If you are plagued by robo calls, especially from Julie your local google specialist, I highly recommend the Jolly Roger Telephone Company as a countermeasure.
I agree - I pay $2/month to Jolly Roger and since then my robocalls have dropped to nothing. I actually miss getting them because it's so fun to hear Jolly Roger frustrate them.
I get calls regularly from a number that shares the same area code and first 3 digits of my number. For example, if my number was (579) 832-6671 the calls would constantly come from different numbers in the (579) 832-xxxx range.
What options do I have? Numbers are not like IP blocks with cidrs registered somewhere. Who do I even complain to?
You can complain to the FTC. I haven't had much luck with it actually stopping the calls but it's better than nothing and gives the government something to work with.
What do you even tell them, though? The Caller ID number is fake, and it's difficult to get any information from the caller. (I've tried; they hang up if you ask them to identify themselves.)
This seems to be happening to me more often lately too. Until recently, the robocalls I'd get came from seemingly random numbers, but now the majority come from at least the same area code as my number, and sometimes as you say, the first 6 digits. I guess they figure you're more likely to pick up if you think it's someone local? That actually worked the first time for me, but after that, it's done the opposite - I don't live in the same state as my cell number's area code, and I don't know anyone with the same first 3 digits, so it's obvious these are spam calls.
Who says that these DIDs are even assigned to the caller? Virtually all wholesale termination (the fancy word for handling outbound calls) allows for the caller to set the calling party ID to whatever the caller desires. The reason for this (among a few) basically boils down to multihoming (so, example, I use a different provider for termination than for origination (receiving calls)). This is a perfectly legitimate and very common to effect least cost routing.
In any event, if you are able to determine that the number is actually in use by the caller, you would determine the responsible LEC via LRN lookup (this handles portability issues). DID blocks are tied to a particular LEC, but the DID is then handled for portability via LRN (so, this is how you determine which LEC the number got ported to).
Why aren't these kinds of calls straight up illegal in the first place? Telecom companies who hand out numbers to spammers should get fined like crazy, and the burden of proof goes on them for dealing with the people they give US phone numbers to.
But for now, I use the iPhone's Do Not Disturb option and allow calls only from contacts. I used to get harassed daily by shit companies selling me stuff, and I'd report them to the FTC, and it was a huge annoyance. Now I have to see the missed call from an unknown number, but at least my phone doesn't ring.
Commercial speech is not protected under the 1st amendment. However, political and religious speech, which makes up most of the robocalls during the election season isn't covered.
It amazes me that this completely nonsensical distinction passed muster in the courts.
There is no meaningfuk distinction between political, commerce, and religion, and the First Amendment specifically prohibits granting special legal status to religious activity.
That's not quite true. Restrictions on commercial speech are subject to intermediate scrutiny, whereas the default for most other restrictions speech is strict scrutiny. That's not nearly the same as totally unprotected, like obscenity for example.
That is the same justification used by junk mailers, and the USPS actively courts them - because they are the customer, not you. I only check my mailbox once a week, and only because it quickly gets stuffed with junk and then the USPS starts holding the mail at the PO. Once I actually went down there with a copy of "Penny Saver", the worst offender, and declared that I found the coupon rag sexually stimulating and demanded that they halt the flow of the pornography. That is the only way to find relief, but it only works for the specific mailer that you complain about - and it is a best effort sort of filtering (and since they don't care, they don't put in much effort).
Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try. I'll honestly be surprised if it makes a perceivable dent though, the root cause of the problem being carrier route level sortation discounts. They blast apartment complexes indiscriminately (most stuff addressed to "Our friend", "Valued customer"), because the cost per mail piece is pennies.
>When you register with this service, your name will be put on a "delete" file and made available to direct-mail marketers and organizations.
Yeah, I'm not super trusting that sending my name and address to marketing companies isn't going to somehow result in that same information getting passed on to companies who don't give a shit.
"people" aren't "censoring", they don't have the power to do so. In this specific case the state acts at the behest of those who fill out a USPS Form 1500. It is complicated when you consider what is actually happening, the rationale behind it, and the convoluted exceptions. To say otherwise would be like saying that the internet is uncomplicated, as it is simply a series of tubes.
I'll give it one more shot. You are a child at the store and you ask your mommy for a lollipop, she hands you one and pays the cashier... who bought the lollipop?
Hahah, nothing in what you just said adds up to censorship. Since the direct marketers are paying for it, I guess they're the mother? Is the government the lollipop? Is censorship the grocery store?
Ahem - "You have a duck in a pond with a frog, and an elderly couple is throwing bread... Who threw the bread?" Lol.
I get robocalls that call for one second, hang up, and then call again. I believe that this is to intentionally bypass the Do Not Disturb feature on iOS -- the default setting is to allow Repeated Calls to ring through.
Why aren't these kinds of calls straight up illegal in the first place?
I believe they are. I believe they are using hacked PBX's and they move from location to location, so they authorities have a hard time catching them.
I talked with a lawyer who litigated against a company that did this, back in the the early 00's, and he indicated they are criminal organizations setup purely for the purpose of defrauding the people that play along with their pitches. What I don't understand is why the trail of money is so hard to follow and prosecute. I think the barrier to catching them is just too high. I once tried to get AT&T to help me catch someone that repeatedly called me and wouldn't stop. The process they had in place was so onerous that after a few days in I just gave up. It's clear they do NOT want to help catch them.
It seems that way to me. It seems there's simply no way to know who is calling, from where etc. It would be great if you could just see there caller's number but it seems just about anyone is able to spoof calls from anywhere. So how are these calls getting paid for? I guess the mail problem is that if all these phone calls are stopped, the phone companies stand to lose millions.
It won't get fixed now because $privacy. While the crime argument is used way too much to promote surveillance, it is also true that privacy-enchancing methods help criminals more than ordinary people. AT&T being able to track down some spammers is equivalent to them being able to track down everyone.
In my country, the spammers started to work around the law by saying the number they're calling was randomly generated by a machine, and thus does not come from any database. It's utter bullshit, and AFAIR it got addressed by the government very recently, but no doubt they'll find something else.
In the domain of e-mail spam, we have a law against unsolicited business offers. So what do companies do? They send you their offer, write below something that amounts to "we do stuff like that; if you want to learn more and get our offer, contact us", and then add a disclaimer at the bottom: "this e-mail is NOT a business offer, but only a question whether or not the recipent is interested in receiving one; as so, it does not fall under the regulation #somenumber....".
