UPDATED: Well... looks like I've l̶o̶s̶t̶ won the battle against scam callers

[TimFox]

Some of my useless phone calls are from humans, but rarely from the area code that appears on CallerID.

[gnuarm]

Oh yes only humans, who do you get then, chatgtp ?

I've already described the voice recognition bots I typically get.  But here it is again.  The bot greets me politely and asks how I am.  If I say "hello" again, they typically ask if I can hear them.  Anything else and the bot moves on to the self-introduction and purpose.  It verifies my age usually (lots of calls are medical or insurance related), name and city, state.  Then it asks me to stand by while it transfers me to an agent who will verify my information.

That is now a person, in a boiler room, with lots of other voices in the background.  They ask the same questions.  When they are ready to transfer me, they ask me to listed to a reading of an agreement that gives them permission to call me in the future regardless of being on a do-not-call list.  I explain I am on a do-not-call list.  That's when they hang up.

[gnuarm]

Some of my useless phone calls are from humans, but rarely from the area code that appears on CallerID.

The caller id phone numbers are typically spoofed.  They are calling from Indian boiler rooms and can make any number appear that they wish.  I have found they try to look like a local call, with the same area code and often the same or other local exchange. 

This is why blocking phone numbers is pointless.

[NiHaoMike]

Some of my useless phone calls are from humans...

Then you can use the trick of blasting unpleasant noises at them. The smoke alarm idea I mentioned earlier is an easy way. Probably the best, if you have a rooted phone, is to send a bit sequence that decodes into the loudest noise possible.

[Halcyon]

Well I've trialed it for the past week or so. All calls go straight to voicemail. No notifications (unless they actually leave a message). It's been such a peaceful week.
My announcement is along the lines of "All calls to this number are screened for privacy. Please leave a message with a return phone number, or use an alternate contact method."
Scammers/bots just hang up at that point. Never have I had a scammer leave me a voice message (mainly because they don't have a direct in-dial number to call them back on). The carriers here (particularly Telstra) are pretty good at filtering spam SMS, I can't remember the last time I received one of those.

My friends and family just call me via Signal so I still get all the truly important calls. Government agencies and other services (gas, electricity, phone etc...) just email me anyway, so I'm not missing out there.

So far, it's a winner. My ideal option would be to simply divert all numbers other than the ones in my contacts list to voicemail, but the built-in Android phone application is yet to include that function.

I think I might keep it this way for the next month or so and re-evaluate then. So far, so good.

[themadhippy]

hows about making the defualt ring tone silent ,not the phone set to silent but a custom audio file of silence, and allocate an actual  ring tone to your contacts

[Halcyon]

hows about making the defualt ring tone silent ,not the phone set to silent but a custom audio file of silence, and allocate an actual  ring tone to your contacts

Because the phone still vibrates/lights up and is still a distraction. Or, if I don't pick up, I then have to go through the list of calls I've missed. I have better things to do with my time than play "guess who called me".

At the end of the day, those who are close to me know how to reach me via alternate means, SMS still works as normal (if you aren't a spammer), all my various suppliers I deal with usually leave a message and/or contact me via email.

I've resigned to the fact that old school, unencrypted, unverified (in terms of origin) voice calls are dead. They may as well go in the same pile as the analog telephone system.

[EPAIII]

It is my observation that computers are actually making the calls and providing the initial message that announces what they are selling.

Only when an answer (human or your answering machine recorded announcement) is detected, does that recorded message stop and, after a delay, does a human comes on the line.

What this means is it is easy for them to call every number in every exchange. No human time is involved in doing that.

I am still trying to figure out what those computers do with each of the ways those calls end. Do they make call later lists? Or don't call again lists? Or LIVE ONE, call, call, CALL until hell freezes over lists? I don't know.

I do know that if I had a penny for every call I have received about Medicare Advantage Plans, I would be a billionaire!

