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Spoofed spam phone calls -- a modest proposal

Brisketexan

By Brisketexan
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XYZ

XYZ 2154

Posted
Posted

So does anybody know how caller ID actually works? That’s part of the technical solution that I’m talking about. Like with the internet there’s IP addresses, and you can’t spoof your address. That’s by design. How can the FCC be so lame to have a protocol where the calling device can choose any phone number to identify as? That’s just lazy.

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31438

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, XYZ said:

So does anybody know how caller ID actually works? That’s part of the technical solution that I’m talking about. Like with the internet there’s IP addresses, and you can’t spoof your address. That’s by design. How can the FCC be so lame to have a protocol where the calling device can choose any phone number to identify as? That’s just lazy.

IP addresses are spoofed pretty routinely by hackers, but it's of little or no moment to us, they're just hiding their tracks.

In a regular, POTS telephone call, the Caller ID information is encoded and decoded by the switches closest to the caller and callee.  It is hard to spoof when making a call using a regular phone.  However, as pointed out here, VOIP calls originate on the internet and join up before a phone company switch pipes the call to you, so the CID information input with the call can be falsified.

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Vic Mackey

Vic Mackey 47009

Posted
Posted
On 1/24/2019 at 3:19 PM, Trey3216 said:

It's even crazier when you get one from yourself

I used to get ones from the first 6 numbers of my phone number. Random order of the last 4 digits. The spam calls have slowed down in general for me but I am sure at some point they will ramp back up. All I do is blacklist every one of the numbers. All you really can do. Do Not Call List doesn't make a difference as that is for legitimate telemarketing calls (do those even exist anymore). All of these calls are originating from call center farms overseas so authorities over here really have their hands tied.

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Vic Mackey

Vic Mackey 47009

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On 1/24/2019 at 7:33 PM, XYZ said:

I don’t know which agency handles the do-not-call list, maybe it’s the FTC. Whoever it is, they clearly don’t give a shit about telemarketers wiping their ass with the do-not-call list. They must have better things to do. Things like, I don’t know, enabling big corporations to make even more money and amass even more power. Protecting you and me sure doesn’t seem to be among their priorities.

Some of this stuff has to be solvable from a technical standpoint. Like for example a company being able to spoof any phone number they want. WTF is that, and why doesn’t the fucking FTC put a stop to it? Companies that generate phone calls not from an actual phone should be given numbers with certain area codes. Then everybody would know that if you get a call from a certain range of area codes, that’s somebody trying to sell you something. And if they go around that, send somebody to jail, not a fucking $500 fine or whatever bullshit it is. That’s always how it is with regulators. If a regular guy does some kind of scam, prison. But if a company does it as a business model, then the regulator slaps them on the wrist, which doesn’t deter them at all. Has any large company gotten its charter revoked in this country, EVER?

The Do Not Call List was created to prevent legit telemarketing companies from contacting your number. These spam calls are not from legitimate companies at all. That is the issue. The FTC can't really do much. They are coming from overseas, even though the numbers appear to be U.S. numbers.

Also my phone will say Scam Likely when a lot of these come through so I just ignore it and then blacklist the number after. So far none of the numbers have been a false positive where it was a legit number calling me personally. 

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Trey3216

Trey3216 15343

Posted
Posted
29 minutes ago, Vic Mackey said:

I used to get ones from the first 6 numbers of my phone number. Random order of the last 4 digits. The spam calls have slowed down in general for me but I am sure at some point they will ramp back up. All I do is blacklist every one of the numbers. All you really can do. Do Not Call List doesn't make a difference as that is for legitimate telemarketing calls (do those even exist anymore). All of these calls are originating from call center farms overseas so authorities over here really have their hands tied.

 No doubt.  I do the same thing, but there was that one time “my phone” dialed me up.   Was weird as shit 

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105060

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The Do Not Call List was created to prevent legit telemarketing companies from contacting your number. These spam calls are not from legitimate companies at all. That is the issue. The FTC can't really do much. They are coming from overseas, even though the numbers appear to be U.S. numbers.
Also my phone will say Scam Likely when a lot of these come through so I just ignore it and then blacklist the number after. So far none of the numbers have been a false positive where it was a legit number calling me personally. 