I'd like to see Apple and other mobile phone companies to actively build functionality to screen calls that works all the time -- whether or not I have enabled "Do Not Disturb". I never want (nor need) a telemarketer call.
They have pretty much killed voice calls for me. I won't answer unknown numbers and I will not break a conversation or walk across a room to answer a telephone. Such a shame. Spam, DDOS, robocalls, phishing and malware are crimes I really want pursued with vigour.
It's getting there. I try and teach everyone that too, in a direct way - I just don't pick up phone calls when I don't feel like it. Want something from me really fast? Text me. I want to know whether or not the thing is important enough to warrant dropping whatever I'm doing right now. And frankly, most of the time it isn't. Some people simply think their random bullshit is the most important thing in the world, and everyone should treat it as priority.
That's why I love my Pebble. I know whether or not I should break a conversation I'm having / walk across the room to pick up. Most of the time, I really don't - even when the person who's calling is on my contacts list.
For the past 3 years I've adapted to the point where I just don't answer numbers I don't have in my address book (unless I'm expecting a call). If I don't know you and you don't leave a message than I likely won't hear from you.
Every once and awhile I get nervous that I'm missing something important but the few times I have given in and answered an unknown call it is always unimportant (car warranty companies, comcast, etc).
Actually, I get a lot of robocalls from my area code - sometimes even from my own phone number! I assume these are spoofed though.
Edit: Oh neat! Apparently it's illegal in the US, but legal in Canada (where I am currently located). So it's not the robocall not bothering, it's it being flat-out illegal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing
I'm in the US and get an increasing number of robocalls from my area code, as well as robocalls from my own number.
I still answer most calls from my area code, but if I suspect it's a robocall I just pick up without saying hello. If it's a robocall, there's generally a lengthy pause and then you can here someone connect (at which point I hang up).
These days, with everyone using a cell number they got where they lived 5-15 years ago an area code is only about as useful as IDing friend from far away places.
I don't think any of my coworkers have cell phone area codes from the city where we work. Area codes in my age group (25-40 years old) are usually a prestige indicator of where you're from, rather than where you currently live.
How much of it is prestige versus the convenience of not having to change numbers? I have the same cell number from an area code that I moved away from over a decade ago. It's nice knowing that anyone who calls(not counting spam calls) either is meaning to get me or is the rare misdial.
I followed that rule religiously until my father's boss called saying he'd collapsed on a business trip and nobody would answer their phones. Now I just put up with the junk calls. :/
(He ended up surviving ventricular fibrillation with no organ or brain damage because they got an AED on him within a minute.)
But once you've called the emergency number, and are in an Ambo on your way to hospital, or are in the hospital, you want to let people know that you're not dead in a ditch.
Some hospitals are stricter about cell phones than others.
When asked for an emergency contact, I always supply "[wife's name] [wife's #] (please text)", knowing there's basically no chance of her picking up a call from an unknown number.
I have dealt with a family member getting picked up by EMTs multiple times and every time they used my family member's phone to call me despite my family member being mostly unconscious. It worked - I pick up instantly every time.
A good solution is a voicemail-to-text message transcription service like the one Verizon offers. You get the best of both worlds - not answering your phone, and knowing who called and why.
He didn't leave a voice mail message? He didn't call 911? He staked his survival on the chance of reaching the son/daughter of one of his employees? Really?
Once someone has sought medical help (I'm assuming doctors and hospitals don't screen their calls) then contacting family members isn't such a life or death priority. Obviously you'll want to find out as soon as possible, but the list of loved ones is usually reasonably long and i personally don't go through life terrified that every last ringing phone is bringing me terrible news. Sometimes my phone is out of battery or i have no coverage for days on end when I'm on holiday. I don't let it ruin my life.
I take the same approach. If the number isn't in my address book it goes straight to voice mail and my voice mail message explains to the caller that I don't listen the messages and directs them to text or email.
If it's important enough that someone needs to get a hold of me they should be having a human calling that can follow through with that simple request.
It's not that simple when it's a business calling, though. Easy example: I run a repair shop. If you drop off a computer or game console, we ask for your phone number and call you when it's done.
We get a LOT of people who do something similar to you, or just leave their voicemail box full, or don't bother to set up voicemail at all. Then they get angry at us: "Why didn't you call me to let me know my system was finished?" "We did, and you didn't answer." "Oh, I don't pick up calls from random numbers." Well, I don't know what to tell you, then...
I can't text you, because we don't have a business cell phone to text with. Yes, I suppose I could set up some fancy integrated-with-our-POS system to text you from some number that we could then read replies to, but that both would cost time and money to develop, and would open up yet another vector for us to be contacted by (we already have a phone number, Yelp messages, Facebook messages, and email as it is.)
We can (and do) email customers, but email presents its own issues: People like to reply to them and we don't always have time to respond quickly, and people don't check their email often, or it goes into a spam filter...
It's not just us. It's your doctor, your pet groomer, anyone who has a local business. My suggestion here is to pick up calls from your local area code, and/or program into your phone the businesses you do business with.
I honestly don't even know what my local area code is. My cell number is from two moves ago, and phone calls have become so infrequent that learning my local area code just doesn't realistically happen anymore.
My suggestion is you bite the bullet and realize that advertisers have basically ruined the medium of unknown voice calls.
Text messaging with or without email is easy to access online[0] and no longer required an ancient "business line" - you don't need to "integrate" it into your p.o.s. POS either. If you have fb, then there's surely no reason other than will that you can't use SMS.
A good solution to this is cellphone apps such as "TrueCaller" (not-affiliated to them, just a good app.). People that have opted-in automatically have their their phonebooks uploaded to the central server. So, for example, if your business were to call me and I mark it as "Business ABC" then all other users of the app that get a call from you would immediately know it's from "Business ABC" despite you never having called them.
It's worked so nicely since I got it, I'm surprised we ever did without it. I think it also auto-disconnects calls from numbers that a sufficient-amount of people have flagged as spam.
The only problem it doesn't solve is when a business decides to do it's surveys/telemarketing through the same number it attempts to contact clients on. This is especially rife with SMS spam, where they use the same number to SMS you valid "updates" that they use to send promotions/ads and other spam.
> My suggestion here is to pick up calls from your local area code
This only weeds out lazy robocalls, I get plenty of calls with (presumably spoofed) caller id from my exchange. It would be trivial to add that into a spam script.
