Just where do you think they get our numbers from, it's all about the Benjamans.
4
Check out the You Mail app. You can block calls that seem to come from your phone or ones like it, you can also make private callers press their phone number in to leave a message. There are a lot of things this app does that I feel protects me.
It can also send you a transcript of your voicemail for a small fee, if that is something you'd like.
2
I was educated in the UK, the country of my birth, back when a college education did not require hefty loans, because it was free. (I understand this is no longer the case in the UK.)
I nonetheless get calls to my cell phone, now that I live here, warning me I am behind with my US student loans.
Such impeccable research these folks do.
I agree that it is not the obligation of the harassed person to stop the harassment. Surely this is a bipartisan issue we can all get behind.
7
The onus has always been on phone and email companies to stop spam (Yes, even "free" email. You have to look at ads.). But guess what? They never wanted to spend any time or money on it and only grudgingly spend as little as they can get away with. Since 1993, when spam first started to become a problem for people that use email frequently, the precedent has been set that the services and devices THAT YOU PAY FOR are essentially public property for marketers. It's as though they had a perfectly legal right to blaster ads on the side of your house. We can stop it, but it's going to require that everyone get out of the habit of insisting that this is only a minor annoyance and that marketers simply must have access to media the victims are paying for.
9
Unfortunately the FCC and the telecoms are chasing down the wrong rabbit hole. It's not the phone number that needs to be tracked. It is the organization behind the phone number that pays the bills for the use of the line, be it copper or internet. Once an organization gets labelled as a spammer, it would be much more difficult to switch organizations that switch to another telephone number.
11
I don't understand why this hasn't already been implemented. Most people I know don't answer their landlines and don't get one when they move. It has to be hurting the phone companies.
3
@SAO
Phone and email companies have always spent what they consider to be the absolute minimum they can get away with when responding to complaints about spam. They have been supported by a government that services the marketers and media that also wants to use advertising venues that they don't have to pay for.
4
I leave my iphone on 'do not disturb' and check periodically to see what has come in. Those on my contact list are identified, others can leave a message. The robocalls seem easy to identify and I regularly block them. So far this is working for me. I think that if I had a busier social life, this wouldn't work so well.
6
@Beansn
And why do you imagine that you're required to spend your time doing this? Do marketers have a right to use your phone to make a profit for themselves?
10
I must be an outlier in the comments from all these recent articles: for the most part, the Do Not Call list has always worked for my prepaid cellphone, which has been my landline replacement since the end of 2012. I don't answer numbers I don't recognize, and I don't bother with an address book, etc. I memorize phone numbers as I always have.
Don't give your phone number out freely; don't fill out warranty cards or enter contests that need your number. You also don't need to leave your phone on 24 hours a day.
3
@anonymous
And you gladly jump through these hoops so that marketers can use everyone's phones for free because...? It's only a matter of time. Your turn will come like it's done for the rest of us.
6
I have both my landline and my cell phone on the FTC's Do Not Call Registry. I get about 3-5 spam calls per day, and I religiously take the time to report a complaint about the calls to the DoNotCall.gov website, about 15 reports per week. Fpr what it's worth, this has kept my spam calls down to this lower level.
It's insane that I have to do this, of course, but I consider it worth the fight to free up my phone for only wanted calls, the way it used to be.
@Theo Burke
And is it worth jumping through all these hoops so that marketers get to use everyone's phone for free? This isn't an unstoppable force of nature. It's greed.
6
We have to pay for the call blocking features for most of the application, I downloaded dozen of caller ID and call blocking apps, they gonna charge you at least 20 dollars a years for the service! I recently was trying a relatively cheap one, given the fact that now I live in Europe, its called tellows and you still have to pay for the premium service but its cheaper, around 5 euro per year. I mean it working good in UK, France and Germany, I dont know how its gonna work in the US but can try
1
If I ruled the world, callers would pay for each call before it could be made. It wouldn't have to be an exorbitant fee to discourage the kind of massive call operations that steal our time and attention today.
I'm sure there's a reason this doesn't happen today. It might even be a good reason. However, I'm past caring.
6
@G
The reason is that marketers have convinced government and the media that they need free access to services that their victims pay for.
2
@G Totally agree. Communication criminals will only flinch and reconsider their ‘business’ model if they are hit in the wallet with fees for each robocall.
Instead of complex, hackable tech solutions, I can’t imagine why the FTC and phone companies haven’t implemented this relatively simple remedy. Speaking of greed, think of the revenue such a practice would generate for them!
3
The email analogy is an odd one since for me, even with spam blockers, only about 1% of the (non-work) emails I get are interesting to me in any way. The rest isn't exactly spam, it's just stuff I technically requested but only constitutes communication in the barest sense, such as a purchase receipt or update for some online service I am using. If that's the best that the FCC can hope for about phone calls, I still won't have much reason to pick up the phone.
1
Calls use up minutes and as usual, people on the cheapest plans are likely to be the ones that end up paying most in fees. That is bad enough, but it seems our loss of peace is likely the worst problem that cannot be exactly monetized. My business is dependent on phone orders and I am pulled off task, of other calls and time wasted everyday. Multiple times. We all are and patience is thin. In otherwise tense times, it begs, who really is orchestrating this? Stolen contact lists? Facebook hacked. There’s little reason why I get bogus calls from my husbands long ago hometown and labeled as from towns friends reside. It’s time the phone companies protect their customers. Oh, what’s that you say, they are? Hmmm. Could be.
3
Annoyed that certain cell phone companies advertise that they "block calls for free", yet these "blocked" numbers can still leave voice messages. The fine print? Customers have to pay extra to truly block the calls from coming through.
3
One thing missing from this article, is how do other countries deal with this? We don't seem to have the problem here in Europe to the extent that you do in the U.S. Tougher laws on telemarketers, maybe?
10
@Roger Evans
There's no problem like that in Japan either as far as I know. I can't argue that Japanese government regulators are more rigorous than in the US, but maybe the system is just newer (i.e. not the oldest in the whole world) and more centralized?
4
The idea of the phone companies are responsible for stopping robocalls has been at the heart of the consumer since the first robocall interrupted their dinner.
