[JohnRoberts]

Most spam callers will hang up if you do not answer, only some will keep playing the pre-recorded sound file and leave a message on your answering machine. I suspect these robo callers use computer dialers that just keep dialing from a list of numbers until they get a human response.

I have had success by physically unplugging my land line long enough for them to try again and detect a non-working number. Then they will drop you from the call list. It has worked for me more than once.

I have to remember to reconnect the land line afterwards because I use it so infrequently that I don't miss it.

JR

 

[Tubetec]

Nice one Sodderboy , give them a taste of their own medicine ,see how they like it ,
keep in mind though their slaves at the far end of the line , its nothing personal , there just given a list of automated numbers and click next button ,

I favour speaking back to them mimicing their own accent and telling them I'm running voice print recognition and I'll have the men with the hooked noses call around unless they purge my number from the list , they tend not to argue and the line goes silent .

It all went to shit a long time ago when overenthusiastic telecoms companies issued their phone book on CD-rom , you needed full name and at least partial address to get a hit from the live CD , didnt take long before these databases were jailbroke ,rifled and sold off . Now governments have 'cottoned' on to the same game ,selling our personal data to anyone interested . They had their piss licking spin doctors on the national radio here the other day trying to tell us they'd struck such a great deal with Micro-soft to protect our data , but in reality they have comodified our data ,its the new cash cow .
I have strong circumstantial and first witness evidence our national police force have access ,via a back door to peoples medical history ,utillity bills and phone data on the 'soft' , I flagged this up a few years ago to the highest ecechlons of the political hierarchy and ,guess what
now the lawmakers and the cops are trying to move the goalposts and get legal access to what the already know but could never swear to in court , thats not about fighting crime ,its about target selection, 'profiling' and fitting up people with crimes before there even comitted .
Look what the cops felt entitled to do to that man in the USA , black ,face captured, run against the data base , identified as a drug user, they felt justified to lean on the mans wind pipe until he expired , its like something out of the pages of the Judge Dread comic , please dont take offence my American friends its the same shit is going on allover . Its not new either , so its been said the CIA trained a few flunky cops in the bay area in clandestine eavesdropping , said cops took the iniative ,ran with it and Watergate was the result , a president that had become a problem for the darker elements of the state got taken out by proxy , case closed .

 

[cyrano]

I have no problem with anyone collecting any data that's open on the web, including mine, if they don't tie it to me, personally.

As soon as they start collecting personal data, all deals are off, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Soundwaves]

I do reverse prank calls ... if I'm driving or can talk, I will answer spam calls and do a little improv practice. My favorite are the "I want to buy your houses" ones because I can come up with crazy tales of why I need to sell.

 

[crazydoc]

A robo named Linda Davis called this morning from "Debt Free America." She connected me with "senior management" who asked me in his middle Asian accent how he could help me with my credit card debt. When I told him I had a million dollars of debt, he told me "You can shove it up your ass." Didn't help - I still have that debt, and my ass hurts now.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Thanks for reminding me to plug my land line back in... I was getting multiple robocalls from the same number so unplugged my land line yesterday. This strategy has worked before with aggressive robots who keep trying until they get an answer.

usually the robocalls spoof some local number for caller ID but this was probably some polling firm proudly posting their name/number.

This will get worse as we approach midterms.

JR

 

[Rusan]

I have a friend who answers any caller whose number he doesn't recognize in Korean, and will then continue speaking only Korean. That always gets a quick hang-up and probably gets his number off their lists as well.

This same guy used to take the response envelopes from junk mail, and stuff them with the other junk mailer's stuff and mail them.

 

[JohnRoberts]

This same guy used to take the response envelopes from junk mail, and stuff them with the other junk mailer's stuff and mail them.

I feel bad about sharing this. but you could literally tape a postage paid envelope to a brick and put it in the mail. They would have to pay the first class postage on a brick.

Don't actually do that..

JR

 

[iturnknobs]

From what I have heard, if you answer one of those calls, you are then placed on a "user picks up call" list and the problem gets worse. Probably best to let it go to VM to avoid more calls...

My wife has a credit rating that cannot be improved. She had an "IRS unpaid taxes" call come in a couple times, threatening to have the police come to our home. I live outside of city limits, so we get the county sheriff when it's necessary. I was placed on their do not call list as well after reciprocally harassment calls were made. Just made me angrier. Probably got more calls as a result.