To go even further, approximately 90% of calls that originate from my same area code and exchange (first 6 digits match my own phone number) are telemarketing calls. They're spoofed.
The details of SMS are a little different in the US to here in the UK, but most online SMS sites will give you very simple options: email to SMS, an online form to send SMS (often with the ability to have predefined templates - think MailChimp), probably an API and perhaps other options.
You can set up a virtual number to receive incoming - and so do 2 way email - SMS, and (not sure this applies in the US) if you don't need 2 way can spoof your number to show text alert instead, eg the text shows as from "1Up Repairs".
In your position it definitely sounds worth exploring. There's a lot of other places than Twilio too.
One last hint, if they're "too cheap" they'll be using grey routes and should be avoided like plague.
> My suggestion here is to pick up calls from your local area code, and/or program into your phone the businesses you do business with.
When a business, local or otherwise, asks me for a phone number I regard it as a spam-vector and decline. It's the businesses that need to adapt, not the customer.
A phone number is a very personal piece of information given the intrusion it permits into one's life, and many people are hesitant to share it with one-off requestors for that reason.
Aren't you concerned that your lack of texts to people is going to cost you trade or goodwill? I appreciate your problem but at the end of the day it is your problem, and if it can be avoided by you simply texting people for free when their stuff is ready then think we have an obvious solution. But perhaps I'm missing something.
- Don't answer private numbers ( where i don't see the number)
- Don't answer unknown numbers on landlines ( except Android lookup a business name and says which one -- then i handle it depending the bussiness)
- Pick up depending a mobile or landline. If it's a landline with our city code in front. I pick up. If it's not ( or from a big city), i don't pick up. If it's a mobile phone, chances are to big it's someone who referenced me.
Had no junk calls, except one. Where a telemarketeer seemed to use a mobile number... Which was akward
I follow a similar strategy. RE your last point, I think where I live I have about equal amount of telemarketers calling from landline numbers and mobile numbers. I don't know what makes them pick one over the other.
In my experience, each round of scam calls will stop calling once you have answered their call and said no/hung up after a few seconds of listening.
Which isn't really useful beyond getting them to only call once every few months instead of once every few days or whatever.
Everything but political crap and surveys seems to go like this, answering a call and saying no firmly ends that stream of calls.
For the surveys I answer and ask how much they are paying people to take the survey. Then when they say they aren't paying I say I'm not interested and hang up. My hope is that this is superficially annoying for the person doing the survey. Not antagonistic, just enough to remind them exactly what it is they are doing.
> In my experience, each round of scam calls will stop calling once you have answered their call and said no/hung up after a few seconds of listening.
I believe you but I can only say that your experience is different than mine. Very different. My experience is that it seems to encourage them to call more often.
Back a few years ago when spam involved adding you to shady mailing lists, it seems clicking the "unsubscribe" button told the spammers that not only does that email address exist, it's being used. Then they just add you to more shoddy mailing lists.
Both the sony z3 and now my current galaxy s5 have the ability to add any # to a built-in Auto Reject list. The z3 even had a built-in answering machine and at one point I told att to disable voicemail. I love it when I get those calls as I then just block them. Problem solved. And of course there are free aps which can do the same.
"the sony z3 and now my current galaxy s5 have the ability to add any # to a built-in Auto Reject list."
My z3 doesn't. I'm running marshmallow. Where are you finding the option? On previous phones long pressing the contact gives you an ignore option but not this one.
Edit: I just discovered the option to send all calls from a contact to voicemail which is great but then I'll have to dial in and delete the voicemail otherwise there will be an icon there forever. Ideally there would be a button to dump the call and silently reject all further calls from that number. I suppose I could attach all numbers to the same contact.
Haven't had the z3 for almost a year. I bought mine unlocked with kitkat and promptly rooted it through xda but the blocking feature I think I ended up using an apk from the playstore. I was almost ready to put layers on it with a cutting edge rom and it broke, again... Sayonara sony.
This is a great feature also found in cyanogenmod. Very capable blacklist features. This doesn't help with spoofed VoIP caller ID though if the calls appear to come from a new number each time.
It's very unlikely that that missed mystery call was important. There'll be times when you'll be waiting for the results of a hospital test or when a loved one is ill. But generally, all my communication is on opt-in systems like Facebook, WhatsApp etc. My Android phone doesn't let me block numbers, which is a little annoying but adding persistent nuisances such as desperate recruitment composites to my contacts as "ignore me #4" does the trick.
The phone company is delivering these calls so it's their job to sort it out. I don't want any number withheld calls, ever. I expect phone companies to work together like email companies do and blacklist people who abuse the system. I want an easy way to report abuse so phone companies have no excuse.
Spammers may be able to call from outside the US, but they're not getting US numbers by using magic. The government is perfectly capable of making and using rules against whoever is attaching robocalls to these numbers.
Someone pointed me to NoMoRobo, which is a free service that intercepts landline calls and screens them. You configure your phone to forward calls to it, and it hangs up the phone on robocalls.
It works pretty great. You get a single first ring, which I thought would be annoying, but every time I get a single ring and then nothing I actually feel a sense of elation.
My "super senior" mother gets at least five robocalls a day on her land line. It's getting totally out of control, and I worry that someone will take advantage of her. I really wish someone would come up with something like a spam email black list for phone numbers ...or any technical solution to this problem that is simple and accessible to seniors.
yeah my grandma gets the same calls, the same individual would call her everyday, 4 times within a span of like 30-60min. It was super stressful for her because shes expecting calls from her family. Ended up complaining to the FCC, then having to go into the Vonage account and blocking the numbers from in there.
I wonder how many people that fell for the IRS scam were seniors?
I want to get my 8-year-old son a phone and I see the same problem. My dream would be that I could put a password on calls to him - that is, if somebody phones him not on a whitelist, they get a request for a PIN. If they can't do it, it gives them my number.
On the internet, ISPs who host spammers have their IP ranges blocked or have their peering relationships terminated. I presume that the telephone system works on peering relationships as well. The solution to this should be simple. Block VOIP providers who harbor robocallers and do not provide timely abuse handling.
There should be a simple requirement that VOIP calls must have a legitimate origin/callback number, or none. Usage of phony caller-ID should have that VOIP node blocked from the phone network altogether.