5
I got a new phone and carrier and suddenly, spam calls everyday. At first, I would just hang up and move on. Then, when the Marriott started calling me everyday I decided to have some fun. So, I would push the number to talk to someone and they would immediately ask, "who am I speaking to?". My favorite answer has been, "this is the state attorney general. Why the hell are you spamming me?" They hang up so fast.
But soon, that got old. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I started getting Mandarin calls everyday. Really? In Seattle? What next? Calls in Amharic, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, or Samoan?
On top of all of the spam calls our apartment building buzzer rings your phone. So, my phone goes off at 3 a.m. because someone got the wrong address.
Now, I turn my phone off all the time. I just turn it on when I want to use it. And I changed the voicemail message to be what every doctor and agency has on their phone - if this is an emergency, please hangup and dial 9-1-1. If you are thinking of harming yourself, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Y para Espanol, empuje numero dos.
12
Nomorobo works pretty well. I have it for my landline, and if the phone rings once, I know the call is bogus and it's been routed to Nomorobo's service. And if I get a bogus call on my mobile phone, I can report the number to Nomorobo via text or web--which seems to limit the number of rogue calls I get on my mobile as well. The service has seriously cut down on the amount of nuisance calls I receive overall.
11
My understanding is that whenever a call is made to your number, your phone service provider gets a minuscule payment (conversely, the calls you make cost them money, though all the real expense is in the connecting). The more calls you receive, the more profitable you are to your service provider.
As another commenter noted, do we really expect the telcos to kill this cash cow?
Now with more and more people abandoning land lines, the providers are starting to lose cash on the deal and they’re starting to get worried. The only way to keep that lovely consumer money coming is to finally do something about robocalls. And they will only do enough to maintain profitability, even if it leaves their customers irritated.
We kept our landline unplugged for years until our provider started offering NoMoRoBo. And it’s an imperfect solution.
7
@John Dumas
Clearly, the carriers make money on Robocalls somehow . Why would any carrier work to block those calls? Capitalism doesn't work that way. Make the Robocalls expensive for the carrier and they will stop immediately!
1
I've no disagreement with the robocall part of this article--we have often considered dropping our land line because most of the calls are junk.
BUT PLEASE PLEASE tell me how the claim that email is any better are true? "Remember when email spam was so bad that we thought that method of communication would become unusable?" I am there still.
For that matter, snail mail?
In all three media unsolicited junk outnumbers genuine mail two-to-one or more. And it is not just an inconvenience. Real calls, real emails and real correspondence gets tossed accidentally with junk. Hours are consumed each week.
8
Robo calls will be a problem until after we have made it unprofitable for the phone companies to support them.
To understand a problem in America don't look at who suffers from it, but look at who profits from it.
25
Fixing the robocall mess should be the #1 priority of the FCC.
It's made the telephone useless. I don't ever answer my phone anymore unless it's someone in my contact list and I can reasonably expect that they might be calling me.
To be honest, with how busy people are these days, unscheduled phone calls are too intrusive anyway. If I need to call someone, I'll text them first and ask if they are free to talk on the phone.
10
There is one thing to mention. You may request that your phone number is put into DoNotCall list thousand times. But the reality is, the agency that handles the list sells it for.... $17,000! It means robocallers have to pay this amount in order to suppress your phone from calling. Do those "genius" at the agency really think that spamers will pay even a penny for the list? Why do they sell it at all instead of making it free and obligatory to use for the robocalling companies?
5
This wouldnt be an issue if people didnt put their phone numbers on places like Facebook. People make a good living just scanning Facebook for names and numbers.
@Dracus Dragonstar - I don't even have a Facebook account and got spammed everyday by the Marriott Hotel with messages in Mandarin. I only turn my phone on if I intend to use it. Otherwise, it is always off now. I just recently changed phone carriers and that is when it started. So, I'm sure the new phone company is just giving my number away to anyone who pays them for it.
6
Consumer Reports has been leading the charge to get Congress to act. I suggest instead of spending money on apps to block this, send them the money to get rules in place to stop Robo Calls.
To be honest, I don’t understand why carriers don’t stop them. The only thing that is happening is people are calling less and we will not need voice anymore.
Soon we will just text.....wait isn’t that the modern version of the pager?
5
I don’t understand while the feds just fine these people out of business. Hilton and others readily identify themselves. Perhaps if it cost them $1000 a call might deter them.
6
I work at a university. I get several robocalls a day on my OFFICE phone from a student loan company. I earned my last university degree in 1980. I contacted our IT department, and they told me there was absolutely NOTHING they could do to block these calls. The only defense I have is self-screening. If I don't recognize the number, I don't pick up. Legit calls leave messages.
6
It is a form of fraud to cause a phone call recipient to answer a call by misrepresenting the source of the call. Doing so, or conspiring to do so, should be illegal and violators should be prosecuted. Of course some bad actors will persist, but if the calls are solicitation for identifiable businesses—which they often are—they could be stopped.
5
I don't understand how the system allows a phone number that does not exist to make calls. I get these all the time. In addition those pretending to be from the IRS and Microsoft need to be found and arrested. If they are in some foreign country perhaps the CIA could address them.
3
A similar mechanism for "authenticated" should exist for social media. It will rid the world of trolls and terrorists online.
5
The calls don't cost them anything, but talking to some one does. When I have a few free minutes, I talk to them for as long as they will listen. That does cost them something, and it amuses me to listen to them try and explain why I should do whatever. If everyone did it, their economics would change.
6
@fred Sometimes I pretend to be an FBI agent and threaten them. It worked one time very well.
5
@vulcanalex - I tell them I'm the State Attorney General and ask for their name and the name of their supervisor for the law suit. I almost had one per guy in tears one day. He had an incredibly thick accent and I asked where he was at. He told me "DaNEEa, Florida". I said, "I used to live in Broward County and its pronounced DAYnia. You're not even in the U.S., are you?" He hung up but it sure was fun getting back at these companies.
3
@fred
I love to have some fun and waste their time, and I've got several "scripts" I use. My fave is for the heavily-accented guy from "Windows." Goes like this--"Windows? You do windows? Great! My windows really could use a cleaning. Can you come sometime next week? Operating system? Double-hung and operating just fine, but they really are very dirty." Click!
2
Two or three years ago our small town telephone company told us we should cancel overseas dialing. They said spoofing calls (is that the right word?) could grab our line and use it for foreign access. They did not have the ability to prevent it. After some grumbling, because we did have a reason to make such calls ourselves, we allowed them to drop the feature.
