robo numbers blocked - will we run out for good guys?

Badger

Badger

Pattern Altitude
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
2,136
Display Name
Display name:
Badger
Sometimes I block 5 robo numbers a day. I'm sure I'm not alone in this practice.

So I'm wondering: when this number gets reassigned to a real person, will he/she be blocked on many phones?

It's more significant now that these robo calls are from local area codes and exchanges (the middle three digits). Even if the numbers are only used for 3-4 days before the company dumps it, there must be thousands of people who block it.
 
That’s actually a really good question.

Following this.
 
I reckon it would have to be reassigned to a person who is actually going to call you.
 
Originating numbers for robo calls can be and are often spoofed. It is quite possible that you might actually be blocking friends and family and perhaps even yourself.
 
Nice to see I'm not the only one as I've blocked almost 500 numbers in the last 4 months. One of my friends had a call from HIS number. How's that happen?
 
I have started blocking CID names (like RNC, BCHC, "Salida CO", "Ocala FL", etc.) in addition to individual numbers. I never answer calls that display just a city & state, or my own area code and prefix (home phone, my cell or my wife's cell) -- those are 100% robocall spam.

I don't bother even trying to block all the individual numbers, because they very very rarely get used more than once. When you're spoofing numbers on outgoing calls, it's trivially simple to just pick a random number for each call, and that's what most of the a**wipes do.

But yeah, lot of people have their phone numbers blocked by lots of other people. Chances are it will very rarely matter, because those pairs would never need to talk to each other anyway.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Nice to see I'm not the only one as I've blocked almost 500 numbers in the last 4 months. One of my friends had a call from HIS number. How's that happen?
Click to expand...
I'll tell you what I told Mom when the "IRS enforcement agent" (with the thick Middle Eastern accent) called her from a DC number. I can call you from my house and make the caller ID show you any number I choose, including your own. Anyone can do it using free software, and the cost is under a penny per call. Even less if you're a thief.
 
The question I have is why haven't telecom companies been required to make spoofing impossible? What legitimate use is there for the technology?
 
Dana said:
The question I have is why haven't telecom companies been required to make spoofing impossible? What legitimate use is there for the technology?
Click to expand...

Because Congress doesn't make them do it.

Telcos do exactly what the applicable regulation requires them to do and not one bit more.

I suspect the telcos make good money off the scam calls and that's why we continue to get them. If the telcos didn't make money off the scam, they would have put an end to it a long time ago.

It completely defeats the purpose of carrying a phone and it will push legit voice traffic further towards messaging apps.
 
Last edited:
I block a few a day knowing since they spoof I'll just get it again. And with that I only answer my phone if it's a contact otherwise whoever is calling, if it's real and important can leave a message.

Now my phone rant...I block calls so I don't want any notification or a voice mail notification. But when a blocked call does call it doesn't ring but my phone still notifies me and will chime when it leaves a voicemail. What part of BLOCK does a phone not understand! Don't let it leave a VM and don't tell me a blocked caller has called. Ugh
 
The spoofed numbers are often a used number. I had a person call me once, insisting that they had a missed call and that I had called them. They could quite grasp the concept.
 
Remember when you actually had to answer the phone to find out who is calling.??

I like my call blocker. I look at it at times and see some numbers have been calling me for months. I tell my friends that if I don't answer then leave a text. 99 and 44/100 of all voice message's I get are junk calls, so I never check voice mail.

The cell phone is for my convenience....
 
Dana said:
The question I have is why haven't telecom companies been required to make spoofing impossible? What legitimate use is there for the technology?
Click to expand...
There is a single "legitimate" use I know about- People legitimately calling from a company sometimes have their internal numbers "spoofed" to a single company number. Legitimate calls may be appointment confirmations, return of technical service calls, and so forth. It allows the corporation's internal numbers to be changed at need without inconveniencing their customers too much.

As the spoofing is abused so much, a legitimate question is whether that use should be exempted. My opinion is ALL robo-calls should be stopped, including the ones for/against politicians.
 
I've hit the point of not answering just about any call on home, personal cell or work cell. Yesterday I even stopped trusting caller id. I was working a problem for one of my Melbourne AU developers who finally rang me up and showed up as himself on caller ID. He asked why I wasn't answering his calls, whe we had already arranged to talk?
I looked at call history and there's a half-dozen calls from something like his number, but somehow it was identified as from Reynoldsburg, OH ... AU country code plus Melbourne location code (probably not the right names for those prefixes), but +61 457 xxx xxx got twisted into +1 614 575 xxxxx and self-identified as an Ohioan... ?????
so yeah, I don't answer the phone much.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
As the spoofing is abused so much, a legitimate question is whether that use should be exempted. My opinion is ALL robo-calls should be stopped, including the ones for/against politicians.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I notice that when the anti-robocall law was passed, the politicians specifically excluded their own political campaigns. I get so very, very tired of the so-called "push poll" calls. Masquerade as a survey to try to push an agenda. Great, let's get the candidates and their support organizations up to snuff on lying and obfuscating before they get elected, they'll need the practice.

Sorry. That's not a political rant, just a rant that intersects politics. :)
 
I wish I could not answer calls I don't recognize or calls that are not in my contact list...BUT

I'm in a business where I want new customers, in other words, numbers I don't recognize. Stinks
 
I rarely block numbers unless it's the same one over and over. I've found that the spoofers seem to be simply using random numbers. Since I'm in Arkansas and my number uses a Florida area code, I typically don't answer Florida calls unless they're in my contact list, or if I'm expecting a call. I don't think I've ever gotten an Arkansas spoof.

Yesterday I got a call from Indiana. That peaked my curiosity so I took it. Actually had a real human, although the English was questionable. Turns out he was trying to sell me a funeral plan. I told him "Over my dead body," and hung up.
 