If you use a standard sip port without filtering you will get a load of autocalls from people just portscanning and calling open IP addresses, probably looking to gain access to unsecured pbx boxes. I just have a single sip phone, no pbx, so they come across as calls. Nonstandard port fixes that. Probably not the most secure solution though, intended to be temporary.
My phone (LG G3) finally has a built in block list that works. Any time I get a call from a number I don't recognize, I first Google the number to see if it's legit - like my mechanic, or a company that I recently bought something from, or someone offering me a job interview. If it's not, it goes straight on the block list. I would be very happy to open-source my block list and get access to everyone elses's blocked numbers as well.
1. A “Google This Number” button when an unknown call comes in, or something that pulls the equivalent “is this a scam?” information that I always seek out.
2. Rather than only having the option to Accept or Decline, I want a “silently wait until they hang up” option. I don’t want them to know I am declining their call (as that sends information that I exist and am a valid person); I want them to sit there and wait for me to pick up. Really what I want is for the phone to return my display to me; I don’t want my entire screen covered with the incoming-call message.
In Finland we have this androdi app callled Fonecta Caller. It basically searches a public registry for that number and returns the owner. I just don't answer calls from names I don't recognize, or sometimes they even have the name of the firm on it!
> 2. Rather than only having the option to Accept or Decline, I want a “silently wait until they hang up” option.
I think every Android phone I ever had featured this option (and probably every phone before that too). On Android phones I used, you have to press one of the volume buttons - it silences the incoming call without declining it.
I use that feature very often, not just on telemarketers.
You can try Truecaller (www.truecaller.com). This is one of the essential problems we are addressing and it works quite well for +200 million users worldwide..
I tried Truecaller. I'm not sure if it automatically updated itself occasionally, but I found myself having to manually click the button to download the new list of blocked numbers.
I got tired of that and replaced it with Mr. Number, which seems to keep itself updated and allows me to ratchet up the blocking all the way to "everyone not on my contact list." That's not ideal, because I might miss calls from my credit card company, bank, etc, but the 2-3 scam calls I was getting every day were driving me crazy.
- The nerdvittles links did not work for me last time I tried, I got the sounds from the repo I forked
- The original repo was missing one sound which I found somewhere else ( dont have the source anymore )
- The module is unsigned due to ridiculous terms for module signing for FreePBX so if you use it you will get a scary warning, if you decide to sign it please let me know ;-)
In the UK/the rest of the world where everyone has to pay calls by the minute, things maybe a a little different here than in the US of A, and Canadia.
My approach is a little different than to hang-up as quickly as possible, as this is a behaviour that the telephone solictors use to their advantange. In short, I try to soak a call for as long as possible. The best tactic is to be a little bit dumb, but fean interest in whatever the person is calling about. I generally find that getting them to explain each sentance they say about 3 times is about right, before moring on to the next sentance.
Anyway, I answer all calls, and press the button to talk to a human, then try to keep the human on the line for as long as possible.
The cost centre for these automated calls is for a human to talk to me. On at least 4 occasions after being an affible fool for about 20 minutes, without the sales person on the other end, they have said "okay, I get it, you don't want us to call you, and we will put you on our 'do not call list'". At which time they promptly hang up in a huff.
I my numbers, work, cottage/holiday home, mobile, work mobile, and work line now only get about 1 call a month, of which I am more than happy to take, and generally ends with the above result. Previously I used to get 4 or so random unknown calls a day.
I also notice that after calling for a taxi, the number of unwanted calls goes up.
Lenny? I just do some mundane task while I am soaking their time.
These calls are using an anti-pattern of most people who are disinterested will hang up, but those who are interested will continue to talk to the person.
Their economic model depends on uninterested parties hanging up as quickly as possible. To disrupt their economics, take their call.
I know things are a bit different in the US and Canadia where the mobile/cell call receiver also pays for minutes. Here in the UK, and the rest of Europe, only the call initiator pays for the call. If you are calling from a land you will pay a higher rate to call a mobile (an 07 number).
> Their economic model depends on uninterested parties hanging up as quickly as possible. To disrupt their economics, take their call.
You're right, though in all fairness, your solution doesn't scale fast enough. Most people won't altruistically do something like you did. We could use something that would be easy to set up and that would start generating significant costs for the callers without bothering callees much.
RE Lenny, how is one even supposed to use that? :o.
Lenny was a voice activated script that would cycle through those (plus others I believe) pre-recorded sounds in a (generally successful) attempt to fool telemarketers.
You could transfer calls to a SIP extension (or via a number of PSTN numbers in different locations). Unfortunately the original service is now defunct, but I'm sure there are some private closes in operation.
There's an archive of recordings on youtube linked from https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/ -- some are hilarious and sure to brighten anyones day.
in the US and Canadia where the mobile/cell call receiver also pays for minutes
That has changed in recent years. My postpaid cell plan (Verizon) now offers "unlimited talk" and "unlimited text". The only variable is how many GB of data a month you want to pay for. AT&T is similar. Just choose the amount of data.
Usually I pretend to be interested while getting as much information about the caller as possible, and then I inform them that I intend to file with the FCC or describe in gory fantastical detail how I plan to murder them, depending on how annoyed I'm feeling that day.
Sure, it won't always help with scams. But they will still probably remove you from their dialer, the operators cost them money too, so they don't want to keep calling bad leads.
I continue to get calls. Still. Sometimes several times a day. This means two things to me. First, their dialer software sucks. Second, they do need to put people on a DNC list. It would improve their odds of scamming people.
Most of the calls I get are people doing surveys, or lying about how I was in an accident and could make money from a legal claim. Neither pay any attention to the UK TPS (no call list); the former because that type of call isn't covered, and the latter because criminals don't tend to obey the law.
I get a lot of calls from Indians. Any solution has to take into account the international nature of the annoyance. I'm perfectly happy with a whitelist system, or where anyone who has not called me before needs to sign up with my phone company using verifiable credentials.
Honestly, soak the calls for as long as possible. Always press the button to get connected to someone. Don't answer any of the questions in the survey. Just generally try to waste as much time on the callers end. The "surveys" are not real surveys, but rather a way to try to get to opt in to a sales calls.
I love trying get to the PPI callers to explain to me what bank accounts, insurance, credit cards are, finally saying that I might have had a bank account, or credit card, then try to get them to explain to me what the PPI is. I had a guy on the phone for about 40 minutes one day while I was waiting for the ferry.