Now, I think they were right. We get frequent calls in which there is nobody on the line if we answer.
2
Our home phone is never answered and we don’t hear it ring. Anyone who wants to reach us calls our cell. I don’t answer my cell unless a name pops up (e.g. the caller is in my contacts). If an unknown caller leaves a message I can tell right away if it is spam. I block all these robo numbers (yes I know there are algorithms so the numbers are different every time) and then delete. I am no longer frustrated by these calls.
6
Up until 4 months ago, I would never received any robocalls on my work cellphone them BAM I'm now getting 5 a day on average. One point not covered in this article is how my number suddenly became public. Somebody sold my number to these robocall companies without my prior knowledge or consent. Whoever did this should pay a heavy penalty for allowing this to happen.
14
@Sophie
No one is "selling" your number. Spammers don't care whose numbers they call, they just pick a block of numbers to call, and set their machines to dialing. They don't have people dialing the phones—that would be very inefficient—machines do the dialing, and people are only involved if someone answers, then a person at their "call center" will pick up the line. If all the workers are answering other calls, or take too long to answer, you get the 'no one on the line' or hangup situations.
There are landline phones out there for sale that ask the callers to enter a code (which you pick and can change) or say their names before the call is allowed to go through and ring. In several months with each system (one on a VOIP and the other on a landline) I've had just 2 calls get through which did not leave messages, and several calls meant for the previous owners of the VOIP line.
4
The ability of these companies to spoof caller ids is based on gaps in the way phone companies' security models. It needs to be flat out illegal to spoof a number. They use similar area codes and exchanges to trick you into answering. I've called back numbers a few times and actually had a person answer, a real person not in a boiler shop. They're actual number was spoofed. But, I suspect that like bogus web sites sell snake oil, the robocall companies are generating revenue for the carriers as well as themselves. They've probably monetized this enough to keep the carriers from complaining too much.
9
@AnObserver Or better prevented by technology.
Many of my robocalls come from the exchange that’s identical to my phone number. Why can’t the wireless phone company or cell phone manufacturer give me the option to block calls from the entire exchange?
1
@ron Those calls are not coming from your exchange. They're being spoofed. Read the article, it covers this.
4
Well, I think I just solved a mystery: Trump thinks the phone calls from the "IRS" telling him he's "under audit" are real.
36
A relatively simple fix would eliminate all robocalls. The only problem: no one, as far as I know, manufactures any such device or software.
Here’s how it would work. (On a landline, it would be an answering machine. On a cell phone, software.).
1. All incoming phone calls, if not in your contact list or a preapproved “white list,“ would receive a short recorded message along the following lines: “Hi, this is [name]. If you are a friend, relative or someone we’ve actually done business with, Press [designate any number, say “6”] to be put through.”
2. Obviously, any robocalls will be unable to press 6, and they will be shunted to voicemail, where you either could decide to listen to it, at your leisure, or just erase all of them, in bulk.
3. The “real“ people would press 6, and your phone would ring. The default would be that any such people would be automatically added to your white list, so that they wouldn’t have to go through this exercise again and would ring immediately through in the future.
4. But if some live and annoying salesperson pressed 6, you could press a button and add that business to your blacklist.
And that’s it. It’s simple. It defeats all spoofed number scams. And even if the scammers adapted their robocalls to actually press 6, they could be easily thwarted with an oral “captcha” instruction, like “Press the number that is the sum of 3 and 5.”
I’m mystified as to why no one has yet produced such a simple and effective system.
8
@Greg Schwed Patent this idea immediately!
@Greg Schwed The You Mail app does that. Private callers will have to enter their number to be put through to leave a message. They will also block numbers for you as well
2
I am old, but I am wary! So I don't worry about being scammed. What makes me furious is the interruption when the telephone rings. I have to get up out of my recliner to check my caller ID, which I do not answer if unknown. Of course I miss some important calls because they are legitimate numbers unknown to me. I have complained to my State Attorney General, and he has recognized and is attempting to deal with the problem. Recently I have been receiving calls from my OWN telephone number. How can that be?
5
OMG! Do we really think the Fox will guard the hen house? One way or another it is in the best interests of the phone companies to have more calls and more calls because every time you answer THEY make money. every time it goes to Voice mail, etc. Guess who pays the Phone companies to use their net works...you guessed it the ROBO call companies. We, the government should fine the phone companies for every call that was a robo call.
9
Set yourself up with premium rate phone number. No-one will bother you unless they really need to.
what is that?
1
Heres how you solve this problem.
Everyone who calls you pays a dollar. You, the called person, can wave the dollar fee after answering. Or you can add a number to a list of those who are never charged.
Otherwise everyone who calls you pays.
Why can't we implement that?
7
@Iceowl They don't have an actual phone to charge, or they use someone's number that is not them. So not working.
2
There are a couple of angles missed by this story. One is that telecoms went to IP-based services in the past few decades, basically routing calls over the Internet. While this was cheaper, especially for long distance calls, the telecoms lost control over the source of calls, making spoofing possible.
Second is the fact that many robocalls come from referral companies. These companies try and connect consumers with a possibly legitimate company, like vacation or health insurance. If they successfully connect a customer, they get a referral fee. Referral robocall companies have every incentive to skirt the law and spam as much as possible.
7
I use free Google Voice. I have set it up so everyone in my contact list gets put straight through. Everybody else is screened and forced to state their name before being out through. Robocallers always hang up.
9
Verizon is a joke. I called them recently in response to a robocall that I got saying that Verizon is going to shut down my service unless I clicked 1. So I hung up and called Verizon.
The Verizon customer service person told me that I can enroll in a call spam service for 2.99 per month that may or may not be effective, and by the way, there is nothing they can do. It was a frustrating phone call and interaction to say the least. They put the blame on me, on the FTC, on Apple, on everyone but their own network.
26
Until we get someone in the FCC who cares more about people than he does money for rich people, we're stuck. Ajit Pai is in the pockets of the industries he's supposed to be regulating, but his radical magical hand of the free market philosophy won't let him do anything that actually helps consumers because regulations bad, plutocracy good.
36
Although their service is not 100% effective I strongly endorse nominating the folks at NoMoRobo for a Nobel Prize. Thank you. for your efforts.