[gnuarm]

It is my observation that computers are actually making the calls and providing the initial message that announces what they are selling.

Only when an answer (human or your answering machine recorded announcement) is detected, does that recorded message stop and, after a delay, does a human comes on the line.

The calls I get are from a bot, which interacts with me some, asking for age, name, etc. which then transfers me to a human, who asks the same questions.

The odd part is, they often just hang up on me, for no apparent reason.  Odd.  My goal, is to reach the guy who makes real money and waste his time.  But that person may not exist.  The purpose of the call might be to simply verify a real person exists at this number.  Many of the calls want me to authorize them to call me back, in spite off being on any do-not-call lists.  Not doing that.  It probably opens me up to many, many more calls that are legal at that point.

What this means is it is easy for them to call every number in every exchange. No human time is involved in doing that.

Bingo!  Just machine time which is nearly free.

I am still trying to figure out what those computers do with each of the ways those calls end. Do they make call later lists? Or don't call again lists? Or LIVE ONE, call, call, CALL until hell freezes over lists? I don't know.

I do know that if I had a penny for every call I have received about Medicare Advantage Plans, I would be a billionaire!

I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a don't call again list.  When i  don't have time to fool with them, I answer and immediately hang up.  My brother says that means they call back, but how is that really different from an answering machine to them?  A friend has his machine set with no outgoing message.  They seem to pick up on a human voice, but like I've said, you need to provide at least passable answers to their questions, or the bot hangs up on you.

[ataradov]

There must be some law/enforcement kicked in, I have not gotten a single spam call since Jun 1st. Or me ignoring them all finally worked.

[VK3DRB]

I got rid of most of the Indian scammers by getting rid of my landline number. Now, only rarely do they call me on my mobile, and when they do I stir them if I have time for some entertainment.

On one occasion, the scammer wanted to speak to my wife. I told him he can't because I murdered her ten years ago, after I caught her on the phone trying to scam money from my aunt, and I only got out of prison recently. After that the number of calls noticeable decreased.

The Microsoft help desk is a good one. Tell them "I am using the very latest version genuine, and I mean GENUINE, copy of Microsoft DOS. Now, what do you want me to do?" The imbeciles get totally confused because don't know what DOS is, but still try to help you find the start button.

Once I preached the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to the scammer and he came clean with a full confession, admitting he was a scammer and a thief and will go and read the this book called the Bible he heard about.

As for spoofed calls, I get them occasionally. I think the laws around the world have to come heavy on scammers. And I mean heavy, like life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, with 10 hours per day installing Windows 95 diskette version on an old PC continuously in return for food .

[Dundarave]

I subscribe to a free TELUS phone landline service (in Canada) called “Call Control”, which forces any calls that are not in your “permit” list to have to push a random number between 1 and 9 before it will allow the call to ring the phone.  The system advises callers that they first have to press a certain digit in order for the call to go through.  Since most crap calls use auto-diallers and only connect when they hear a voice that is saying “hello?… hello?…” they never hear the instructions, or the selected digit they have to press, and have no clue what to do, so they just hang up.  My phone never even rings. It’s an excellent solution, and works great.

It has permanently cut our crap calls to zero.  And it’s free, and easily managed via the TELUS consumer app. 

[Halcyon]

I'm honestly at the stage where I don't care if I'm completely unreachable via phone.

    X2.  This is where I'm at too.  My family and friend's know how to find me.  Everyone else can FO. It's not worth being interrupted 10 to 20 times PER DAY to get one legitimate call.

    Thanks to the telemarketers, pollsters, political calls, charity hoaxs and other SCAMMERS and the inaction of the phone companies, the days of the "Telephone" as a useful tool are over with IMO.   In my younger years I didn't have a phone and I'm ready to go back to not having one.

I've had my phone diverted to voicemail 99% of the time. I undiverted it for 4 hours today (as I was expecting another call), only to have a recruiter call me out of the blue.