The best thing you can do is get connected to a human as quickly as possible, so you can soak the call.
The other day I didn't really have time to take one of these calls, but I pressed 3 to be connected to someone, and left the phone. After about 5 minutes of being on hold, leaving the phone off the hook, I then heard someone going hello for about 2 minutes.
Another tactic I have is to claim some interest, but that I have to call them back as I am changing phone numbers/jobs/houses, or that I don't have time in the next few weeks, but when I find a moment I will call them back. I refuse to give a 'good time to call' because I am so busy, but when I have a moment I will return the call. This is an amusing tactic because most of the they claim they can only make outgoing calls, and that I will have to give them a time. I generally suggest that them must have an incoming phone number for other purposes, so surely they could give me that number. Usually they decline, so then finally I try to get the persons phone number on the other end of the call. They generally say that is their private number number, to which I say that this my private number, so it really would be quite fair for me to contact them on their 'personal' number.
This seriously works, as I only get one call every month or two. I have also gotten a bit of a reputation at work for these types of calls and my co-workers have not end of amusement that I engage with these callers in this way.
In the UK I'm signed up with the Telephone Preference Service.
I only ever get one type of unsolicited phone call from a robot voice asking if I've recently had an accident, then transferring me to a human to get details.
I tried asking them to put my on their do not call list (very calmly and politely) and they keep calling. So now I waste as much of their time as possible everytime they call, and then block their number. (And then report them to ICO).
In short, I try to soak a call for as long as possible.
Me, too. In the last few months, the calls ramped up to a frantic pace on my cell #. The difference, though, is the caller ID was very close to my number, sometimes most digits were the same. All the calls were from the same company, I'd bet. Free trips to Mexico were the #1 subject. There were others. I started keeping them on the line for 10-15 minutes each. At the end, I'd say "I'm not going to give you my CC# because I kept you on the like since you refused to put me on your DNC list."
I've given up doing that, since having done it 10 or so times, I'm tired of it. They won, but not before I wasted a lot of their time, too.
These boiler rooms are really a scourge on our society. I know they scam lots and lots of people. On one call, I heard clapping every few seconds and when I asked what that was, they dude said someone had just "purchased" the free vacation (see, you need to give them $99 to secure that).
> These boiler rooms are really a scourge on our society. I know they scam lots and lots of people.
I dead-seriously believe that telemarketing is a much less honourable occupation than prostitution. At least in the case of latter, you have two willing parties who need something from each other and voluntarily engage in exchange of value. Telemarketing lives of lying, deception and ruining people's lives in borderline-legal ways.
A website where you could pledge to do this and list your phone number might be a great idea. This would be the equivalent to a honeypot server. If enough people got on board then the business model of spam calling would collapse.
This is why the telephone is "broken". My 9 year old daughter gets random calls all the time. My parents get scam calls all the time. Why does it make sense for permissionless access into my personal life?
Think about it. Someone can disrupt any moment of your life for any reason just by making a phone call. If your phone blinks, vibrates, or rings you are distracted. That's like an app you didn't install sending you push notifications. Taking this further... since you don't know anything about the app you have to judge on a case by case basis whether or not to engage further. Except in this case all you get as context is 10 digits. If you choose to engage further you hear someone's voice. Then you have to decide whether to remain civil and give the other person the benefit of the doubt or just hang up. It's all very gross.
It'd be pretty cool if numbers were unguessable: then they'd become cryptographic capabilities in which anyone who knows your number could contact you and pass your number on to others, but no-one who doesn't know it could figure it out.
Granted, it'd take awhile to get used to numbers like YheXuVtGf/sxxXFYxZD7bY5nI2Tf/ylNrgBf9b5IA5Q, but if it's combined with a petname system (where I just see names like 'Bill' and 'Bill's wife's sister Susan') then I think it could work.
Nah, this is the direction I'd hate for it to go. I don't think isolating people in bubbles of their direct social networks is good for society. Being able to get called by someone you don't have in your phonebook is a feature, not a bug.
Now I would very much appreciate if calling meant sending a lot more metadata. Like full name/surname and organization to which the number is registered. And then make phones capable of creating filters based on that data. Oh, and companies faking the metadata should be open to lawsuits.
Absolutely. Telephones are an enormous nuisance for exactly these reasons.
I have found Cyanogenmod's built in call blocking to be essential; I have it set so all calls from withheld numbers and all that are not in my contacts are blocked. I let texts through, though they could also be blocked. If I expect anyone to call me who can't be persuaded to use email instead (e.g. a tradesman or shopkeeper) then I add their number to my contacts or ask them to call at a particular time when the blocking can be temporarily turned off. Only once has this latter tactic resulted in a spam caller getting through.
Like others here, I receive many many spam calls despite being registered on the Do not call registry. My approach lately has been to let calls go to voicemail and now I notice that I can predict with good success if number is a scam, based on the area code.
I have these frequently and I enjoy nothing more than attempting to keep them on as long as possible.
One new trend not mentioned in this article is the "soundboard" telemarketer, where the telemarketer is hired from a low-wage country, but can respond to you by pre-recorded responses. Here's a good way to deal with these people:
Robocalls used to happen to me weekly and now monthly or less after signing up to the Do Not Call list.
What currently tortures me several times a day is certainly some sort of legal grey area, but mostly legal. I have Indian IT recruiters calling me several times a day for positions irrelevant to my job role and also in remote locations (I am US-based and it's a very large country, the US, for leisurely moving from the coasts to the Midwest). Here's why I think there's something fishy going on:
* They are 100% Indian, sometimes with limited English skills, suggesting that the US number they are calling from is just a reroute. Conversations are strained and you can tell they read from a script.
* The emails they send before they call contain a specific template that, even though they represent numerous different companies/agencies, the 'This is not spam' type disclaimer (starts with Please allow us to reiterate we chose to contact you because you had your profile online..) is IDENTICAL. The other thing that is identical is the Unsubscribe link, which takes you to the same templated page, with yet another agency name filled in.
* The positions always say, US citizens and green card holders only.
My conclusion: H1B employers are utilizing phone and email spam via Indian call centers to justify having advertised the positions in order to be able to fulfill the legal requirement. What better way than to contact someone in Boston or New York for a low paying role in Lansing, MI or Dayton, OH or whatnot.
> My conclusion: H1B employers are utilizing phone and email spam via Indian call centers to justify having advertised the positions in order to be able to fulfill the legal requirement.