14
I solved the robocall problem years ago.
I actually use my caller ID.
If I know you, I pick up.
If I don't, you can leave a message.
10
@Larry Thiel - problem is the ringing phone still interrupts and distracts you from what you’re doing and some of them leave a message that you have to spend time erasing.
13
There is a solution to this. Get rid of unlimited, free long distance calling. Each carrier should charge a penny per call above 100 calls per month. That'll slow down the spammers, but not make a dent on us everyday telephone users.
6
@Elli B No it won't they don't have an account to charge.
2
Better idea:
1. Only let through verified calls from numbers in my contacts - my white list
2. Everyone else - please send me a text stating your business. I can reply or add you to my contacts if I want to hear from you or block you if I don't.
Businesses are now able to text with their landlines so they should have no problem reaching me. There are tools for this like Impower or Heywire (a Salesforce co) and companies can build their own on Twilio and its competitors.
3. It should be much easier for carriers to combat text based spam vs. voice spam. The message patterns are easy to detect and block. Maybe spam will reach a few hundred handsets before being flagged but that's still better than millions of calls and much less disruptive.
Yes, this doesn't solve the problem for private landlines. I realize that. But, most of us use mobile phones and prefer texting. Also, maybe carrier can make landlines textable like they did for business landlines.
2
“Most of us use mobile phones and prefer texting.”
Perhaps you and people you know do, but don't speak for the rest of us!
Any evidence that most people “prefer texting”?!
The real nuisance is getting the calls, having the phone ring. The phone companies should be required to stop the SPAM.
8
@Mark Pembroke
Actually yes. There is data about this.
Multiple surveys put the percentage of people who prefer texts between 66% to 70%.
Some other surveys say 90% but they're by companies in the space so less reliable.
Texting would solve the problem of having the phone ring which is the big nuisance, and they're easier to police than calls. I'm not saying carriers shouldn't stop spam calls. They should. However, being realistic about their abilities coupled with consumer preferences for texting, leads me to think a white list for calling (you would still get wanted calls) and a texting channel for the rest is a faster (and maybe cheaper) way to get resolution to this problem.
I hope carriers at least consider this. I truly don't want calls from anyone other than people in my contacts. It's an invasion of my time and privacy for anyone - robocallers or others- to call me without a prior relationship or a very good reason (which they should put in a text and I'll call back).
2
@Kelly And the survey said Hillary would win. I don't want a text or a call, in fact I can ignore a call easier than a text.
1
The Nomorobo app works very well. Blocks nearly all robo calls. Worth the fee.
4
In order to stop robocalls the way calls are handled in the US must fundamentally change. In order to do that we must first agree to how it will change for all US carriers.
We could even come up with international standards.
2
I am being harassed with international calls from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe and countless countries in between. Usually one ring sometimes at 4AM.Also calls from 212 followed by 9 more digits, obviously not NYC. Tried to get Verizon to block all international calls, couldn’t be done. I’ve been turning off my phone to stop this ANNOYANCE, less than a perfect solution.
6
We were getting between 20 and 40 unwanted calls a day on our land line (we never turn our cell phone on unless one of us is on the road). I had to buy the caller ID package from AT&T ($40/mo) so I could screen calls. We still get 4 -5 calls after two years of not answering the phone. We got suckered once because the caller ID said Apple Computer and I'd just bought one. Long story short, it took me a month to get my money back from the scam. Yesterday I got a call from myself! Caller ID had my name and number in the screen. Not sure what to do about that.
6
I pay $200 a month to Verizon for cell phone service. I am on the national Do Not Call List and am very selective about giving out my number. Yet I get several unsolicited calls each day — most from “spoofed” numbers that can’t be traced back to the caller. I find it hard to believe that Verizon cannot control this activity. The only logical conclusion is that Verizon does not value its customers enough to do so. This is shameful and a focused, empowered FCC would force Verizon to offer such protections. Alas, they do not.
44
@Fintan Wow, I pay $30 to Republic Wireless (for one line), for cell service and data, and I get a few calls a week.
1
At least 10 times a week I get a robo call on my land line. It is the same message in Chinese with a woman's voice. Their phone number is always different, but the message is the same.
13
Want fast action to stopping these calls? The phone companies should be made to give us a 50 cents credit on our bills for each robo call received. That will get their attention.
29
@Phil M
Make that $10 per call.
6
Last year I bought a Panasonic KX-TG885 multi-handset phone system from Costco for less than $100. If you turn on Automated Call Block, the phone won't even ring if the calling number isn't in your phonebook. Legitimate (live) callers have to input a code that you supply in a recording. Being retired and home most of the day I used to get more than 10 unwanted calls a day. Now the phone only rings for legitimate (non-automated) callers who put in the code or who are already in my phonebook.
7
no mention of the FCC? John Oliver just covered this a few episodes ago and the real culprit is the FCC, not the carrier!
17
To protect yourself from being hassled on your land-line, order a call-blocking phone. Follow the manufacturer's easy directions. You will not be sorry.
3
@Richard
Yes, that will work for a land-line. However, if you have more than one phone connected to the same line (for example, I have four phones) it will still ring on the other phones. In a case of having several phones connected to the same line you would have to install a device at the location where your phone line enters the house to effectively block unwanted calls from ringing on all phones.
3
What I'd like is an app that would only accept calls from my address book. All other calls would go straight to voicemail and the caller would need to press 1 to leave a message. Anyone know of an app like this?!
15
@misterdangerpants
I have an iPhone. I use robokiller and update regularly. Usually on Monday morning a call slips through. When I click block the contact I am safe for another week.
Don’t know why this works but it does.
I use a simple method... if the call is not from someone in my Contacts, I don't answer it.
If it's important, they'll leave a message.
31
But John, the real irritation is the phone ringing all the time!
8
@John from Brooklyn If the call goes to your answering machine the caller may very well try again. I look at the caller ID, and if it's 'unknown number" or a number I don't recognize (particularly from a different area), I pick up and immediately hang up. Seems to discourage some of them.