That’s why you make the American businesses that profit from these calls 100% liable for fraud. You don’t get to contract with an offshore criminal enterprise and then claim clean hands.
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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31438

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51 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


That’s why you make the American businesses that profit from these calls 100% liable for fraud. You don’t get to contract with an offshore criminal enterprise and then claim clean hands.

Reminiscent of all the "blast fax" litigation about 20 years ago. 

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housious

housious 468

Posted
Posted
On 1/24/2019 at 3:12 PM, Brisketexan said:

So, it's now at a point where pretty much everyone with a cell phone -- even with your number on a do-not-call list -- receive multiple calls a day from spoofed phone numbers (for a while, I was getting a series of calls that purported to be from a number in Lockhart).  The most common one for me is the duct cleaning guy trying to sell me duct cleaning services.  But the key is the inception point -- each one of these attempted transactions starts with a lie -- the deceptive phone number.

So, my proposal is simple -- add a new item to the list of deceptive trade practices:

These calls kinda piss me off.

It isn’t just scammers that do this. In fact, many giant, well known tech companies with massive sales development teams do this exact same thing. 

It’s a feature in their calling software usually referred to as “Local Presence” or something to that effect. The idea is that people are more likely to answer phone numbers they don’t recognize if the area code is local to them, as opposed to out of state or overseas. And it works. 

I don’t really have a point here. I guess most legit businesses might stop this practice if it violated deceptive trade practices law. 

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Lhorn

Lhorn 4909

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I get Marriot vacation club or some such shit and some fucking Chinese idiot (recording).  Cold calling random folks in the Bay Area (which has a lot of Chinese) how many actually speak (percentage wise) the dialect of Chinese they are using -guessing single digit%.  And how many of those are interested in what they are selling? A fraction of a percent?  So they are willing to bug 1000+ people who dont want to hear from them to talk with one person who does?  How do these people sleep at night. I wish hem nothing but the most painful death at the youngest of age. 

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  • 2 months later...
Blotto

Blotto 23487

Posted
Posted (edited)

In addition to the usual handful of robocalls that I get daily, this week I started getting 3-4 text messages a day alerting me to the fact that my Wells Fargo account has been suspended. Not having a Wells Fargo Account, I ordinarily would suspect a spoofing scam, however Wells Fargo being the unethical cesspool that it is, this just may be how they kick off their 2019 new membership drive. 

Edited by Blotto
Also, there is a pretty interesting podcast on the robocall industry and some of the tools they use on the "Reply All" podcast....episode 135.
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UTPhil2006

UTPhil2006 3804

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Something has happened where I've been receiving about 5-7 robocalls per day this past week. Never been this bad.

I downloaded the AT&T protect app and it's been pretty solid.  Spend a few days blocking ones that are clearly spam and such and then I went from getting 4-5 a day to maybe 1 a day at most.

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Bama Chick

Bama Chick 28596

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Yeah this week has been unusually bad - especially with spoofed local numbers.

With my job I get a lot of phone calls from nurses or doctors that I might not have their number saved - these spoofed local numbers suck because I never know if it’s a legitimate work call or one of these nightmare people.

I had one this week trying to set up my Medicare approved something or other for the hearing impaired person in my household.

My loud response of “WHAT?” got me a “Oh, are you the hearing impaired person?”

I shouted “NO” and hung up.

I got another threatening to cut my Medicaid. Which I don’t have and have never had.

It’s maddening.

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UDontKnow

UDontKnow 10439

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35 minutes ago, HRSchenker said:

My old man is technologically illiterate but I've adopted one of his sayings growing up: if it's important they'll call again or leave a message. Unless the number is already in my contacts I don't bother answering.

Son, is that you?

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MrPhlegm

MrPhlegm 3413

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They’re getting harder to fuck with. You show any kind of resistance to their spiel and they hang up on you. That’s no fun at all.
You are doing your resistance wrong.
Yeah this week has been unusually bad - especially with spoofed local numbers.

With my job I get a lot of phone calls from nurses or doctors that I might not have their number saved - these spoofed local numbers suck because I never know if it’s a legitimate work call or one of these nightmare people.

I had one this week trying to set up my Medicare approved something or other for the hearing impaired person in my household.

My loud response of “WHAT?” got me a “Oh, are you the hearing impaired person?”

I shouted “NO” and hung up.

I got another threatening to cut my Medicaid. Which I don’t have and have never had.

