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Americans Got 26.3 Billion Robocalls Last Year, Up 46 Percent From 2017 (washingtonpost.com)
Americans are now getting so many robo-calls on a regular basis that many are simply choosing not to answer the phone altogether. From a report: That's one big takeaway from a report [PDF] released Tuesday by Hiya, a Seattle-based spam-monitoring service that analyzed activity from 450,000 users of its app to determine the scope of unwanted robo-calling -- and how phone users react when they receive an automated call. Consistent with other analyses, Hiya's report found that the number of robo-calls is on the rise. Roughly 26.3 billion robo-calls were placed to U.S. phone numbers last year, Hiya said, up from 18 billion in 2017. One report last year projected that as many as half of all cellphone calls in 2019 could be spam.
While many businesses have legitimate purposes for using robo-calls -- think package delivery services, home maintenance technicians and banks -- unwanted robo-calls represent a growing challenge for regulators and telecom companies. In its analysis of a month's worth of calling data, Hiya found that each of its app users reported an average of 10 unwanted robo-calls. Many more incoming calls, about 60 on average, were from unrecognized numbers or numbers not linked to a person in the recipient's address book.
While many businesses have legitimate purposes for using robo-calls -- think package delivery services, home maintenance technicians and banks -- unwanted robo-calls represent a growing challenge for regulators and telecom companies. In its analysis of a month's worth of calling data, Hiya found that each of its app users reported an average of 10 unwanted robo-calls. Many more incoming calls, about 60 on average, were from unrecognized numbers or numbers not linked to a person in the recipient's address book.
unwanted robo-calls represent a growing challenge for regulators and telecom companies
Hardly.....isn't it fully within the capabilities of the telecom companies to stop third-party caller ID spoofing?
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
You thought the Drumpf administration was going to solve a real problem like this under Ajit Pai. Now, look around the room. Those people with their hands raised are fucking morons. You may put them down now.
Telcos have 0 incentive to resolve this issue. They get paid every time a call traverses their lines, and they desperately want the wireline phone system to die so they can get out of regulatory obligations, maintenance costs, and union obligations. The only chance they have to allow this to happen is if customers get so annoyed with the service that they cancel, and when enough people cancel they can make the case to shut it down.
a growing challenge for regulators and telecom companies
And that challenge is: How to placate the plebs without actually taking any action that would jeopardize the fortune they make off of allowing these abusive calls.
I'm sure Ajit Pai and his masters will feed us something good!
About 26.1 billion of those were Chinese embassy scam calls to my cell phone.
Some of these bastards are using phone numbers in the same exchange YYY of XXX-YYY-ZZZ, so that the number looks familiar... They don't even have to buy a number, they can just spoof the caller ID.
Why, in 2019 can't I trace calls coming to me? (and have it be accurate)
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
My cell phone rings constantly with every scam attempt in the world. About a year ago I just blocked all numbers not in my contacts. But now I get a ton of voicemails I have to constantly delete.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Why hasn't phone company greed solved the problem by now? This seems like the perfect opportunity for the cell phone network to switch to caller pays, and bill for every single call attempt, even if it doesn't connect.
This is proof positive that phone companies aren't motivated solely by greed—they're also actively working to piss off as many people as possible.
When I lived in the US I got constant calls and sms.
Here in the netherlands I haven't had a spam call in more than 10 years.
While that's malfeasance and corruption, it's not treason. The US constitution specifically defines what treason is, and that's not it. It's only two or three major felonies.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I get a call from a number I don't recognize then I don't answer. They get one chance to leave a message. If they fail to do that they are blocked. Life is too short for a more forgiving policy.
Americans Got 26.3 Billion Robocalls Last Year
It's has to be more than that. I feel like I had 2.6 billion myself.
In all seriousness, I get an insane number of them. My home landline typically receives 5 calls before 10am every morning lately.
But my favorites are the ones that come to my work mobile. I can't figure out why my social security number keeps getting canceled. Or the warranty, that I don't have, on my car keeps expiring. My student loans are also past due, even though I don't recall ever getting any. It's been quite a few decades since I was in school though, so maybe dementia is kicking in.
I get massive amounts of spam and yes, robocalls.
Corporatism != Free Market
Seems about right to me.
Actually got a scam call while typing this...
See? One vote already. Check it out politicians!