1
I had a Time Warner cable phone line a few years back. I was getting as many as 6 to 8 robo calls a day. ("Police may have already been dispatched to your address for lack of tax payment" was my personal favorite.) Time Warner reduced the cost to $5.00 per month for the phone and they were going to "look into it" for me. The calls didn't stop. I found an article online about how Time Warner was selling phone numbers to the companies who are making the calls. I got rid of it. If the phones companies weren't profiting from this, it would have stopped a long time ago.
52
Unlike email spam the telcos (Verizon etc) get paid to deliver each and every on of those ‘spam’ calls. This is because the underlying business model is one of the last vestiges of the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) in which the entity initiating the call gets a bill from the entity terminating that call. And the entity initiating the call in the case is a VoIP gateway provider. And if they don’t pay their bills they will be cut off and won’t be allowed on the telcos private, closed networks - which to be clear- are separate from the public internet. Given that this accounts for 50% of the calls on that network and that they are compensated for each of those calls that would account for half of the phone companies, high margin, PSTN revenue. The problem here is one of misalignment of economic incentives- not technology. I’m surprised that the author never even touched on the substantive economics at the roots of this.
39
And what are the landline companies doing to prevent this scourge? If I blocked all the robo calls with the phone company, I would be broke by now since it charges per call to clock a number.
2
The phone company can verify the source for billing purposes, why can they not trace for caller ID?
5
I've also got to wonder about the mindset of these robocall companies. Do they really think after they've called me unsuccessfully 500 times that on that 501st time I'm actually going to bite? Isn't doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting a different outcome the definition of insanity?
26
According to my caller ID, I call myself on a regular basis. It is just one out of the many spoofed calls I get. I love NoMoRobo for picking up the robo calls. When the phone rings only once, I know NoMoRobo has intercepted the call. But when a call spoofs my area code and matches my number’s first three digits, (215) XXX-, the call gets through. And it happens multiple times every single day...
3
@Mary: Yep! Yesterday I called myself 3 separate times, according to the spam calls I received.
1
One thing that would stop robocalls and scams is if people were smart enough not to fall for them. If there was no profit in making scam calls they would cease to exist. Scammers rely on the fact that there are many stupid people that think that the IRS would call to threaten them, or that a Nigerian prince is going to give you, a complete stranger money. The rest of us suffer because of the lowest common denominator, just like we do in traffic with the idiot driving 35 on a 60 mph road because they’re on the phone with the Nigerian prince.
9
@Paulie: Now you know where the president's voting base comes from.
9
@L
Nigerian Princes aren’t supposed to vote.
@Paulie Unfortunately, the positive response number needed to make a profit is miniscule. The cost of robocalls is so cheap that the small number of ignorant, stupid or greedy people who actually believe this drivel are more than enough to keep the scammers and robocallers in business.
I rarely get robocalls because if I don’t recognize the number I ignore it. I’ve noticed that many robocalls only ring three times now, my voicemail only engages after five rings. If you pick up or choose disregard on a call they know it’s a valid number and they will continue to call you.
6
@Paulie Pick up, then hang up immediately.
Thanks so much for this article. Help on this matter is LONG overdue!
I rarely get spam calls on my cell (maybe 2 or 3 a month), but had been getting 20 or more daily on my landline, sometimes from the same caller within minutes of each other! I blame (in part) my own stupidity for looking online years back for supplemental medicare insurance alternatives. Now I get tons of calls on the subject—long after the need for such information has passed.
The incessant calls threatened to drive me crazy—phone ringing every few minutes—and rendering my home phone totally useless. But I have Ooma, a VOIP provider, so I was able to make things manageable with their call blocking tools. The trick is not to block a specific number (spammers rarely use the same spoofed number twice) but to use the setting "Numbers that start with…" which lets you enter the first six numbers. So far I have blocked over 60 area-code-and-exchange combinations, most from my local area code. I have to add more every day or so, since new calls keep getting through, but the volume of calls has been reduced considerably.
Yes, it's still a pain, but better for me than some of the other strategies that still let a call ring through. I want to know that when my phone rings, it does so ONLY when a legitimate caller is on the line. With the technology described in the article, maybe that day will come. If not, phone companies will find that their customers will simply "cut the cord."
5
@Fred - I'm not sure that looking online has anything to do with it. Our landline as well as the landlines and cell phones of others we know have been inundated lately with calls for "medical braces". I don't even know what those are (thankfully, I'm sure), let alone looked for them.
4
@Annie - Well, it probably does when I filled out an online request form and put in my home telephone number. (Yeah, I know…) But, yes, I've also gotten calls for things like back braces and computer services that I've never requested.
1
@Fred: Some scammers are just dialing numerically, dialing every single phone number in sequence, so you'll get calls even if you have never put your info out there at all.
4
At best a half solution until Stirred/Shaken automatically blocks calls or my VoIP and cell phones can understand which calls are not verified and block them, they still interrupt me and grab focus at work, when I am driving, and at home I have to stop what I am doing to walk over to a phone and look for the check mark.
And then there's the problem of the doctor calling with caller ID blocked.
2
The biggest problem with robocalls is that people let technology rule them instead of the other way around. If my phone rings and I am doing something I don’t look at it until it is convenient. If it is a number I don’t recognize and there is no voicemail I ignore it. The family communicates through texting, which I look at when it occurs, so emergencies are covered. I control it. I have not listened to a live robocall for as long as I can remember.
19
@C. Neville I do the same thing. I don't need to answer every call at the moment it is made. That's why voicemail was invented. If they don't leave a voicemail or I don't recognize the number I ignore it. I haven't missed anything yet!
6
@C. Neville - Texting? Not everyone texts and you could well receive an emergency call from someone who doesn't or who isn't able to at that moment. While I agree with you about not letting technology rule you, I'm not sure you've hit on as practical a solution as you believe you have.
2
@C. Neville: I mostly ignore phone calls (except when I *am* expecting a call from someone).
As to texting, first of all my cell phone is off almost all the time, and then if there are people who ONLY communicate via text, that's THEIR problem. I refuse to be forced into texting just because it's someone else's preference; I value the mobility of my neck & shoulders pretty highly, and I see every day what texting does to people's posture!
3
You can't effectively block individual spam calling numbers because most of them are spoofed. The carriers make some attempts to filter this stuff out but multiple calls every day still get through to my phone.
Since I currently have an iPhone I keep the do not disturb feature turned on at all times and only people in my contact list can make my phone ring. I might miss a few calls but they can leave a voicemail if they are legit and I call them back. Not a perfect solution but one that keeps me from smashing my phone with a rock.