 

[JohnRoberts]

From what I have heard, if you answer one of those calls, you are then placed on a "user picks up call" list and the problem gets worse. Probably best to let it go to VM to avoid more calls...

I had one aggressive robo caller that would leave messages filling up my answering machine.

Disconnecting my landline for several hours stopped that recent robo caller from a couple days ago, but this morning I got a new different robo caller. The caller ID says some kind of survey or research firm. If they keep trying I may have to pause my land line again. As soon as they don't get a ring, they stop trying.

I expect this to get worse as the mid term election gets closer, I think we have a local run off vote coming soon.

====

Speaking of sucker lists... I recently tried to make an anonymous contribution to a gofundme, but the pukes have been following up first with a thank you email (not very anonymous), then a day or two later lets do more charity spam emails.... So I am definitely on their active sucker list.

It is almost enough to turn me off from charitable giving.

JR

 

[cyrano]

We don't have political robo calls. It would probably be political suicide to try it.

Just the occasional "Microsoft" helpdesk person with an Indian accent telling us that we have 34 virii on our computer. If I have the time, I keep them on the line as long as possible.

Nearly everyone here is on the "do not call" list (only landlines) and ignoring that list can result in heavy fines. Political spam by phone isn't allowed, unless you have called them yourself before. And most people no longer have a landline anyways, so it's not interesting for spammers.

The only "spam" we get on the phone is an occasional enquiry from educational institutions looking for respondents or people willing to participate in testing pharmaceuticals. And that's maybe once in three years or so.

The only exception I can think of, was a recent call from Congo Brazzaville I didn't take. I know it was spam because the number was spoofed when I called back. Or it was a tech glitch?

I know our national telco started filtering calls from Nigeria a few years ago because there were too much complaints. Scam artists use Whatsapp or FB messenger now.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Thanks for explaining that I must be imagining all these robocalls on my LANDLINE. I have been on the do not call list for decades. I may have signed up more than once. Because it didn't work.

These F'rs are not calling from inside the US so not subject to US law. The US phone networks that let them call through could stop them but the politicians have not applied enough negative consequences.

JR

PS: I have a friend who is more aggressive than I am and he has sued multiple robo callers and won. I am not willing to waste my time that way. I am going to invest in a cheap phone line switch so I can disconnect my land line temporarily without unplugging and replugging it. That seems to deter them one at a time.

PPS: Decades ago when I would still answer random phone calls I would get asked to answer questions, but quickly could tell that these were leading questions. Not exactly "do you still beat your wife", but painting partisan imagery with subtle inferences. There are lots of loopholes in who is allowed to call.

 

[cyrano]

Thanks for explaining that I must be imagining all these robocalls on my LANDLINE. I have been on the do not call list for decades. I may have signed up more than once. Because it didn't work.

I'm not in the US, John. And where did I tell you you're imagining things?

I'm fully aware about the US situation. In fact it was the US who was blocking the solution 'till 2021. The protocol that allows scammers and spammers to spoof the caller-ID could have been secured decades ago, but the US telcos are against it. And they're willing to put the necessary pressure on regulators to keep it the way they like it. And if the US doesn't do it, most other telco's won't follow either.

Since 2021 the FCC required a new protocol to be implemented. But since nobody outside of the US uses it, international calls still can spoof the caller ID. And it's too late, since scammers worldwide use VOIP anyways.

The way our local telco handles it, makes calls from Nigeria take longer to connect because they do a reverse lookup before putting the call through. If the spoofed number doesn't exist, the call doesn't go through. And usually, the culprits use out-of-service numbers as a caller-ID.

It also costs them a little money, so they only did it because handling complaints is more expensive.

The only thing this solution doesn't prevent, is Joe-jobbing. That happens when scammers use someone else's existing number as caller-ID. Imagine having your number as callback number and receiving all these complaints and naive callers who think your number is "Microsoft"...

Joe-jobbing can also happen with email. A friend was the victim of such an attack. It was so violent her provider's mailserver went down. One million mails per hour wasn't the problem, but the majority of those going to one email address was. Her mailbox filled up in minutes and then the provider's server started sending out "mailbox full" messages. That landed the server on several spam blacklists. It took several days to get all of this corrected.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I'm not in the US, John. And where did I tell you you're imagining things?