Good thing I registered with the 'DoNotCall' registry. I cannot wait for the government to take over healthcare, something much less important :(
The problem becomes when their is no enforcement. Regulations should have teeth, otherwise what is the point?
Just give the FTC drone strike authority and problem solved.
Run on a campaign of executing robocallers and spam mailers and you'll get a thousand times the voters.
Politicians who say "we need more regulation" are usually full of shit. Get rid of robocalls, and I'll take you seriously.
Politicians who say "we need smaller government" are usually full of shit. Get rid of the TSA, and I'll take you seriously.
How did we end up with a government where no one on either side ever fixes anything?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
1. They're flat-out scams. All of them.
2. They don't identify themselves, instead using some generic name like "Card Services".
3. They robocall all phone numbers, including mobile phones, in violation of the Do Not Call List, as well as the Telecommunications Act.
4. They fraudulently fake caller ID. And randomize it so it's never the same number twice. And use related prefixes to trick you into thinking it's a local call.
5. They start with a pre-recorded message intended to mimic a live caller, to trick you into thinking you're talking to a person. "Now, are you the homeowner?"
6. etc
I rarely answer the phone these days. At home I've turned off the ringer on the land line. On my cell I look to see if it is a known number or not.
Last week I had a repairman coming to the house, and I missed several calls that I should have taken. My insurance company called me with an important announcement - I let it go to voice-mail.
Why? Because 99.999% of all calls are spam/scam calls. That is my new conditioned mindset. If I'm not answering the phone, legit companies need to find a way to get a hold of me. The phone isn't the reliable method.
Therefore, the phone will become obsolete.
I've lived in two different OECD countries and have had ZERO unwanted robo calls. In fact I can't remember having more than a handful of warranted robo calls.
Is my new best friend, judging by number of calls I receive.
Let the number I am really from be X, a number that I want to claim to be from be Y, calling number Z. Let us first assume that there can be a legitimate reason to spoof a number, and X and Y may be different (in normal cases, they will not be, but let's allow for the case where spoofing is permitted). You will see in a moment how this won't inherently be a problem.
If X and Y are different, X first tells Y that it is making a call to Z. If the number at Y recognizes X as authorized to make calls on its behalf, it adds a reference to Z in its cache and can be looked up later. Entries in the cache only stay active for about a minute or two, or until they are queried, and then they are purged. Single number residential lines have no such cache, the line must be awake and in use for a specific call for it to be queried.
When Z receives its call, showing up as coming from Y, it asks Y if it is currently making a call to Z. If the response is affirmative, then the number can be considered verified by a number reachable from Z. If the number Y is not reachable from Z, or Y otherwise does not answer (because it never got a request from an authorized X that it was calling Z) then the number will not ever be verified.
Until there is a response, the call display device can show the number claimed as unverified. Note that if a person answers the phone too quickly, the number may not be verified before they pick up, but should be shortly afterward.
If X conspires with some number Y which is reachable from Z, the recipient can still block calls from Y. It is not feasible for X to keep arranging for many different Y's which are all reachable from Z to be able to respond to these queries on its behalf.
This entire system allows call centres which may have direct lines to make outgoing calls and still use a main office number as the one to show on call display, and does not completely break compatibility with existing phone technology with unverified calls where the relevant exchanges have not yet upgraded to that technology.
My 2c.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Big Money Donors shape Every Law and Policy. Let us Kill the Citizens United Decision. Get billionaires out of our lives and government!!
You'd have to do this through legislation, since the telcos are never going to cannibalize that sweet, sweet robocall revenue stream, but if you implemented a small fee from the caller to the recipient - say, a nickel - this problem would dry up. Friends and families that call each other would essentially keep trading that nickel back and forth, so there'd be little to no real net cost. Same for legitimate businesses that both receive and make calls. It only becomes costly when you start calling millions of people, and a few dollars back on your phone bill each month would at least make you feel a bit better.
How did we end up with a government where no one on either side ever fixes anything?
You have a system where a large percentage of the rulers are psychopaths or sociopaths and they crave power which has to be given to them by voters and to get this they have to promise voters things that they never intend to deliver, and you expect them to get rid of things that they can dangle in front of voters, like stopping robocalls? The politically-desirable outcome is media coverage, not solutions to real problems.
It's a well-known secret that both parties have an agreement to slowly raise the minimum wage below the rate of inflation but to have a big media shit-storm every time to socially signal to "their" voters that they're being represented. The whole thing might be the biggest con in history.
