Posted on 11/11/2017 6:14:57 AM PST by SandRat
SIERRA VISTA — Unsolicited automated phone calls are a top source of complaint for the Federal Communications Commission, which is way the government agency is trying to enact new restrictions in order to protect consumers.
A proposal brought forth by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai last month would allow voice service providers to block certain calls that “falsely appear” to be unable to make outgoing or taking incoming calls, according to an October FCC fact sheet. The commission estimated that U.S. consumers received more than 2.4 billion automated calls per month in 2016, many of which included a caller with a fraudulent identity. The FCC reported that it’s typical for these types of calls to occur during all hours of the day and are made by fraudster who try to lure customers into sending money or personal information over the phone.
Allowing voice service providers to block potentially fraudulent calls can protect U.S. consumers from annoyances and scams, according to the fact sheet. The proposal would adopt new rules that would allow providers to block calls coming from invalid numbers, phone numbers that are not allocated to a specific provider and numbers that are associated with a provider but no longer in use.
The proposal targets illegal automated calls which can take many forms, including the IRS scam. During an IRS calling scam, consumers will receive a call from a person or recording claiming to be an IRS employee, when in fact they are trying to gain personal information or money from the consumer over the phone.
These calls are common across the U.S. and in southern Arizona. The city of Sierra Vista issued a press release Thursday about a recent IRS phone scam that involved a fraudulent caller claiming to be a Sierra Vista Police Department police officer and an IRS employee.
Brian Sebastian, SVPD public information officer, said in the release that the department will never ask residents to provide any personal information over the phone.
“Scammers often ‘spoof’ caller ID information to make it appear like the call is coming from a credible source,” Sebastian said in the release. “Neither the police department nor the IRS will call a suspect in a law enforcement matter and ask for payment of any type through any kind of electronic transfer.”
MAN ON STREET QUESTION:
How many automated calls do you receive every week? What do you do when you get them? How do you feel about receiving these calls?
Chelsie Wilhelmsen, Sierra Vista
“I get maybe two or three, not a whole lot. A lot of times I don’t answer the phone because I know what it is. But when I do answer I usually just say ‘no’ as soon as I can because I know that I don’t want it and then hang up. It’s a little bit aggravating when you know that it’s not an actual person you have to say ‘no’ to and your phone is ringing at inopportune moments.”
Beth Young, Sierra Vista
“I used to receive, probably, two to three per day. I installed an app on my phone that blocks them now so I don’t get them at all now. It’s called Hiya and anytime you get a phone call (from a reported number) it just blocks it. They are really annoying.”
Willard Braswell, Palominas
“I hang up on them. I feel like if they can’t identify themselves, then I don’t want to talk with them. I get probably four or five a day. I don’t want them but it’s a fact of life, everybody has your number. You do what you want with your computer or your phone, you’re going to give it (your phone number) away.”
Rebecca Cranfield, Sierra Vista
“I get at least one daily – at least. What I’ve done is tagged them in my phone to block them so I can still see in my call log that they’ve come through but what my phone does is just automatically reject the calls...I’ll just go through and keep sending them to auto reject. It’s frustrating because it’s sending to your cell phone, which you pay for, and also it’s at inconvenient times and it’s just aggravating for them to call over and over again.”
Eileen Ostrander, Huachuca City
“I probably get about five or six, at least, a week. What I mostly do is I hang up on them and when I get ones that I know right away that they are trying to scam me, I tell them ‘I know you’re trying to scam me and if you don’t behave yourself, you’re going to go to hell.’ They don’t bother me because I know they are scams, but it bothers me that they’re scamming people who don’t understand and they’re losing money. It’s sad.”
Despite getting caller I.D., and signing up and using nomorobo.com to stop robo calls, they continue.
Their latest trick is to grab a local number so that the local number and name shows up on the I.D., but it is really the scammers. As quickly as we enter their number into nomorobo, they change the phone # and call again.
Your suggestions would work. They really can put a stop to it if they wanted to. But their donor-owners don’t want it to stop.
Because the overwhelming majority of them operate from OUTSIDE our borders and as the laws for "telemarketing" are written today, the Telco's can't shut them down.