23
Perhaps if there was a cost for each call, that even the spoofers couldn't avoid then these would stop. It's always about cost. Not sure if a small tax or a small per call fee would be the way to go but there has to be a way for the telecom companies to control the use of their networks. They have no trouble charging their legitimate customers. And a penny or a nickel a call wouldn't harm legitimate phone users. Few people actually use their phones for taking anyway.
1
@Froat: Number one, spammers only pay a fraction of a penny per call they make.
Number two, I and tons of other people DO use our phones for talking!
2
I have found a solution to solve the problem for me.
If someone asked for my number then they must give me their number that they will be calling me from as I wish to communicate with them. I then enter it into my contacts.
I further inform them that if they do not use that number I will not answer.
When their name comes up I answer or not, my decision, but I know the number is legitimate.
If I am expecting say a repair man who will call first and when he calls the service co, name comes up and I answer.
If I have not given you my number I surely do not want your call.
Also T-Mobile has been able to mark 99% of these calls to my phone as SPAM which appears when my phone rings. I am sure AT&T and Verizon have the same ability.
The mobile phone Co.'s do not want these Spam calls as it clogs their cell networks.
1
This is a problem in need of a regulatory solution, and that's a problem itself. With so much lobbying clout on Capitol Hill, the phone companies are (possibly literally) paying Congress to do nothing at a national level. After all, we still have, as Will Rogers said, the best Congress money can buy.
Still, it's a progressive era, and House members may be more eager to stand up to the telcos and demand solutions that benefit constituents. So write to your representatives. They won't do anything if their voters don't make it clear that the robocall tsunami is a matter of genuine concern.
4
This all seems to be about mobile phones - i rarely get spam calls on my mobile - i get them all day every day on my landline - is anyone addressing that?
1
The only hope is place the onus on the phone companies. I get robocalls on my mobile despite being on the do not call list, installing Nomorobo and after activating do not disturb on my iPhone except for numbers in my contact list. I also specifically block those robocalls calls that do make it through all to no avail. The phone companies have the technology to stop this. Also, the US desperately needs a privacy law that minimally contains all the provisions of the EU's GDPR.
3
@Mike Yep. They should jail the CEOs of companies that allow spoofing and faking phone numbers on their systems. If they didn't allow that, then the robocallers would quickly go out of business. No doubt they'd try new things. But the phone companies control their systems. Give 'em six months to implement a solution and then start jailing them.
If someone blocks their caller ID, I am not obligated to pick up. And what do you have to hide that you block your number from people you are intentionally calling? Disable your block when you call someone you know.
No sympathy. And the people who run robocall systems? Jail them on the spot. Deny politicians the right to robocall and this problem would go away. You want my attention? Advertise in legitimate media.
3
Okay. The phone companies make some money on each call dialed. There are billions of robo-calls. So, the phone companies are making money on billions of calls. And we expect them to stop this cash cow? Wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn?
2
I never give my real number to any entity that doesn't really need it; my bank and credit card companies have it, everyone else gets an old number. Nevertheless, so many garbage calls! Social Security telling me my account is being closed permanently (lol!), the IRS suing me for unpaid taxes, Microsoft letting me know my computer has been hacked (sigh) and chinese chinese chinese.
What ever happened to the good old days of "Is your refrigerator running?"
I can and do block numbers through my phone (Verizon/Samsung) but, unhelpfully, the phone still alerts me that a call came through and then again that they left a message. Nothing is done on the carrier's end to control this.
4
"the onus should be on the phone companies' Thank you, my feelings exactly and I use to work for a phone company...
6
I think the height of weirdness is when I get a call on my land line from my landline. The display on my phone says "call from home" with my number listed.
23
One solution might be to equip phones with a Captcha feature. To do this, the phone is set up so that it will not emit a ringing sound until the captcha is verified. In the process, a voice comes on and asks the caller to dial a certain number (or numbers). For example, "please press the button that corresponds to 3+2"). In this case the phone would start ringing if the caller dialed a 5.
7
@Jones
Because that works so well on the internet. Everybody loves captchas, what could possibly go wrong with that.
6
I am at the point, as I am sure many are, where I don't want to even answer my phone if it's a strange number. But since the robots tend to leave such long messages, sometimes it's actually easier to answer.
I am not sure what annoys me more: the spam calls trying to bilk me, or the calls in Yiddish trying to get me to give to Hasidic charities.
1
@Simon DelMonte: I get a lot of robocalls in Chinese. Haven't a clue what they're saying, but they always sound kind of frantic. I just keep blocking them ....
4
There is a cheap and easy solution if manufacturers of phone sets would step up. If you modify the greeting on your land
line to ask that the caller enter a 3 number sequence to "ring through" this will stop robocallers. Or force them to use voice recognition and AI to counter this; which will be expensive for them.
Play this message after the first ring. This will result in "call completion" for the robocaller; which typically ring 3 times, just before the average message machine picks up the call.
As it stand now robocalls are free for the perpetrator, but if every call now results in a charge the economics will force them out of business.
I was able to do this with a $35 computer (Rapsberry PI) and some free software on my internet based phone line (VoIP).
24
I use a service called nomorobo. It works very well. Robocalls will ring through once and then are diverted on my landline. On my cell, calls are marked scam likely, so I can decide whether or not to answer. It recognizes spoofed numbers as well as robocall numbers.
1
@Amy Khoudari Ooma ostensibly utilizes nomorobo for their premium service, but it did not screen calls to my Ooma device with any regularity. Ooma blames nomorobo for not having up-to-date databases. I bought an AT&T home phone system that does effectively screen calls.
@Geoff (3) - I use Ooma too and finally have set it so that if you are not in my phone directory you go straight to voicemail. The Nomorobo and the other options that Ooma offers just weren't enough.
I'd hazard a guess that the phone companies make money off of all these calls via the interconnect fee, small as it may be. Over time, and given the volume of these calls, those fees add up.
20
Here's the system I would like to exist:
If I get a call from a phone number that isn't on a pre-approved list I've created (e.g. my contacts), then I can either accept or reject the call within the first 30 seconds. If I reject the call, the phone company charges the caller $0.10. The phone company can even keep the money - the point is to make indiscriminate robocalls unprofitable.