The legal requirement is usually fulfilled by ploacing an ad in the classified section of the local newspaper (preferably print only), asking candidates to submit their resume via the mail with a reference number.
So what's your theory as to why this Indian Call Center Recruitment Situation (tm) is so prevalent? One big agency, Mitchell Martin, just got on board. Surely they would know that contacting a NYC or SF resident for a job NOT in NYC or SF but in a small town in Rhode Island, Ohio, Texas, etc. is truly a needle in a haystack? Someone is paying someone else money to get people to talk on the phone with people who live in the former places, to chat about positions in the latter places.
Either the world has gone mad, or there's a business reason for the above discrepancy given how extremely widespread (I say, daily and via numerous agencies) it is.
No idea, I don't think cold calling people about a job meets any advertising requirement (which on further looking actually looks like it's related to sponsoring a green card application, not an H1B).
Perhaps, they're phishing for more information to target scams? I've heard the IRS scams are more effective against immigrants, for example. The caller may not realize that's the purpose for the call.
Could also just be annoy 1000 people, get one positive response, and that's good enough?
Like others, I will often let a call go if I don't recognize the number. Robots tend not to leave messages. Also, if yo do answer, robots wait for you to say hello before starting the recording. If you wait a couple of seconds, a human on the other end will say 'hello?' but a robot won't.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 226 ms ] threadWhat options do I have? Numbers are not like IP blocks with cidrs registered somewhere. Who do I even complain to?
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/
In any event, if you are able to determine that the number is actually in use by the caller, you would determine the responsible LEC via LRN lookup (this handles portability issues). DID blocks are tied to a particular LEC, but the DID is then handled for portability via LRN (so, this is how you determine which LEC the number got ported to).
But for now, I use the iPhone's Do Not Disturb option and allow calls only from contacts. I used to get harassed daily by shit companies selling me stuff, and I'd report them to the FTC, and it was a huge annoyance. Now I have to see the missed call from an unknown number, but at least my phone doesn't ring.
Free speech.
You may not agree, but that is at least the reason.
There is no meaningfuk distinction between political, commerce, and religion, and the First Amendment specifically prohibits granting special legal status to religious activity.
CAN-SPAM laws dictate and prevent e-mail communications that are distinctly for marketing purposes.
Yeah, I'm not super trusting that sending my name and address to marketing companies isn't going to somehow result in that same information getting passed on to companies who don't give a shit.
It only protects from government censorship, and even then, situations deemed harmful (such as death threats against individuals) are exempt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_v._United_States_Post_Of...
The consideration of a "captive audience" is relevant to the topic under discussion, prior restraint (in general) as well.
That is "people" "censoring". This really isn't as complex or difficult as you're trying to make it be.
Ahem - "You have a duck in a pond with a frog, and an elderly couple is throwing bread... Who threw the bread?" Lol.
This is very important for the discussion of human-selected censorship.
B: Free speech.
A: Freedom of speech isn't a blank check for communication. It only protects from government censorship.
B: Um...yeah, "illegal".
Life will find a way.
I believe they are. I believe they are using hacked PBX's and they move from location to location, so they authorities have a hard time catching them.
I talked with a lawyer who litigated against a company that did this, back in the the early 00's, and he indicated they are criminal organizations setup purely for the purpose of defrauding the people that play along with their pitches. What I don't understand is why the trail of money is so hard to follow and prosecute. I think the barrier to catching them is just too high. I once tried to get AT&T to help me catch someone that repeatedly called me and wouldn't stop. The process they had in place was so onerous that after a few days in I just gave up. It's clear they do NOT want to help catch them.
In the domain of e-mail spam, we have a law against unsolicited business offers. So what do companies do? They send you their offer, write below something that amounts to "we do stuff like that; if you want to learn more and get our offer, contact us", and then add a disclaimer at the bottom: "this e-mail is NOT a business offer, but only a question whether or not the recipent is interested in receiving one; as so, it does not fall under the regulation #somenumber....".
Telecom companies don't have any incentive to fix this.
Every once and awhile I get nervous that I'm missing something important but the few times I have given in and answered an unknown call it is always unimportant (car warranty companies, comcast, etc).
Edit: Oh neat! Apparently it's illegal in the US, but legal in Canada (where I am currently located). So it's not the robocall not bothering, it's it being flat-out illegal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing
I still answer most calls from my area code, but if I suspect it's a robocall I just pick up without saying hello. If it's a robocall, there's generally a lengthy pause and then you can here someone connect (at which point I hang up).
(He ended up surviving ventricular fibrillation with no organ or brain damage because they got an AED on him within a minute.)
Some hospitals are stricter about cell phones than others.
Anecdotal, but I now get complete "text message coverage" for all incoming calls.
If it's important enough that someone needs to get a hold of me they should be having a human calling that can follow through with that simple request.
We get a LOT of people who do something similar to you, or just leave their voicemail box full, or don't bother to set up voicemail at all. Then they get angry at us: "Why didn't you call me to let me know my system was finished?" "We did, and you didn't answer." "Oh, I don't pick up calls from random numbers." Well, I don't know what to tell you, then...
I can't text you, because we don't have a business cell phone to text with. Yes, I suppose I could set up some fancy integrated-with-our-POS system to text you from some number that we could then read replies to, but that both would cost time and money to develop, and would open up yet another vector for us to be contacted by (we already have a phone number, Yelp messages, Facebook messages, and email as it is.)
We can (and do) email customers, but email presents its own issues: People like to reply to them and we don't always have time to respond quickly, and people don't check their email often, or it goes into a spam filter...
It's not just us. It's your doctor, your pet groomer, anyone who has a local business. My suggestion here is to pick up calls from your local area code, and/or program into your phone the businesses you do business with.
Text messaging with or without email is easy to access online[0] and no longer required an ancient "business line" - you don't need to "integrate" it into your p.o.s. POS either. If you have fb, then there's surely no reason other than will that you can't use SMS.
[0] for example, https://www.twilio.com/
It's worked so nicely since I got it, I'm surprised we ever did without it. I think it also auto-disconnects calls from numbers that a sufficient-amount of people have flagged as spam.
The only problem it doesn't solve is when a business decides to do it's surveys/telemarketing through the same number it attempts to contact clients on. This is especially rife with SMS spam, where they use the same number to SMS you valid "updates" that they use to send promotions/ads and other spam.