I'm glad to have found a good call blocker that works on Pie; had to update my voicemail to say, "sorry, you're not on my contacts list." Government didn't solve this problem for me, nor did I ever expect that it would. Some dude called Vlad Lee did and he has a Play Store account.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
That volume of calls coming into the wireless carrier must leave a huge footprint.
Either they're getting a cut, or they're willfully ignoring it.
If a caller wants to spoof their number, charge them a dime. If there were 23B calls spoofed, that is 2.3B cost for them. Me thinks it would stop immediately. Any valid caller like your bank or whatnot can absorb the extra dime. They hopefully are not calling customers that often, or let them call with the manager's direct number instead of a spoof line.
Legislate a new law that sets a minimum bounty reward for information that leads to the arrest, conviction and castration of robo callers. The bounty is paid from the convicted robocaller's assets. So the investigation required becomes self funding as long as the minimum bounty is set by law at a high enough reward.
It will create new job opportunities for the people so inclined, and with the right skills to track down these scum.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
It's a well-known secret that both parties have an agreement to slowly raise the minimum wage below the rate of inflation but to have a big media shit-storm every time to socially signal to "their" voters that they're being represented. The whole thing might be the biggest con in history.
I dunno, the fake debate over immigration is a pretty good con job too. As are politicians pretending that they care about non-financial issues like abortion or gay marriage, to distract voters from corruption.
But there was a time when politicians had to deliver something occasionally. I guess that has faded from living memory.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
When fixing things gets you votes, then things will get fixed.
All I had to do was change how I answer the phone. When a person answers the phone, the recipient usually says something like, "Hello?" Most robocallers wait for that and interpret that as being a human on the other end of the line. At that point, it spews out its spiel like, "Your warranty is about to expire on your car. This is definitely not the last time you will hear from us. Press 1 to talk to a human who wants to scam you out of your money. Press 2 to not be removed from the list and you will get another call from us in the next 48 hours once you've had a chance to think about how much you really do want to be scammed."
However, if the person doesn't say anything, the system will wait 15-30 seconds and then automatically hang up. When it hangs up, two things happen: You never hear the scammer's automated message and...the phone number is removed from the calling list, which causes the robocaller to cease making calls. Repeat that process a half dozen times and the robocalls drop off like a rock after that. Pressing buttons or anything constituting an "action" tells the system that there's someone there. Not doing anything causes the system to think nothing is there and that its time is just being wasted. There are plenty of suckers out there, so removing the unresponsive phone number just cleans up the calling list to increase the likelihood of finding a person they can scam/con/whatever. Putting a number on the Do Not Call registry is an open invite to receive robocalls because that means those numbers most definitely want to receive automated phone calls.
That is only 110 calls per year per US resident.
Just get a 900 number. The robo callers and telemarketers get charged charged a fee every time you answer, but you can refund the fee to your friends and legitimate callers. Problem is either solved, or you just sit back and rake in the cash.
You live and learn, or you don't learn much.
He will probably point you to Snopes and tell you to piss off. And your disbarment request will generate a lot of laughs.
Just out of curiosity, what makes the US so vulnerable to this? I live outside the US and have never had an unsolicited call on my landline. My neighbours occasionally get scam Indian tech-support calls, but no robocalls either. Why is it such a big thing in the US specifically?
It's a well-known secret that both parties have an agreement to slowly raise the minimum wage below the rate of inflation but to have a big media shit-storm every time to socially signal to "their" voters that they're being represented. The whole thing might be the biggest con in history.
I've got to love the notion that government is extremely incompetent and wasteful up until the point of a conspiracy theory where they become the single most effective and efficient organisation in the world.
I tend to disbelieve conspiracy theories because I've worked in government. There is no way they'd be able to do something that devious in secret. Basically I employ Hanlon's razor, Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Claiming the government is secretly devious whilst managing to keep the traps of 600 odd scocio/psychopaths who love self aggrandising shut every and changing that 600 every 4 years is one step above saying "I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens".
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I constantly get calls from a robocaller on my phone. all attempts to block have failed, as they keep using new random numbers with the same prefix of my google voice number - which is different than the Verizon number assigned to the phone.
The calls to my work phone started 6 months ago and the number is always blocked. I rarely receive phone calls at work, so the robocalls are the most frequent use of that phone.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.