Makes sense to me! Duh!

I've been receiving robo calls from a company and decided to Google their phone number to see who they are. I ran across a page where people leave comments regarding calls from this particular phone number. They all say they are unwanted sales calls.

I thought this particular report was nothing short of genius. (what a maroon)

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Automated calls are annoying and if they are going to leave messages they need to make it clear that it’s legit and not a scam in the voicemail.

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Ha ha ha ha! I'm sure this "honest" approach would work much better!

"Hello ma'am, this call is not legit, I'd simply like to convince you to fall for my scam. Could you please call me at 1-800-555-5555 at your earliest convenience?" :crazy

I guess as somewhat of a telecom guy, SPAM calls.........especially robo calls........just PISS ME OFF! Here's why.

The danged telephone companies can stop spam tomorrow. They just won't. I do NOT know why. Not getting too deep (ask Trav for a better explanation), it has to do with the IAM message in SS7. There is a field in the calling record that we'll call "Caller ID". There is another field that we'll call "The actual freaking 10 digit telephone number of the phone doing the calling". These two fields are NOT THE SAME. And if a phone is, say, behind a PBX it may or may not have a DID (Direct Inward Dial) number associated with it. So in those cases, the calling record probably puts the main number of the PBX.

If you are with me.............the problem is simple as pie. The caller has a choice, IF HE KNOWS HOW, to override the "Caller ID" number and put any number he wants. Now, most of us don't have the equipment at our home to do that, but it's not expensive and it's not hard to do. And it's legal.

Thus, we have number SPOOFING. Spoofing is a technical term that simply means LYING. That's why they use numbers that are local to you, so that you'll think they are maybe ok to answer. Those are usually actual numbers, so if you block one of them, it might be your Aunt Suzie for all they know. And blocking is sort of useless now, because they've learned to not use that number when calling YOU again.

So, if the phone companies were required (by law???) to put the ACTUAL calling number, then every time you got a spam call you could get on a website like this one, and say 433-222-2222 is calling me with spam, so everyone call them and blow a whistle.

And if you are brighter than the average student, a light bulb has gone off in your head (a good place for it to go off) and you've thought "Wait. Toll free numbers aren't really the telephone number of a caller". And you're right. Toll Free numbers are the original spoofed number..........except the telecom companies keep a record of such numbers, which are nothing more than a marketing scheme to reverse the charges of a long distance call (which is almost nonexistent these days anyway).

Whew.

And here's the last sobering thought. If you answer........including your voice mail..........that is usually all they want. They are not actually trying to sell you anything many times. They are mining valid numbers. They call about 1,000,000 random numbers and they want to know which ones have humans that answer. They make a list of those, and sell that list! Guess to who? To a company right here in my little old hometown, Axciom. That company exists for one reason only. If you pay them, they can provide you a list.........an almost 100% accurate list.........of, say, every red-headed dentist in towns over 50,000 population. So when you answer a spam call, they gotcha. Your number is now sold.

There'll be a test later.

Yep, I knew all of that (just not the technical terms) and it's irritating as Hell! 90% of my SPAM calls show a local number on my caller ID which doubly irritates me all to Hell. I never answer them and block the number after they hang up ... but as you said, it doesn't matter. The next time they call, it'll show a different number anyway. What PISSES me off is I once had my bank calling me but it was showing up as just a number, but no ID. I kept ignoring it and they finally had to send me a letter. I WAS WAITING FOR THEIR CALL gosh dangit!

Oh, and another thing ... that National No-Call list is a frigging joke. I still have a land-line, only because I have DSL (don't laugh, I'm a dinosaur), but it does everything I need it to do. BUT ... I have my home phone unplugged. It irritates me to have to do that, but 99.99999999% of the calls I get on that line are unsolicited sales calls. I figure anyone who knows me, has my cell number, but it still irritates the piss out of me that possibly some old Army buddy (or whomever) might try to contact me via a number most anybody can find on-line as I've had the same home phone number for 31 years ... but those worthless robo mf'ers have made a home phone totally useless. I used to think cell phones were off-limits, but the b/s junk calls on my cell is starting to get almost as bad as the landline. :angry1

I recently changed insurance companies and I wanted a new quote (auto) so I had to leave a call back # so I could make the deal go through...while I did cut my premiums in half/ Yay for me!
But Good Lawd at the auto warranty robocalls/sometimes a real person calls I been getting!....Grrrrrr

it usually goes something like this...."urgent! your vehicle warranty is about to expire" "immediate action is needed to stop this!"

over and over and over again!

Fortunately Iphone has a setting where all numbers not on my contact list go straight to missed calls and I never even hear them ring.

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Originally Posted by Thumper

Yep, I knew all of that (just not the technical terms) and it's irritating as Hell! 90% of my SPAM calls show a local number on my caller ID which doubly irritates me all to Hell. I never answer them and block the number after they hang up ... but as you said, it doesn't matter. The next time they call, it'll show a different number anyway. What PISSES me off is I once had my bank calling me but it was showing up as just a number, but no ID. I kept ignoring it and they finally had to send me a letter. I WAS WAITING FOR THEIR CALL gosh dangit!

Oh, and another thing ... that National No-Call list is a frigging joke. I still have a land-line, only because I have DSL (don't laugh, I'm a dinosaur), but it does everything I need it to do. BUT ... I have my home phone unplugged. It irritates me to have to do that, but 99.99999999% of the calls I get on that line are unsolicited sales calls. I figure anyone who knows me, has my cell number, but it still irritates the piss out of me that possibly some old Army buddy (or whomever) might try to contact me via a number most anybody can find on-line as I've had the same home phone number for 31 years ... but those worthless robo mf'ers have made a home phone totally useless. I used to think cell phones were off-limits, but the b/s junk calls on my cell is starting to get almost as bad as the landline. :angry1

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Agree totally with all of that.

It's so frustrating when there is an easy answer and they still don't care. The convenience of carrying a robust computer in your pocket that happens to be able to make calls is amazing. But this is the downside.