Re: Problems with Scam calls

Posted by Chris Jones on January 25, 2015 at 11:25:19 from (65.188.217.236):

In Reply to: Problems with Scam calls posted by Robert in Md on January 24, 2015 at 18:55:50:

I've seen this discussed many times here. It surprises me that people keep thinking that the Do Not Call list will fix all their problems.

#1 Let me put this in terms 90% of the people here will understand. If they passed a law that made gun ownership illegal do you expect gun crime to go down? In essence scammers don't care that it's illegal to call you!

#2 Keep in mind laws are not perfect in the opinion everyone at the same time. This one was written so charities and political campaigns do not have to abide by the Do Not Call list--good or bad?

#3 Also keep in mind that like all laws there are what some might call loop holes and technicalities. The best one here is they can legally call you if they have a "business relationship" with you. So, what's a "business relationship"? It might be you opened a banking account at Local Bank Inc. a subsidiary of Global Investments and Life. Somewhere in pages of privacy disclosure agreements you agreed to when you opened the account, you acknowledged that everyone under the Global Investments and Life group can contact you with offers and promotions.

#4 Companies are allowed time to process you request not be called (not hours, it's days if not weeks) and they only have to check the Do Not Call list every so often.

So:

Legal minded businesses will not call you unless they can find a loop hole allowing them to--and they will look for a loophole. If requested they will stop calling you within the legal window they are required to do so.

Illegal operations will call you any time they want. They like recordings because it's voice spam. They contact 1000s of people and the machine will sort out the best time of day to reach a human at your house. Even if they can't sell you something your number is valuable. They will sell lists to other operations. X dollars for a list of numbers. Three times that for numbers that they were able to get a human to answer on. And so on. If they get VM or an Answering Machine it's someone's number. If they get a person it's an even better number.

The computer scam calls are in a league of their own. We aren't talking about Americans making these calls. They are Indian, Nigerian, or whatever and the person is most likely doing whatever work they can to get enough rice to feed their families for the day. They probably make pennies of commission if they can hook someone and make big money for their boss.

The how:

If you don't know by now it's time to learn. Caller ID doesn't mean a thing when it comes to identifying the caller. With most calls being done over the internet (VOIP) you just buy a number in the location you want it to be associated with and then from anywhere in the world make calls from that number. To make it worse there are many ways to change the number people will show on peoples caller id unit to anything they think will make you pick up the phone faster (your own number, no number, a reputable company's number, a number local to you, a number with not enough digits, a new number every time, etc.)

Why can't the government stop this:

First off I thought we were for self reliance and smaller government--why are we crying to them? As the government is law based they have to find proof beyond a reasonable doubt that this happened as you said and that no loopholes applied and track down and prove a certain person is the responsible person... Well, you can see how it's really hard to do. And if they figure out some syndicate in Nigeria is doing this? What are they supposed to do call in the Marines?

What's worked for me:

While over the last 4 years I've seen a couple hundred different numbers used by spammers most will use the same number for quite awhile.

- Get caller id.
- Get a device that blocks calls based on caller id if that functionality is not available from your phone service. Block any number that you don't want to hear from again.
- Sign up for "Anonymous Caller Rejection", such that callers with a private or unknown number are played the recording, "Your call was completed however the party you called is not accepting call from callers who do not allow delivery of their caller ID information. Please hang up and call back with your caller ID information unblocked.") This is one group of callers that you don't have to think about again.

It will not stop the problem completely but it will get better.

Lastly,

Don't think for a second that a cell phone will stop the callers. Do you really think they will say, "Oh we can't call this guy on his cell." They don't care if it's a cell or land-line. The more you use your cell number the more likely it will be picked up and put on a list.

While being careful where you post your number will help it's not an assurance you will not get calls.

Once on an illegal marketers list it's almost impossible to get off. Remember they like selling and buying list of numbers.

As for callers knowing your personal info, public records contain your number, address, age, occupation, relatives names, vehicle info, etc. (it's called public for a reason) and there is a big legal and illegal business in trading this info. Ever try to set up a bank account online? They'll ask you challenge questions (multiple choice) to establish your identity. Things like: Which of the following vehicles do you own? In which county did you live in 1994? Which of the following people is a relative of yours? With which financial institution is your mortgage currently serviced? In what city were you born? What is the color of your car? And these aren't questions you've told them the answers to before--they bought this info from a service that harvests info from public records! And you better hope they got it right or you'll never convince them you are who you say you are. :)

YOUR NOT ALONE--JOIN THE CLUB!

If your feeling freaky press whatever to speak to a guy and tell them hang on you have to get your son/father/wife/brother/whatever. Yell a name down the hall, sit the phone down, wait 15 minutes, hang the phone up, block the number.

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