This system would benefit both ordinary consumers and the phone companies.
18
My landline phone company offers this (minus charging the caller!). We use Sky. If someone is on our list of approved callers (just immediate family), the call comes through and our phone rings. If the caller is not on the list, they get a recording that asks them to state their name. Once they state their name, the phone rings and announces the name/company of the caller. We can then choose to answer. If we don’t answer, the caller doesn’t know and they go through to voicemail. If the caller doesn’t state a name/company, the phone never rings and we are completely unaware. We’ve not had a single spam or bot call since we activated this system, which requires no additional hardware of software. It’s excellent.
7
@Robert Stadler AT&T phones with CallerID Announce do this if your carrier doesn't provide the service. I have it and it work quite well.
I received a call that originated from the large city nearest the town in which my Mom lives. Lots of family and business contacts there for whom I don't have a phone number, so I picked up. STERN, NASTY robot voice admonished me: DO NOT HANG UP and proceeded to "follow up" on my inquiry about knee and back braces. I have not inquired about these, nor has my mom....but I use my phone number for my mom's prescriptions. I think that these lowlifes called me in attempt to target my 86 year old mom and encourage her to buy something she didn't need or frighten her about benefits.
22
@Ellen. Probably a local sales person--and you can be certain the FTC and the rest of the useless bureaucrats would do zip if they were provided a video of the guy making the call.
3
@Ellen: And the first thing to do is hang up on a call like this!
I sometimes wonder if pharmacy workers are making money selling our phone numbers to scammers.
4
Very good article that makes the technology detail consumable. I have one minor comment: Like so many other articles on this topic, you mention the Do Not Call Registry. Please refrain from doing so in future articles. Such a mention only gives unrealistic hope to phone users and will result in lots of wasted time checking and trying. The Do Not Call Registry is completely useless. I entered my phone on the Registry in 2004, confirm each year that it's current, and get 20 spam/robocalls per day. Actually, I guess eliminating the budget for the Registry would be one federal budget cut proposal that I would support.
6
Excellent article Mr. Chen!
You are eligible for a government program that allows the credit card debt of excellent writers to be forgiven.
7
I have been systematically blocking robocall numbers......they are endless. But now I am concerned that some of these blocked numbers may have been spoofed, and may legitimately belong to a person/entity that in fact is legitimate, and at some point may unsuccessfully try to contact me.
1
@Harriet Kronman
If you do not know the person or the number, do you really want to hear from them anyway?
One of the issues with the Do Not Call list is that entities that you have a relationship with are not blocked... so if you donate to a charity, they have carte blanche to repeatedly call you, almost always at dinner.
@John: True that they have carte blanche, but I tell the legit entities that I do NOT want any further phone calls from them or I will stop supporting them at all.
I also tell them that I will not donate nor commit to anything over the phone; they can send me their solicitation via snail mail.
Do phone companies make money on robocalls?
1
@Eckart: What do you think? Do fish have gills? Is Trump a nice man? Does Putin want the best for the USA?
3
Fedex, USP, DHL, USPS, successfully and accurately track billions of packages a year. Packages are tracked from the time/place of origin to your front door and all stops in between. And I’m to believe that my phone provider can’t do the same?!?!
I’m so sick and tired of these disruptive, annoying telescams!!!
And by the way......my phone provider wants to charge me for “unpublishing” my mobil number. Where are our regulators when we need them?
111
@Hugh
If you haven't noticed, the regulators are being defunded by a certain political party that seems to feel that any regulation on the ability of anyone to try and part you from your money and time is evil.
58
@Hugh Fedex happens to be one the firms that use spoofing. I had a delivery issue and the call back came from a local number.
5
@Hugh: I got a legitimate delivery of an overseas package a few months back via DHL, and ever since then I've been getting spam calls in CHINESE that begin with someone saying "DHL" and then the rest of the message is entirely in Chinese, so I don't even have a clue what they're about.
8
I suggest a solution: charge anyone to initiate a phone call, even if the recipient doesn't answer. (Maybe charge double if they don't answer.) Also round up the first minute to start charging immediately. My phone plan includes hundreds of minutes, so I won't ever be affected, but if robocallers make millions of calls, it's going to get expensive.
2
Phone companies make money selling robo callers services then sell phone users services to block robo callers. This is an example of what is wrong with capitalism today.
4
This problem sounds like a good opportunity for a phone service provider to win customers. I use Ooma now, but if another VOIP service solves the spam problem I would switch to them. It’s just as GMail stopped most spam for me, without being told they have to do it or how to do it.
Given the futility of blocking apps and the wasted effort of after-the-fact blocking of robocalls I no longer allow my phone to notify me when I am called. Everything is either `do not disturb' or on `vibrate.' I periodically check the voicemails.
This is, of course, problematic because I may not be alerted to a family emergency.
But, de facto, my phone is now only for `outgoing' calls.
6
@Dan
That's pretty much what I do. I have my phone in Airline mode most of the time. I take it out when I need to make a call or when I am actually expecting a call (and I would know the number that I'm expecting to call me). On those occasions that I take the phone out of Airline mode, I also discard all messages and voicemails without reading or listening to them.
My message to callers says that it's unlikely that I will even see their message for a month, and that they should call my landline. But I don't say what the landline number is, because the people that legitimately need to contact me have that information already. For some reason, we hardly ever get spam calls on our landline phone (that phone is, of course, on the "do not call" list).
My greatest use for the phone is for non-phone, non-internet things. I put a playlist into it when I'm going somewhere and play it while driving (better than radio since I've selected the playlist; works in Airline mode). It tells me when to take my pills. Take pictures to download to the computer. Look up a Chinese character (the app for that, "Pleco", doesn't need to access the internet so it works in Airline mode).
2
I think we are all over-thinking this problem. The root of the problem is no-cost access to the phone and internet lines. If we charged $0.001 per call or per email, spam would grind to a halt nearly instantly. In exchange, my monthly bills would increase by $0.50 or less. For really prolific writers/callers, the cost might increase by $1.00 (for 1,000 messages sent).
14
Here’s what I don’t understand. If I were to install spoofing software on my computer and then start making hundreds of calls to phones all across the country every day, my local carrier would notice pretty quickly. They would have to start sending my phone bills in a box, for one thing.
