Ask HN: Extremely brazen phone scammer – what to do?
I received a call from an obvious scammer (something about my social security number being stolen, etc), and in their recording they didn't provide an option to be put on a no-call list which has happened in other cases. The only option I was given was to dial "1" to talk to one of their agents. I dialed 2, and was instantly greeted by someone who had an almost accent-free English but was on a poor phone connection. He said "hello," and I said "would you please remove me from your list." He said he'll do that if I paid him $2k. I declined and said I need to be removed or I'll contact the police. At that point, he reiterated his offer, but added that he'll call me every single minute until I give in. I responded that I am not falling for this and that I'll file a police report, at which point he started using foul language and told me "that I am f*cked."
What surprised me about the call was the rudeness. I was expecting someone on the other line hoping that they are not going to get themselves in trouble and politely apologizing for calling the wrong person. Instead, the person I talked to was clearly convinced that they cannot get caught. Given the digital nature of our world, I am a bit surprised that's the case if you come across a sufficiently motivated person.
29 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 51.6 ms ] threadWith current infrastructure, a caller can say they are any number they want because the network trusts clients to report themselves accurately.
It's an interesting DDoS, if an attacker sends a lot of requests to a website, there are solutions against it, but what about a lot of calls to a number?
However I know your plight; I decided to escalate things with one of those "extended vehicle warranty" companies who swore up and down they removed my number, and said "We haven't been calling you". My caller ID on the device and records from my carrier proved this to be a lie-as the meme goes.
I calmmly asked for a mailing address for their offices so I could send them proof they had been calling (I wasn't about, but I wanted to see if they would) and that's when the asinine threats and pretend legal jargon began.
the person went on ramblig for a good 2 minutes it felt like.
"So what's that mailing address?"
They hung up on me.
Haven't gotten a call since.
My pitch was more about having multiple phone numbers and having a filter where it would only allow certain phone numbers to ring your actual phone. The idea was that you would give out a phone number, like you would give the number out but it would redirect to your real number without revealing it to the caller.
Once you are done with the throwaway number, you close the number and you no longer receive calls from people who had that number.
The big issue with my idea is that these telemarketers and other phone ner-do-wells aren't sourcing numbers. They are blindly dialing numbers along with spoofing the incoming number so it appears local.
It isn't possible to eliminate these calls by never giving out your actual phone number because your phone number is a string of 10 numbers that can be narrowed even further by knowing what area codes are in service, then narrowing even further I think on a closed set of the first three as well.
Ever notice how if you pick up a scam call, they don't immediately pick up, it takes 5 - 10s? Yeah, that's because the machine keeps dialing until it gets a signal that the call was picked up so it connects you to the caller.
Here's the problem with the business side: If you want to code in extra rules around PINs, requests, whitelisting, you need to route the carrier traffic through a service like Twilio, which is really expensive and cuts down on the margins of the business hard. When you combine that with Apple's margin and taxes, it's a really tight margin I found (even at 6.99$/month). If rerouted traffic could be much, much cheaper there could be a business there -- but there's always a threat Apple will just copy those features. I did get some paying customers though who really liked it.
There's also whitelisting on iOS, might that be enough for your use case? Otherwise there are plenty of blacklist/blocking services.
I started my service on Twilio with the idea that the apps didn't go far enough and were too inflexible.
My plans were $9 and $29 but even then, my margins were 10 - 20% which is just absurd for a pretty high-touch + risky product. Near the end, I was wanting to pivot from utility to 'replace your current phone service' and providing data makes it incredibly expensive when compared to other providers due to not having the volume to get reduced pricing.
If I had to do it right, I would get VC and become an MVNO and position it as a 21st-century phone company ("Why can't I text on my computer?", "why can't I have multiple numbers", etc).
How’s the margin on Android?
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program...
With all this surveillance and tracking going on everywhere at every level, are telecom companies seriously not able to see where someone is calling from??
Seen it first hand, one month, normal billing. Next month, $44,000k in fraudulent calls to and from Cape Town over an enterprise trunk thanks to a poorly configured ATA.
The solution to phone scams is SHAKEN/STIR (1). It will hopefully be rolled out next year. This is legal and social more than technical, despite the "digital" nature of the world our phone networks are built on a 150 year old tech stack where it used to be too expensive to call someone in a different country to scam them.
(1) https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-362932A1.pdf
There is a drawback, since there are legitimate uses for spoofing numbers. But journalists can purchase burners and service providers who enable trivial spoofing shouldn't be shielded from secondary liability.
The FCC created a broad exemption for providers that have taken other “reasonable steps” to reduce robocalls, which is self-certified. Providers and device manufacturers are complying with this requirement by allowing users to block known bad phone numbers and showing some special UI when an incoming call is authenticated.
You cannot communicate scammers into doing what you want.
The solution is to auto-send all callers not in your address book into voicemail.
The only solution to phone scams is some sort of government oversight and enforcement, possibily delegating part of responsibility to providers for allowing criminal behaviors to take place. Basically KYC for telecoms or charge people extra for making un-auth phone calls.
This will make scams very expensive and turn them into losing business proposition.
Each time I take up as much of their time as I can. This is time they cannot use to scam little old ladies out of thier pensions and retirement.
Until the governments decide they care enough to sanction India, these calls will not stop.
Write your representatives and media demanding solutions.
I am not Kitboga, but I enjoy wasting their time.
Sometimes they start the stream of profanity as soon as I answer, I guess we have met on a prior call.