General > General Technical Chat
UPDATED: Well... looks like I've l̶o̶s̶t̶ won the battle against scam callers
5065AGuru:
I wish there was a way to charge callers say 10 cents to call me. That would cut down on spam calls!
Cheers,
Corby
mendip_discovery:
--- Quote from: Stray Electron on March 25, 2023, 02:13:16 pm --- 2) NEVER, EVER, EVER give your phone number to your doctor's office or any other business. Take my word for it, they ALL sell their data to other companies (quaintly referred to as their "business associates") and your data will spread like wildfire.
--- End quote ---
We have laws here in the UK that prevent that but sadly too many big firms leak data all the time. I don't like having to give my mobile over for 2FA as that is just another way for scammers to get my mobile.
We also have a system that makes it illegal for businesses to do unsolicited calls. You go on a register and any UK firm found to be flaunting this gets a hefty fine. Sadly some uk scan firms setup work and close before the government bodies can get a case against them. Often this is for loft insulation scams.
I guess the root of the problem is the internationally way we work these days. It's possible to buy a country based number and use it from a VOIP system in another country. The phone companies don't seem to be interested in putting in checks to prevent this abuse, but that would affect profit.
The scary ones are when I get a call from local number (10mile radius) as it maybe family on a borrowed landline. I would like to know how the scammers know where my phone is so they can target with a local number. I know this happens as I have worked away before and got a call from a local number to that area, an area in have only been in for less than 24hrs.
m k:
For local numbers,
they can have a scanner but that is not practical, even that big city tower can receive quite many numbers.
Probably their guess of your location is from wider data mining operation.
It can finally be also just a lucky guess, you're just giving it unnecessary strength.
Kasper:
Telus has 'call control', it works very well.
--- Quote from: https://www.telus.com/en/support/article/call-control-for-mobile-devices-explained ---With Call Control on, when a caller phones you for the first time, they’ll be prompted to enter a number on their keypad. If they enter it successfully, the call will go through to you and they won’t be prompted again (as long as they’re one of your 25 most recent callers).
[...]
You can add phone numbers to your Accepted list to avoid having them screened when they try to reach you.
[...]
If you don’t want to receive calls from certain numbers at all, you can put them on your Blocked list.
--- End quote ---
You can also see a list of who tried and failed to get through.
I recently got a business line. Before I did anything with it, I got lots of robo calls. Exchanged for a different number a few times to no avail before giving up.
EPAIII:
Reading this thread has given me some insight into my own present position. I am a dinosaur. I have both a cell phone and a land line. The cell phone is with Pure Talk, a discount carrier, and the land line with AT&T, bundled with my internet and TV. So I don't pay a lot for either of them or for both together.
I give out the land line to everyone who wants my phone number and that number gets dozens of scammer calls every day. If I don't recognize the caller ID, I just don't answer. Only big problem is clearing out the "missed calls" on my desk phone every day or two. I use that phone for my answering machine so I can get messages but, as someone said above, scammers do not leave messages. So that's no problem.
My cell number is only given to family and friends. I get almost no scam calls on it. And I like it that way. Since it is in the same area code as my land line, I guess that argues against the scammers just calling every number. No, I think they are buying lists.
I guess I just stumbled into this system, but it seems to work for me. Who says that land lines are no longer useful? Mine seems to be doing a great job.
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