This only weeds out lazy robocalls, I get plenty of calls with (presumably spoofed) caller id from my exchange. It would be trivial to add that into a spam script.
You can set up a virtual number to receive incoming - and so do 2 way email - SMS, and (not sure this applies in the US) if you don't need 2 way can spoof your number to show text alert instead, eg the text shows as from "1Up Repairs".
In your position it definitely sounds worth exploring. There's a lot of other places than Twilio too.
One last hint, if they're "too cheap" they'll be using grey routes and should be avoided like plague.
When a business, local or otherwise, asks me for a phone number I regard it as a spam-vector and decline. It's the businesses that need to adapt, not the customer.
A phone number is a very personal piece of information given the intrusion it permits into one's life, and many people are hesitant to share it with one-off requestors for that reason.
Why aren't you tweeting 'job #3327 complete'?
I really only communicate via phone if it's scheduled in the calendar.
- Don't answer private numbers ( where i don't see the number)
- Don't answer unknown numbers on landlines ( except Android lookup a business name and says which one -- then i handle it depending the bussiness)
- Pick up depending a mobile or landline. If it's a landline with our city code in front. I pick up. If it's not ( or from a big city), i don't pick up. If it's a mobile phone, chances are to big it's someone who referenced me.
Had no junk calls, except one. Where a telemarketeer seemed to use a mobile number... Which was akward
Which isn't really useful beyond getting them to only call once every few months instead of once every few days or whatever.
Everything but political crap and surveys seems to go like this, answering a call and saying no firmly ends that stream of calls.
For the surveys I answer and ask how much they are paying people to take the survey. Then when they say they aren't paying I say I'm not interested and hang up. My hope is that this is superficially annoying for the person doing the survey. Not antagonistic, just enough to remind them exactly what it is they are doing.
I believe you but I can only say that your experience is different than mine. Very different. My experience is that it seems to encourage them to call more often.
Until you hit 200, anyway.
My z3 doesn't. I'm running marshmallow. Where are you finding the option? On previous phones long pressing the contact gives you an ignore option but not this one.
Edit: I just discovered the option to send all calls from a contact to voicemail which is great but then I'll have to dial in and delete the voicemail otherwise there will be an icon there forever. Ideally there would be a button to dump the call and silently reject all further calls from that number. I suppose I could attach all numbers to the same contact.
It works pretty great. You get a single first ring, which I thought would be annoying, but every time I get a single ring and then nothing I actually feel a sense of elation.
That would be all of them.
No ISP wants to support spammers, but without Jetsons robots to individually vet every single customer, having to deal with some is inevitable.
1. A “Google This Number” button when an unknown call comes in, or something that pulls the equivalent “is this a scam?” information that I always seek out.
2. Rather than only having the option to Accept or Decline, I want a “silently wait until they hang up” option. I don’t want them to know I am declining their call (as that sends information that I exist and am a valid person); I want them to sit there and wait for me to pick up. Really what I want is for the phone to return my display to me; I don’t want my entire screen covered with the incoming-call message.
I think every Android phone I ever had featured this option (and probably every phone before that too). On Android phones I used, you have to press one of the volume buttons - it silences the incoming call without declining it.
I use that feature very often, not just on telemarketers.
I got tired of that and replaced it with Mr. Number, which seems to keep itself updated and allows me to ratchet up the blocking all the way to "everyone not on my contact list." That's not ideal, because I might miss calls from my credit card company, bank, etc, but the 2-3 scam calls I was getting every day were driving me crazy.
Wheneve a telemarketer comes through i punch ##66# abd that adds them to the blacklist ( in case they call back ) and sends them to the lenny script.
https://github.com/bshep/freepbx-Its_Lenny
Edited to add:
- The nerdvittles links did not work for me last time I tried, I got the sounds from the repo I forked
- The original repo was missing one sound which I found somewhere else ( dont have the source anymore )
- The module is unsigned due to ridiculous terms for module signing for FreePBX so if you use it you will get a scary warning, if you decide to sign it please let me know ;-)
My approach is a little different than to hang-up as quickly as possible, as this is a behaviour that the telephone solictors use to their advantange. In short, I try to soak a call for as long as possible. The best tactic is to be a little bit dumb, but fean interest in whatever the person is calling about. I generally find that getting them to explain each sentance they say about 3 times is about right, before moring on to the next sentance.
Anyway, I answer all calls, and press the button to talk to a human, then try to keep the human on the line for as long as possible.
The cost centre for these automated calls is for a human to talk to me. On at least 4 occasions after being an affible fool for about 20 minutes, without the sales person on the other end, they have said "okay, I get it, you don't want us to call you, and we will put you on our 'do not call list'". At which time they promptly hang up in a huff.
I my numbers, work, cottage/holiday home, mobile, work mobile, and work line now only get about 1 call a month, of which I am more than happy to take, and generally ends with the above result. Previously I used to get 4 or so random unknown calls a day.
I also notice that after calling for a taxi, the number of unwanted calls goes up.
These calls are using an anti-pattern of most people who are disinterested will hang up, but those who are interested will continue to talk to the person.
Their economic model depends on uninterested parties hanging up as quickly as possible. To disrupt their economics, take their call.
I know things are a bit different in the US and Canadia where the mobile/cell call receiver also pays for minutes. Here in the UK, and the rest of Europe, only the call initiator pays for the call. If you are calling from a land you will pay a higher rate to call a mobile (an 07 number).
You're right, though in all fairness, your solution doesn't scale fast enough. Most people won't altruistically do something like you did. We could use something that would be easy to set up and that would start generating significant costs for the callers without bothering callees much.
RE Lenny, how is one even supposed to use that? :o.
You could transfer calls to a SIP extension (or via a number of PSTN numbers in different locations). Unfortunately the original service is now defunct, but I'm sure there are some private closes in operation.
There's an archive of recordings on youtube linked from https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/ -- some are hilarious and sure to brighten anyones day.
That has changed in recent years. My postpaid cell plan (Verizon) now offers "unlimited talk" and "unlimited text". The only variable is how many GB of data a month you want to pay for. AT&T is similar. Just choose the amount of data.
Just talk over their opening spiel. 15 seconds, no more calls from that caller.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11793483
I continue to get calls. Still. Sometimes several times a day. This means two things to me. First, their dialer software sucks. Second, they do need to put people on a DNC list. It would improve their odds of scamming people.