I have to think that the phone companies just don’t care about this problem because they benefit from the call volume and the chance to sell the rest of us caller id options. They have the technology to block the scammers, but won’t (unless the scammers are late paying their phone bills).
2
@P. H. I understand your comment, but you are making the assumption that these spammers 1) have a phone bill to pay and 2) live in the US where the calls you're concerned about are targeted. It is likely safer to assume these callers are not using traditional phone lines with traditional phone bills, but rather they're using VOIP lines through an internet service and that they're doing so outside of the US. Also, phone companies aren't getting paid on a per call/per transaction model these days, so call volume is not something phone companies strive for.
11
@Nick, thanks for the comment. I hadn’t realized these were VOIP operations. I still have to think the technology exists to trap these calls at some point when they enter the phone systems if the carriers really wanted to do it. It can’t be good for business if people just stop trusting their phones, as more of us seem to be doing now.
1
"Businesses benefited from the practice" because "there were legitimate purposes" Nowadays the practice is mostly illegitimate, so why is it still allowed?
The onus is on us regular people to do unpaid work for the legitimate businesses. The privacy of customer service reps seems ridiculous, because you have no privacy at work.
Incoming calls to the real numbers of the reps could easily be forwarded to call screeners. Businesses would have to hire more screeners or reps. Unlike us, they would get paid.
6
So robocallers (or cold callers) are businesses that sell information to other corporate entities. How about going after them?
8
@Dave Crocket
A lot of them are scammers who are just out to get you to send them some bitcoins. They are in foreign countries (Russia, for example). How do you plan to go after them?
1
I get 20 to 30 calls a day that are spam. If the number isn't in my phone list I don't answer. That being said I received a call from 000-000-0000 last week. I have started to block all numbers that I don't answer when they do not leave a message or the message is obviously spam. Even though I have blocked the number, and my phone says the call was blocked some are able to leave voice mails, go figure. It seems to me that the phone companies to find an answer to this problem and fast.
21
@archie
If I remember correctly, a Skype phone call would appear to come from 000-000-0000. Not sure if it does this now, but I remember it when several friends gave up landlines and switched to Skype long ago.
@archie I agree with your blocking policy. It would seem to avoid detection as an active phone while making reasonably sure you don't block a number that's not on your contact list.
I never answer my phone anymore.
76
@Bill I don't either. If it is important, they can leave a message. They never do.
5
Good read. I would love to learn more about what is driving robocallers to persist. If everyone seemingly hates them, who are the people that are making it worth their while? Who is picking up the phone and falling for the scam and sending money or giving out their SSN? How much money do they make or how much confidential info do they get? If everyone stopped answering would the calls dry up?
20
@Jen Boschen We’re talking billions of phone calls at very little expense to the scammers. If you get just .005% of those who respond...you’re in the $$$$
4
Ah! But none of these work against a hard wire. We won't even talk about rotary service. What about us?
6
My simple solution is to use the do not disturb function on my phone. It can be set up to only allow ringing through to those in my address book. All others the ringer is silent. When these spammers call, they almost never leave a message. Legitimate callers usually do, and if they don't, well their loss.
13
The calls come from India (for example) tagged with a North American area code ... how hard can it be to spot them?
12
The government, not mentioned in this piece, is a big part of the answer. Not only through enforcement, but with the NSA technology that allows them to listen in and trace virtually any call anywhere.
6
@David
You can't tell what country they originated in if they are placed using VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol).
2
People tend to think the numbers calling are always out of area and therefore very obvious that they are robocalls. Almost every scam call I get uses local numbers. My child's teachers phone number called me with someone trying to scam me. My car mechanic and doctor's office also have done the same. MY OWN PHONE NUMBER CALLED ME! I can't block local numbers because I may need to actually answer them someday and frankly I shouldn't have to block them. Call your carriers and demand they protect your number. You shouldn't have to pay for the protection or download an app. The companies can and should protect you - they just don't want to because that might cost them money.
92
@M This is very scary. The robocallers somehow have access to your contacts on your phone. They have to be getting them right out of your own directory. Maybe some data broker has access to your phone bill and sells the numbers along with yours. They are likely spoofing your number to harass the people on your list. My question is, how the heck can anybody do that?
2
@Susan
How many apps on your mobile phone have access to your contacts? How many actually need that access because they send messages? Any one of them could be selling the information.
3
@Susan: Not necessarily true that robocallers have access to "your contacts on your phone".
I have a landline, and I don't have ANY "contacts" stored anywhere at all - yet I still get plenty of robocalls.
2
After too many sprints to the cell phone only to find I have won a million dollars, a free resort vacation or someone wants to buy my house, I changed my outgoing message to "if I don't recognize the number, I don't answer". It took a while to break the urge of wondering who was calling, but rarely is a message left. But one still has to program "do not disturb" times for the dentist calling at 6am to schedule an appointment. She is always EST and I am sometimes on PST. I also caution you not to rely on caller ID. "Verizon" called wanting information. I hung up, called them back only to find someone had spoofed their number and real Verizon did not need any information.
5
@Vickie. Robocalls don't listen to your message.
8
Here's an example of how negligent the phone companies are on the problem.
On a couple of occasions there have been phone numbers I don't recognize on my cell phone's log. When I press callback, I get a phone company message that the number is out of service. How did the callers get out-of-service numbers? Are they paying for them? Why can't the phone companies block those numbers, since obviously they can detect them and give me an error message?
47
@Charlesbalpha "When I press callback" - don't do that! It confirms to them that you are a real number, and might re-route you to one of those pay-per-minute lines and you will get an enormous charge for making the call. Ask me how I know.
47
@Charlesbalpha
How did the callers "get out-of-service numbers"?
They made them up. They aren't really calling "from a number", they are using VOIP to make it look like they are. And they aren't paying for them either since they aren't really using them, they are using the internet. And the phone company can't block them since they aren't being placed from those numbers, they are being faked by the internet.
15
@Charlesbalpha There are "spoofing" the numbers, using any number they want to - does not have to even actually exist, can be fake, or another owners.
8
That’s great. Thank you for the ray of light. Will this apply also to land lines?
7
@Lainey from my understanding, legacy solutions (landlines) will not be able to process the necessary data for STIR/SHAKEN :(