It’s maddening.
Never say yes or an affirmative to anything these spam callers say. They will take your yes answer and use it to charge your credit cards.

Background on me...

I at one time worked for MCI, the folks that invented robo calling. They did a lot of good stuff to break AT&T's monoply of telecommunications too.
Worked in a building on n. ih35. Big call center thousands of folks doing outbound and inbound calls. I did outbound sales of Friends and Family long distance. In the evenings.

As part of our training they explained the laws concerning the robo calls we were doing and how the system worked. MCI bought lists of leads from somewhere. Lot of em were from contests that people signed up for. MCI didn't just autodial numbers by incrementing and dialing the next number. That was wasteful for them. They called targeted prospects in hopes of selling them on switching from their long distance provider (Usually at&t but not always) to MCI.

The computers would dial numbers off a list and if no one answered would go to the next number. MCI's calls showed up on caller id as unknown. If an answering machine answered it tried to detect that and go to the next number. If a person answered, the system would send the call to one of us on the floor and the prospect's info would pop up on our screen and we would greet the prospect and attempt to make a sale. We had a script to follow but it was in our own words and not by rote.

They explained the law to us as to what we were required to say. We had to identify ourselves by name and tell the prospect we were calling from MCI and say why we were calling, "to save you money on your long distance". Federal law required this although you could us an alias instead of your real name to protect yourself if you were like a domestic violence victim but you had to use the same alias every call and MCI had to know what alias you were using.

More to come...
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MrPhlegm

MrPhlegm 3413

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Calls were randomly monitored by management for training and compliance with MCI rules and federal law.

If we made a sale the call was transferred to a verifying agent in a different call center.

We were trained to overcome phone resistance to make a sale. We were also not allowed to hang up on a prospect. I was cussed at by a prospect for 20 minutes one time until he got tired and hung up. I thought he was gonna have a stroke. Lulz. As I said before MCI showed up on caller id as unknown number, prospects would ask why this happened and I would tell them that MCI being a phone company that we called straight off the network and so were not calling from a number. Uh ok. Lulz.

Anyway about these robo calls today, the way to handle it is, if you feel like fucking with it at the time, answer the call with a goofy voice hello, they will usually identify themselves and say they are on a recorded line and ask you if you can hear them. NEVER ANSWER IN THE AFFIRIMITAVE, EVER.
If you say yes they can take your yes and use it to charge you. It is fraud but still never say yes to anything.

Federal law says that if you are called by an entity that you do not have a prior business relationship with like a bank or lender etc. If you tell them to "Take me off your calling list" they MUST COMPLY and never call you again (this also applies to sales calls from entities that you do have a prior relationship with. Say you have a checking account with and they call you with say a credit card offer you can tell them to take you off that calling list).

If they call you again there is a forty thousand plus dollar fine for EVERY call. There is a FCC number to call to report this.

At MCI when a prospect asked us to take them off the list we would thank the prospect, attempt to verify their phone number was correct, flip to a screen and take them off the list.

So, what I do if I want to zap a robo caller is answer the phone with a goofy old lady falsetto hellloooooooo hellooooooo, listen to them identify themselves and hear them ask if I can hear them and answer them with "take me off your calling list" I dont say yes I dont say no just "tmoycl". After I say it three or four times they usually hang up. If they continue fighting my phone resistance I tell them of the 40 grand federal fine, tell them they MUST COMPLY with the federal law and tmoycl tmoycl tmoycl ad infinitum. If they still dont hang up I pitch them MCI Friends and Family, how would YOU like to save on YOUR long distance that usually gets em to hang up.

If that doesnt work I tell em I'm retired I can do this all day tmoycl tmoycl. I sing it I say it in a goofy voice if they keep fighting I go to the answering machine that I got hooked to at MCI message, it came in my headset and the message was "and now for some animal noises, moo, meow, woof woof, baaaaa, neigh, hee haw hee haw".

I had to go about 7 minutes yesterday with one call but the poor dumb bastard finally hung up.
Lulz.

After I do this to several calls they drop off for about a month and then I get them again. Lather rinse repeat.

Android will also let you block numbers at the phone. They do show up in your recents but the phone rejects them.

The magick words are...

TAKE
ME
OFF
YOUR
CALLING
LIST.