Over the last few months, it's been peaceful. No interruptions. No one has contacted me to say "I can't call you", which means no one important has tried to call me.

I'm keeping it like this. As far as I'm concerned, "analog" calls to my phone number are obsolete. Telcos need to step up and start treating phone numbers like any other method of communication. The owner of the number should be able to blacklist/whitelist numbers as they see fit at the network level (not via some app on their phone).

[gnuarm]

I'm honestly at the stage where I don't care if I'm completely unreachable via phone.

    X2.  This is where I'm at too.  My family and friend's know how to find me.  Everyone else can FO. It's not worth being interrupted 10 to 20 times PER DAY to get one legitimate call.

    Thanks to the telemarketers, pollsters, political calls, charity hoaxs and other SCAMMERS and the inaction of the phone companies, the days of the "Telephone" as a useful tool are over with IMO.   In my younger years I didn't have a phone and I'm ready to go back to not having one.

I've had my phone diverted to voicemail 99% of the time. I undiverted it for 4 hours today (as I was expecting another call), only to have a recruiter call me out of the blue.

Over the last few months, it's been peaceful. No interruptions. No one has contacted me to say "I can't call you", which means no one important has tried to call me.

I'm keeping it like this. As far as I'm concerned, "analog" calls to my phone number are obsolete. Telcos need to step up and start treating phone numbers like any other method of communication. The owner of the number should be able to blacklist/whitelist numbers as they see fit at the network level (not via some app on their phone).

Blacklist/whitelist does little.  If you don't mind preventing all calls from new numbers, then a whitelist will let you limit calls to people you know. 

One thing that will work is a screening app that requires a user to press buttons.  But spammers can get around that by using voice recognition software.  They already do that now.  It's very, very seldom when I answer the phone that I'm talking to a human.  It's virtually always a bot that asks me some questions to make sure I'm not a recording.  Only then do I get a human. 

I know people who literally never answer their phones because of the huge number of spam calls.  Even people with land lines.  It also destroys the utility of voice mail.  I gave up using mine.  I probably have nearly a thousand voice mail since I quit scanning and deleting them.

[tom66]

I think a simple way to stop spam callers would be every VOIP call that lasts under 1 minute costs ~$0.50 to place.  This could be enforced by telecoms companies charging VOIP firms this amount.  Dunno if I'm a hopeless optimist but I can recognise spam calls very quickly.  Would also handle irrelevant telemarketing nicely.

[Bud]

Same idea was proposed by Microsoft on email spam, of course Microsoft would own the email servers 
There was huge outcry from the Public and the proposal was scrapped. That was somewhere around end of 1990's

[gnuarm]

I think a simple way to stop spam callers would be every VOIP call that lasts under 1 minute costs ~$0.50 to place.  This could be enforced by telecoms companies charging VOIP firms this amount.  Dunno if I'm a hopeless optimist but I can recognise spam calls very quickly.  Would also handle irrelevant telemarketing nicely.

It doesn't even require $0.50 per call.  $0.001 per call would bankrupt the spammers.  The vast majority of calls reach voicemail.  Those that reach a person are typically hung up as soon as the person hears the bot.  I expect the successful completion of connecting two humans on a spam call is around 1 in 1,000.  I have no idea what their success rate is of getting any money from people, but I don't think that's so important.

The problem is, such tariffs are international.  I don't know how the agreements are made, but I doubt such fees could be pushed back to the callers.  They are working through fly by night companies who connect their VOIP to the phone infrastructure.  They just fold up periodically and start anew. 

[tom66]

I think a simple way to stop spam callers would be every VOIP call that lasts under 1 minute costs ~$0.50 to place.  This could be enforced by telecoms companies charging VOIP firms this amount.  Dunno if I'm a hopeless optimist but I can recognise spam calls very quickly.  Would also handle irrelevant telemarketing nicely.