I get a lot of calls from Indians. Any solution has to take into account the international nature of the annoyance. I'm perfectly happy with a whitelist system, or where anyone who has not called me before needs to sign up with my phone company using verifiable credentials.
I love trying get to the PPI callers to explain to me what bank accounts, insurance, credit cards are, finally saying that I might have had a bank account, or credit card, then try to get them to explain to me what the PPI is. I had a guy on the phone for about 40 minutes one day while I was waiting for the ferry.
The best thing you can do is get connected to a human as quickly as possible, so you can soak the call.
The other day I didn't really have time to take one of these calls, but I pressed 3 to be connected to someone, and left the phone. After about 5 minutes of being on hold, leaving the phone off the hook, I then heard someone going hello for about 2 minutes.
Another tactic I have is to claim some interest, but that I have to call them back as I am changing phone numbers/jobs/houses, or that I don't have time in the next few weeks, but when I find a moment I will call them back. I refuse to give a 'good time to call' because I am so busy, but when I have a moment I will return the call. This is an amusing tactic because most of the they claim they can only make outgoing calls, and that I will have to give them a time. I generally suggest that them must have an incoming phone number for other purposes, so surely they could give me that number. Usually they decline, so then finally I try to get the persons phone number on the other end of the call. They generally say that is their private number number, to which I say that this my private number, so it really would be quite fair for me to contact them on their 'personal' number.
This seriously works, as I only get one call every month or two. I have also gotten a bit of a reputation at work for these types of calls and my co-workers have not end of amusement that I engage with these callers in this way.
I only ever get one type of unsolicited phone call from a robot voice asking if I've recently had an accident, then transferring me to a human to get details.
I tried asking them to put my on their do not call list (very calmly and politely) and they keep calling. So now I waste as much of their time as possible everytime they call, and then block their number. (And then report them to ICO).
Me, too. In the last few months, the calls ramped up to a frantic pace on my cell #. The difference, though, is the caller ID was very close to my number, sometimes most digits were the same. All the calls were from the same company, I'd bet. Free trips to Mexico were the #1 subject. There were others. I started keeping them on the line for 10-15 minutes each. At the end, I'd say "I'm not going to give you my CC# because I kept you on the like since you refused to put me on your DNC list."
I've given up doing that, since having done it 10 or so times, I'm tired of it. They won, but not before I wasted a lot of their time, too.
These boiler rooms are really a scourge on our society. I know they scam lots and lots of people. On one call, I heard clapping every few seconds and when I asked what that was, they dude said someone had just "purchased" the free vacation (see, you need to give them $99 to secure that).
I dead-seriously believe that telemarketing is a much less honourable occupation than prostitution. At least in the case of latter, you have two willing parties who need something from each other and voluntarily engage in exchange of value. Telemarketing lives of lying, deception and ruining people's lives in borderline-legal ways.
Think about it. Someone can disrupt any moment of your life for any reason just by making a phone call. If your phone blinks, vibrates, or rings you are distracted. That's like an app you didn't install sending you push notifications. Taking this further... since you don't know anything about the app you have to judge on a case by case basis whether or not to engage further. Except in this case all you get as context is 10 digits. If you choose to engage further you hear someone's voice. Then you have to decide whether to remain civil and give the other person the benefit of the doubt or just hang up. It's all very gross.
Granted, it'd take awhile to get used to numbers like YheXuVtGf/sxxXFYxZD7bY5nI2Tf/ylNrgBf9b5IA5Q, but if it's combined with a petname system (where I just see names like 'Bill' and 'Bill's wife's sister Susan') then I think it could work.
Now I would very much appreciate if calling meant sending a lot more metadata. Like full name/surname and organization to which the number is registered. And then make phones capable of creating filters based on that data. Oh, and companies faking the metadata should be open to lawsuits.
I have found Cyanogenmod's built in call blocking to be essential; I have it set so all calls from withheld numbers and all that are not in my contacts are blocked. I let texts through, though they could also be blocked. If I expect anyone to call me who can't be persuaded to use email instead (e.g. a tradesman or shopkeeper) then I add their number to my contacts or ask them to call at a particular time when the blocking can be temporarily turned off. Only once has this latter tactic resulted in a spam caller getting through.
That's why I loathe telemarketers. Their tactics have made impossible to have a civil conversation because that's how they screw you over.
* https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mistergrou...
None of the apps solve the random VoIP callers. I would be perfectly happy with an app that outright blocked many VoIP providers.
I have these frequently and I enjoy nothing more than attempting to keep them on as long as possible.
One new trend not mentioned in this article is the "soundboard" telemarketer, where the telemarketer is hired from a low-wage country, but can respond to you by pre-recorded responses. Here's a good way to deal with these people:
https://soundcloud.com/user-630893114-106605627/speaking-to-...
What currently tortures me several times a day is certainly some sort of legal grey area, but mostly legal. I have Indian IT recruiters calling me several times a day for positions irrelevant to my job role and also in remote locations (I am US-based and it's a very large country, the US, for leisurely moving from the coasts to the Midwest). Here's why I think there's something fishy going on:
* They are 100% Indian, sometimes with limited English skills, suggesting that the US number they are calling from is just a reroute. Conversations are strained and you can tell they read from a script.
* The emails they send before they call contain a specific template that, even though they represent numerous different companies/agencies, the 'This is not spam' type disclaimer (starts with Please allow us to reiterate we chose to contact you because you had your profile online..) is IDENTICAL. The other thing that is identical is the Unsubscribe link, which takes you to the same templated page, with yet another agency name filled in.
* The positions always say, US citizens and green card holders only.
My conclusion: H1B employers are utilizing phone and email spam via Indian call centers to justify having advertised the positions in order to be able to fulfill the legal requirement. What better way than to contact someone in Boston or New York for a low paying role in Lansing, MI or Dayton, OH or whatnot.
Am I the only one?
The legal requirement is usually fulfilled by ploacing an ad in the classified section of the local newspaper (preferably print only), asking candidates to submit their resume via the mail with a reference number.
Either the world has gone mad, or there's a business reason for the above discrepancy given how extremely widespread (I say, daily and via numerous agencies) it is.
Perhaps, they're phishing for more information to target scams? I've heard the IRS scams are more effective against immigrants, for example. The caller may not realize that's the purpose for the call.
Could also just be annoy 1000 people, get one positive response, and that's good enough?