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Nueces River Rat

Nueces River Rat 5537

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Posted

I still have a landline through my cable/internet provider (Spectrum) and because I've been working from home the past few months, you can tell who their target market is with these jackassery  phone calls.   I've been offered Medicare Supplements and I'm fricken 47.   It's tax time, so you have the official sounding IRS call saying you better call us or warrant will be out for your arrest.   What els?  Oh the timeshares, the phony crap fundraising calls from the  phony police foundation which doesn't exist.    It sickens me to think how many Seniors are getting milked by these SOB's.  

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Nivek

Nivek 16918

Posted
Posted
Calls were randomly monitored by management for training and compliance with MCI rules and federal law.

If we made a sale the call was transferred to a verifying agent in a different call center.

We were trained to overcome phone resistance to make a sale. We were also not allowed to hang up on a prospect. I was cussed at by a prospect for 20 minutes one time until he got tired and hung up. I thought he was gonna have a stroke. Lulz. As I said before MCI showed up on caller id as unknown number, prospects would ask why this happened and I would tell them that MCI being a phone company that we called straight off the network and so were not calling from a number. Uh ok. Lulz.

Anyway about these robo calls today, the way to handle it is, if you feel like fucking with it at the time, answer the call with a goofy voice hello, they will usually identify themselves and say they are on a recorded line and ask you if you can hear them. NEVER ANSWER IN THE AFFIRIMITAVE, EVER.
If you say yes they can take your yes and use it to charge you. It is fraud but still never say yes to anything.

Federal law says that if you are called by an entity that you do not have a prior business relationship with like a bank or lender etc. If you tell them to "Take me off your calling list" they MUST COMPLY and never call you again (this also applies to sales calls from entities that you do have a prior relationship with. Say you have a checking account with and they call you with say a credit card offer you can tell them to take you off that calling list).

If they call you again there is a forty thousand plus dollar fine for EVERY call. There is a FCC number to call to report this.

At MCI when a prospect asked us to take them off the list we would thank the prospect, attempt to verify their phone number was correct, flip to a screen and take them off the list.

So, what I do if I want to zap a robo caller is answer the phone with a goofy old lady falsetto hellloooooooo hellooooooo, listen to them identify themselves and hear them ask if I can hear them and answer them with "take me off your calling list" I dont say yes I dont say no just "tmoycl". After I say it three or four times they usually hang up. If they continue fighting my phone resistance I tell them of the 40 grand federal fine, tell them they MUST COMPLY with the federal law and tmoycl tmoycl tmoycl ad infinitum. If they still dont hang up I pitch them MCI Friends and Family, how would YOU like to save on YOUR long distance that usually gets em to hang up.

If that doesnt work I tell em I'm retired I can do this all day tmoycl tmoycl. I sing it I say it in a goofy voice if they keep fighting I go to the answering machine that I got hooked to at MCI message, it came in my headset and the message was "and now for some animal noises, moo, meow, woof woof, baaaaa, neigh, hee haw hee haw".

I had to go about 7 minutes yesterday with one call but the poor dumb bastard finally hung up.
Lulz.

After I do this to several calls they drop off for about a month and then I get them again. Lather rinse repeat.

Android will also let you block numbers at the phone. They do show up in your recents but the phone rejects them.

The magick words are...

TAKE
ME
OFF
YOUR
CALLING
LIST.



Can I forward all of my calls to you?
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  • 5 months later...
UTPhil2006

UTPhil2006 3804

Posted
Posted
37 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

bump

Lately I've been getting 4-5 calls per day where it's not even a spam call. Only silence. I assume it's a service that is trying to map phone numbers that are being picked up.

Yeah it's been a lot more than usual lately.  Mostly Texas numbers

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NOMAAA

NOMAAA 1696

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Posted

what is the end game for the people calling to buy a house that i no longer own?  got one today that asked about a property that i have never owned, and what i wanted to sell it for.  so i told him $100million and he told me it was a piece of shit house and not worth $100million.  i told him to make me an offer then and he called me an asshole again.  this continued for a couple minutes and he finally hung up.

get these calls all the time.  do they just have bad info, or is there a bigger game?

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JBJ

JBJ 3654

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Posted

I get the person interested in my property that I don't own anymore, also.

I've won enough free cruises to permanently retire to the Caribbean.

And it's spreading: I got a political call from Stacey Abrams (GA politician) from an 817 area code (Fort Worth).

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