I must be imagining that..... hey you kids get off my yard.

I'm fully aware about the US situation. In fact it was the US who was blocking the solution 'till 2021. The protocol that allows scammers and spammers to spoof the caller-ID could have been secured decades ago, but the US telcos are against it. And they're willing to put the necessary pressure on regulators to keep it the way they like it. And if the US doesn't do it, most other telco's won't follow either.

_____'s fault?

Since 2021 the FCC required a new protocol to be implemented. But since nobody outside of the US uses it, international calls still can spoof the caller ID. And it's too late, since scammers worldwide use VOIP anyways.

The way our local telco handles it, makes calls from Nigeria take longer to connect because they do a reverse lookup before putting the call through. If the spoofed number doesn't exist, the call doesn't go through. And usually, the culprits use out-of-service numbers as a caller-ID.

It also costs them a little money, so they only did it because handling complaints is more expensive.

long ago I posited a way to squash junk email... charge something like 1/10th cent postage per email sent and that would instantly make spam email uneconomical.

The only thing this solution doesn't prevent, is Joe-jobbing. That happens when scammers use someone else's existing number as caller-ID. Imagine having your number as callback number and receiving all these complaints and naive callers who think your number is "Microsoft"...

I see lots of local numbers spoofed on my caller ID, I still don't pick up.

Joe-jobbing can also happen with email. A friend was the victim of such an attack. It was so violent her provider's mailserver went down. One million mails per hour wasn't the problem, but the majority of those going to one email address was. Her mailbox filled up in minutes and then the provider's server started sending out "mailbox full" messages. That landed the server on several spam blacklists. It took several days to get all of this corrected.

I had my business email black listed once because a mail server shared with another customer of my internet provider was apparently hacked (or a hacker). Since them my provider gave me my own mail servers.

These days I spam clean (delete) several Group DIY sleeper spam accounts from our membership rolls every day (4 so far today). These same spammers are also reported for "brute force attacks" elsewhere... I have been doing hand to hand combat with these pukes for decades.

Back when I was taking credit cards on my business website the security hurdles were a massive PIA.

Our friendly little DIY web forum is apparently a target rich environment for all these brute force/spammers.

Sorry if I sound old and angry... get off my grass.....

JR

 

[crazydoc]

My email is blacklisted by gmail for no reason. Even if recipients whitelist it, it soon reverts back to blacklist, so I tell correspondents to check their spam folders. Apparently I'd have to register with gmail/google to investigate it, but that ain't gonna happen.

 

[JohnRoberts]

screw google

JR

 

[cyrano]

My email is blacklisted by gmail for no reason. Even if recipients whitelist it, it soon reverts back to blacklist, so I tell correspondents to check their spam folders. Apparently I'd have to register with gmail/google to investigate it, but that ain't gonna happen.

It's possible there is a reason...

Like your mailserver's ip being used by spammers. Either they register new accounts all the time, paid with stolen CCs, or your provider's mailserver isn't very secure.

It rarely happens for no reason.

Using a reliable mail/web provider and a different company as domain registrar and DNS provider helps a lot. Only, it's hard to tell which are the reliable ones. If you only need mail, look at Protonmail, or Tutanotta. Both are technically excellent. Much better than gmail, or, the worst of all of them, Hotmail.

Obviously, a 1$ a month provider like one.com isn't going to worry about your email. Mind you, one.com has a terrible offering for that price. Just don't expect them to be equal to a provider like mine, who doesn't advertise, but costs at least 50$ a month.

 

[cyrano]

long ago I posited a way to squash junk email... charge something like 1/10th cent postage per email sent and that would instantly make spam email uneconomical.

Can't work as all other mail providers are free. Besides, spammers don't care about cost. They pay with stolen CCs anyways.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Can't work as all other mail providers are free.

Of course it would have to be coordinated. Suppose you only accept email from members of some authorized association. You could earn outgoing postage credits from the emails you accept. It would generally net out to near zero cost for valid emails, but it wouldn't take much per email cost to make spam uneconomic.

Besides, spammers don't care about cost. They pay with stolen CCs anyways.

If you are making a joke you forgot to add the emoticon.

If you believe that we're done with this topic.

JR