It doesn't even require $0.50 per call.  $0.001 per call would bankrupt the spammers.  The vast majority of calls reach voicemail.  Those that reach a person are typically hung up as soon as the person hears the bot.  I expect the successful completion of connecting two humans on a spam call is around 1 in 1,000.  I have no idea what their success rate is of getting any money from people, but I don't think that's so important.

The problem is, such tariffs are international.  I don't know how the agreements are made, but I doubt such fees could be pushed back to the callers.  They are working through fly by night companies who connect their VOIP to the phone infrastructure.  They just fold up periodically and start anew.

It does need to be non-negligible, because the telemarketers / scammers in India are getting $1 per hour or thereabouts (average wage is $200 per month). So if you make the short calls they have to handle - the ones they get quite often - they are suddenly paying $10-20 an hour for these calls. Makes the whole thing impractical.

As for how the costs get passed on, the telecom company in the US charges the VoIP firm. No payment, no call.  The fee will eventually get pushed back down the chain, or the calls get blocked, either way it's a win.

[Gyro]

I've had a persistent recorded message spam caller for a while, although the frequency seems to be finally decreasing. I just let it go to voicemail and then block each new number. The irritating thing is that the recorded message is in Chinese. If you must spam me, ffs have the brains to check the country code and do it in a language that I can understand! 

[gnuarm]

I think a simple way to stop spam callers would be every VOIP call that lasts under 1 minute costs ~$0.50 to place.  This could be enforced by telecoms companies charging VOIP firms this amount.  Dunno if I'm a hopeless optimist but I can recognise spam calls very quickly.  Would also handle irrelevant telemarketing nicely.

It doesn't even require $0.50 per call.  $0.001 per call would bankrupt the spammers.  The vast majority of calls reach voicemail.  Those that reach a person are typically hung up as soon as the person hears the bot.  I expect the successful completion of connecting two humans on a spam call is around 1 in 1,000.  I have no idea what their success rate is of getting any money from people, but I don't think that's so important.

The problem is, such tariffs are international.  I don't know how the agreements are made, but I doubt such fees could be pushed back to the callers.  They are working through fly by night companies who connect their VOIP to the phone infrastructure.  They just fold up periodically and start anew.

It does need to be non-negligible, because the telemarketers / scammers in India are getting $1 per hour or thereabouts (average wage is $200 per month). So if you make the short calls they have to handle - the ones they get quite often - they are suddenly paying $10-20 an hour for these calls. Makes the whole thing impractical.

As for how the costs get passed on, the telecom company in the US charges the VoIP firm. No payment, no call.  The fee will eventually get pushed back down the chain, or the calls get blocked, either way it's a win.

It doesn't work that way.  Just like boiler rooms can spring up overnight, these VOIP routing companies spring up overnight and operate until they have to pay a bill or two.  The payments are not made in real time.

[gnuarm]

I've had a persistent recorded message spam caller for a while, although the frequency seems to be finally decreasing. I just let it go to voicemail and then block each new number. The irritating thing is that the recorded message is in Chinese. If you must spam me, ffs have the brains to check the country code and do it in a language that I can understand! 

Blocking numbers is totally pointless.  The spammers make up numbers, often to look like it is a local call.  I had one very gullible guy call me, where I jerked him around by putting the phone down to "get my credit card".  Eventually I hung up.  He called back, lather, rinse, repeat.  Every call was on a different local number.  I should say "local", because my cell phone has a number from a different state!

It's a rare spammer that uses a real phone number he got from the "phone company". 

[TimFox]

I've had a persistent recorded message spam caller for a while, although the frequency seems to be finally decreasing. I just let it go to voicemail and then block each new number. The irritating thing is that the recorded message is in Chinese. If you must spam me, ffs have the brains to check the country code and do it in a language that I can understand! 

