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Robocalls, and Their Scams, Are Surging (nytimes.com)
The volume of pesky robocalls -- and their scams -- have skyrocketed in recent years, reaching an estimated 3.4 billion in April. [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source.] From a report: In an age when cellphones have become extensions of our bodies, robocallers now follow people wherever they go, disrupting business meetings, church services and bedtime stories with their children. Though automated calls have long plagued consumers, the volume has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching an estimated 3.4 billion in April, according to YouMail, which collects and analyzes calls through its robocall blocking service. That's an increase of almost 900 million a month compared with a year ago. Federal lawmakers have noticed the surge. Both the House and Senate held hearings on the issue within the last two weeks, and each chamber has either passed or introduced legislation aimed at curbing abuses.
Federal regulators have also noticed, issuing new rules in November that give phone companies the authority to block certain robocalls. Law enforcement authorities have noticed, too. Just the other week, the New York State attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, warned consumers about a scheme targeting people with Chinese last names, in which the caller purports to be from the Chinese Consulate and demands money. Since December, the New York Police Department said, 21 Chinese immigrants had lost a total of $2.5 million.
Federal regulators have also noticed, issuing new rules in November that give phone companies the authority to block certain robocalls. Law enforcement authorities have noticed, too. Just the other week, the New York State attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, warned consumers about a scheme targeting people with Chinese last names, in which the caller purports to be from the Chinese Consulate and demands money. Since December, the New York Police Department said, 21 Chinese immigrants had lost a total of $2.5 million.
The telephone industry has always been highly regulated, starting from the government-forced monopoly of AT&T, followed by the government-forced breakup of AT&T, and continuing with a large amount of regulations, including the Do Not Call Registry, which was more of my tax dollars well spent obviously.
Meanwhile, Google has effectively stopped SPAM email, at no cost to me.
If file sharing companies are liable for pirated/illegal content, and internet providers are tasked with flagging illegal activities (I believe this is true in the UK), then why aren't phone companies held to the same standard?
The best way to deal with them it to cost them money. And the best way to do that is to keep them on the line as long as possible. Not only is that keeping them from moving on and scamming the next person but that's also time they're paying that person to talk to you. You should look into http://www.jollyrogertelco.com... They provide bots that will talk to the telemarketers for you and it can get pretty hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Yes, the scams are surging. Some scammers are even calling in the middle of the night. But if you're waiting for the telcos (or the government) to fix this, you'll be waiting for a very, very long time. Caller ID is completely broken, and it will clearly never be fixed.
But robocalling can be tackled on the user end. Robocalling requires a delay of several seconds between you answering the phone and the call being routed to a live human at a call center. I've got an Obi110 on my home telephone, configured with a "Press 1 to continue" screening message. By the time the robocaller switches the call over, the scammer hears nothing but silence. And unless the "1" is pressed, the Obi110 will not ring my home phone. In three years, not one robocaller has made it past the Obi110.
Obviously you can't put an Obi110 on a cell phone. However, Apple and Google could build a call screening function into iOS and Android. Give users the ability to activate a "challenge before ringing" function, give them the ability to customize the challenge and the response (with whitelisting of numbers in the phone directory), and you'd seriously cripple the robocalling industry. With every phone having different challenges / responses, the only solution for the scammers will be for a human being to listen to every call, at least until someone comes up with an AI smart enough to answer any challenge.
It's not a perfect solution, but it's better to fight back than do nothing.