Congress needs to act to fix that ... (wait, I need to stop laughing after typing that ..............................................................................................)
Or better yet you should familiarize yourself with the technologies that are out there that can help you protect yourself and your landline. There are options available, some of them FREE.
For example, porting your phone# over to Google or one of the other VOIP services comes with free Telemarketer blocking service.
A friend of mine uses ViaTalk which is less than $8/mo for his home phone service and swears by it. I checked into it but opted to just cancel my home phone/landline and return the number back to AT&T.
This past March I was at my desk when the phone rang and it was my own phone number. My phone was calling itself. :-)
Oh these calls come in multiple times a day.
Now their spoofing local area code and exchanges. Last one was actually spoofing a VOIP number!
It is very bad and something should be done to stop it. I can’t believe it is that lucrative that criminals keep using this method?
Guaranteed to work and fun to watch, IMO.
Just like spam ruined email, these robo calls are ruining voice comms.
I no longer answer the phone if it only shows a phone number. If it is important they will leave a message. Robo calls hang up when they get the answer machine.
Sometimes I pick up the phone and if it’s a telemarketer I pretend that we have a bad connection and I skip words. I am.....it’s good....we have a bad......can you repeat..... Then they call back and I don’t answer.
I get these everyday on both my phones. I’m shocked that the the service providers and government has let this get so bad. It’s worse than ever. Email spam is also worse than ever.
What is worse for some of us...micro-business folks is these robocalls. The first inclination is to answer the business phone, but if it doesn’t say who is calling we’ve started letting it rollover the voicemail.
People wanting our service generally will leave a message, but I’ve had a few angry people because we didn’t answer right off the bat.
The worst one right now is the Google Verify. We’re verified already but they keep calling...and that one is a business scam.
I’m with you on this.
The only way to be sure is to nuke them from orbit!
I got a telemarketer so mad one time that after I hung up on him, he called me back!!! He was insulted!!! Yeah!!!
Count me out. If it weren’t for Debbie at Credit Card Services, I’d get no phone calls at all! And Kevin, with the heavy Pakistani accent who says he represents DirecTV, how will I ever know how his life is progressing?
And those caller IDs that give a phone number that appears to be local? Who knew Syracuse, NY, was local to Florida? How else to learn such little known geographical bits?
Thank you! Just went to Amazon and ordered one.
Email spam is also worse than ever.
calls from an editable list of 250 unique phone numbers
calls from a range of phone numbers
incoming calls starting with a specified string of digits
all calls from Wyoming (for example) by blocking the range starting with [Area code] 307 – that is, all calls from 307-xxx-xxxx
all calls from Warshington, DC by blocking the range starting with 202.
Through 285 days (so far today), we received 727 junk calls. That's 2.55 calls / day. 378 (52%) from unique numbers, 349 (48%) from repeat calls from those numbers.
Three numbers of > 20 calls each account for 71 calls.
Eight numbers of 10–19 calls each account for 93 calls.
13 numbers of 5–9 calls each account for 72 calls.
These 24 phone numbers account for 260 calls (35.8% of total calls).
We received 669 junk calls from 40 states, + 13 from DC + 25 from 8xx toll-free numbers, + five from outside USA + 15 from Private / Out of Area.
69.5% of all junk calls came from in-state numbers.
Some calls spoof local numbers, with messages targeted to wealthy Area codes & demographics – "Don't fall, geezer!"
“For example, porting your phone# over to Google”
My landline is ported over to Google. They are blocking a huge number of incoming calls, but I still get more than enough, mostly with spoofed local numbers.
So if I get a phone solicitor I like to play dumb, real dumb and start spouting off non-sequitars like “I like to ride in rental cars.” or “My mom makes great meatloaf ice cream...” you know, stupid crap like that...They end up hanging up and I get a chuckle.
Got a wrong number once that insisted on talking to Debbie...well I was standing at the Oregon State Fairgrounds at the moment and tried to explain that they were calling the wrong number. They insisted on talking to Debbie so....I went the Ruthless People routine and said Debbie couldn’t come to the phone...
Why they asked
Because Debbie has my.......in her mouth...
Well when she’s done could you have her call me?
I laughed and hung up...Evidently Debbie will have some explaining to do...
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