Blocking numbers is totally pointless.  The spammers make up numbers, often to look like it is a local call.  I had one very gullible guy call me, where I jerked him around by putting the phone down to "get my credit card".  Eventually I hung up.  He called back, lather, rinse, repeat.  Every call was on a different local number.  I should say "local", because my cell phone has a number from a different state!

It's a rare spammer that uses a real phone number he got from the "phone company".

I don't understand why "spoofing" a phone number is legal in the US.
I found vendors online who will facilitate this spoofing openly, allegedly for the benefit of partners in abusive relationships who don't want to use their real numbers when reporting the abuse to the authorities, but that seems to be a weak argument (although pay phones have vanished from modern society).
E.g., https://www.spoofcard.com/  who claim it is good for the spoofer's privacy.
Typically, sub-continental callers with conventional American given names spoof numbers in my area code and exchange, and when I ask them if they are located next door they hang up.
When I have nothing else to do, I call that number back only to get the non-existent number error message from the phone company;  rarely, it turns out to be an innocent bystander whose number was borrowed, but almost never an active number.

[ataradov]

There are cases where "spoofing" is necessary. For example big call center may want to present a single callback number. Obviously this could be allowed after proper documentation and no report of abuse.
 
But otherwise, this is legal because telcos are making a ton of money on this, and they don't want this to change. If you just start fining them for abuse, the situation would instantly change. But guess who is buying the people that can fine them?

[gnuarm]

I've had a persistent recorded message spam caller for a while, although the frequency seems to be finally decreasing. I just let it go to voicemail and then block each new number. The irritating thing is that the recorded message is in Chinese. If you must spam me, ffs have the brains to check the country code and do it in a language that I can understand! 

Blocking numbers is totally pointless.  The spammers make up numbers, often to look like it is a local call.  I had one very gullible guy call me, where I jerked him around by putting the phone down to "get my credit card".  Eventually I hung up.  He called back, lather, rinse, repeat.  Every call was on a different local number.  I should say "local", because my cell phone has a number from a different state!

It's a rare spammer that uses a real phone number he got from the "phone company".

I don't understand why "spoofing" a phone number is legal in the US.

What does the US have to do with it?  Do you think any of these people are in the US???  Nearly everyone I hear from has an Indian accent so thick, I can barely tell what scam they are trying to run.

I found vendors online who will facilitate this spoofing openly, allegedly for the benefit of partners in abusive relationships who don't want to use their real numbers when reporting the abuse to the authorities, but that seems to be a weak argument (although pay phones have vanished from modern society).
E.g., https://www.spoofcard.com/  who claim it is good for the spoofer's privacy.
Typically, sub-continental callers with conventional American given names spoof numbers in my area code and exchange, and when I ask them if they are located next door they hang up.
When I have nothing else to do, I call that number back only to get the non-existent number error message from the phone company;  rarely, it turns out to be an innocent bystander whose number was borrowed, but almost never an active number.

How many phone numbers do you think are actually in service in a given area code?  I expect the numbers are picked with YOUR area code, an exchange that is LOCAL to YOU and a random last four digits. 

I do get some calls from numbers that are only generally in the same area (100 mile radius), but not often. 

Here's a funny anecdote.  At one time the scams were all either looking to sell you ED drugs, or something else I can't recall.  One of the latter called me when I was at a friend's house.  He was running his scam and I was tired of playing along only to get him pissed off and hang up.  So instead, I asked him if he wanted to buy drugs.  I got him to give me 12 of his 16 digit credit card number before I burst out laughing!  He was so pissed! 

[TimFox]

An exchange should have 10,000 numbers with four digits.
I don't know the fraction in use at any time, but the phone companies have added additional area codes over the years to cover the explosive growth of cell phones.
Chicago and suburbs used to be in area code 312.
Then they restricted 312 to the center of the city, and added 773 for the rest of the city and 708 for the suburbs.
Later, they split 708 into non-overlapping 708, 847, and 630.
After that, they added "overlay" codes and I have lost track.