I always answer those calls with "We got your message, please don't hurt her, just tell us where to drop the money." in a panicked voice. Most of the time they hang up.
 
weilke said:
Because Congress doesn't make them do it.

Telcos do exactly what the applicable regulation requires them to do and not one bit more.

I suspect the telcos make good money off the scam calls and that's why we continue to get them. If the telcos didn't make money off the scam, they would have put an end to it a long time ago.

It completely defeats the purpose of carrying a phone and it will push legit voice traffic further towards messaging apps.
Click to expand...

But I bet if one of the companies did block them, they would have 80% of the market share within 2 months.
 
cgrab said:
I always answer those calls with "We got your message, please don't hurt her, just tell us where to drop the money." in a panicked voice. Most of the time they hang up.
Click to expand...
Awesome. Thanks, I'm going to use that. :)
 
The Google call screening has solved my need to block a lot of numbers. With one click, I can find out if they're legitimate, as most telemarketers hang up when the screener robo voice starts talking. I like to think of it as robo-ing the robo.
 
Dana said:
The question I have is why haven't telecom companies been required to make spoofing impossible? What legitimate use is there for the technology?
Click to expand...
Actually, they've been asked to. But they don't want to disturb their revenue stream whilst doing so. VOIP can hide the country of origin, making wholesale blockage of India or other countries problematic.
 
On the iPhone you can block a number and it goes to voicemail. My outgoing voicemail message reveals that the caller can break through the block by recalling my number within 2 or is it 3 minutes. No spammer yet has listened to the outgoing message and called me back.

-Skip
 
The spoofers often use the area code and prefix where my phone is from, but since I don't know anyone there anymore it's a dead giveaway that it's fake.
 
We use Google Voice and voip. Lately we've been getting a lot of single rings. I've heard that's a robo being automatically blocked. Hope so, anyway. It saves the number in the app. A lot of 800 and 877 numbers, and some local, but when I do a search for them, they come up zip.
 
chartbundle said:
The spoofers often use the area code and prefix where my phone is from, but since I don't know anyone there anymore it's a dead giveaway that it's fake.
Click to expand...

Using the same area code and exchange tries to exploit the affinity scam. You have something in common with the caller, must be a neighbor or something. Worked when the exchange had a relation to the geopgraphy of where phones are located, with cells and VoIP it's meaningless.
 
Nothing about Caller ID has to be legit. They could and would use your wifes cell number to call you, if they knew it.
 
Who answers phone calls any more? I’d happily delete the phone app on my iPhone if Apple would let me.

Do not disturb mode is Ok but not 100% effective.
 
For some reason Europe doesn’t seem to have this problem. It’s kinda nice.
 
SHAKEN/STIR should help but that’s still a few years away where it will be universal enough to rely on.

It’s a start though.
 
EdFred said:
But I bet if one of the companies did block them, they would have 80% of the market share within 2 months.
Click to expand...

They would have my business.

I suspect there is a FCC reg that requires them to carry all calls they get switched from another company and are not allowed to 'discriminate'. It should be easy enough for a large player like Verizon to identify the telcos that are the point of origin for the robocalls and to cut them off.

Caller ID was built as a convenience feature and never intended to serve as a mechanism to verify the authenticity of a call. So it has no security built in.
 
I blocked my own main number yesterday after some robo spoofed it and used it to call me (I didn't answer) - 10 times in 2 hours, block on.
 
weilke said:
They would have my business.

I suspect there is a FCC reg that requires them to carry all calls they get switched from another company and are not allowed to 'discriminate'. It should be easy enough for a large player like Verizon to identify the telcos that are the point of origin for the robocalls and to cut them off.
Click to expand...

True, but... The FCC has given waivers to at least one large telco to allow them to block fraudulent calls. The Telcos have a financial incentive, though, as they get a bit of money as a termination fee for completing the call.

Caller ID was built as a convenience feature and never intended to serve as a mechanism to verify the authenticity of a call. So it has no security built in.
Click to expand...
Yep, like so many things of that era, security wasn't top of Mind. Blue box anyone?
 
I agree with many points posted above about FCC regulations, freedoms, etc......BUT when they "spoof" or intentionally falsify information (local call #) then they have clearly gone over the line of aggressive marketing and into illegal activity IMHO. Maybe the legislators should do something productive for once.
 
wsuffa said:
True, but... The FCC has given waivers to at least one large telco to allow them to block fraudulent calls. The Telcos have a financial incentive, though, as they get a bit of money as a termination fee for completing the call.
Click to expand...

I believe that was my second answer in this thread. We get innundated with these calls because the telcos make money off their participation in our harassment. If it cost them money to switch a fraudulent call, this would be over by the end of the week.

My cell is with AT&T on a DC exchange that came from Cingular (or whoever had the 'A system' in DC back when cellphones were invented). If AT&T gets a call routed from a telco in china with a number that claims it originates within the same ATAT internal exchange it should be easy enough to drop the call. They have the actual routing information on who switches the call to them. It should be easy enough to drop all the calls that carry a caller ID that can't physically correlate with the calls origin.

Or at a minimum strip the caller ID from those calls and display them as 'mismatched CID' on the customer device.
 
Last edited:
On my android phone, I downloaded an app called (very cleverly) "Call Blocker". Basically, any numbers that aren't existing contacts of mine, it stops before the phone even rings and sends them to voicemail. It works very well and is free for the basic version.
 
The NOMOROBO database worked well for a while but now they just generate semi-random caller ID numbers. I just don't answer the phone unless I recognize it.

Actually, what thwarts most of this stuff (and even keeps the phone from ringing) is the fact I have my number routed to a virtual service that says "Press 1 to be connected." No robot does that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top