Several times a week my cell phone receives the telephonic equivalent of spam: A robocall. On each occasion the call seems to come from a local number, but when I answer there is that telltale pause followed by an automated voice pitching some product or service. So when I heard from a reader who chose to hang on the line and see where one of these robocalls led him, I decided to dig deeper. This is the story of that investigation. Hopefully, it will inspire readers to do their own digging and help bury this annoying and intrusive practice.
The reader — Cedric (he asked to keep his last name out of this story) had grown increasingly aggravated with the calls as well, until one day he opted to play along by telling a white lie to the automated voice response system that called him: Yes, he said, yes he definitely was interested in credit repair services.
“I lied about my name and played like I needed credit repair to buy a home,” Cedric said. “I eventually wound up speaking with a representative at creditfix.com.”
The number that called Cedric — 314-754-0123 — was not in service when Cedric tried it back, suggesting it had been spoofed to make it look like it was coming from his local area. However, pivoting off of creditfix.com opened up some useful avenues of investigation.
Creditfix is hosted on a server at the Internet address 208.95.62.8. According to records maintained by Farsight Security — a company that tracks which Internet addresses correspond to which domain names — that server hosts or recently hosted dozens of other Web sites (the full list is here).
Most of these domains appear tied to various credit repair services owned or run by a guy named Michael LaSala and registered to a mail drop in Las Vegas. Looking closer at who owns the 208.95.62.8 address, we find it is registered to System Admin, LLC, a Florida company that lists LaSala as a manager, according to a lookup at the Florida Secretary of State’s office.
An Internet search for the company’s address turns up a filing by System Admin LLC with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). That filing shows that the CEO of System Admin is Martin Toha, an entrepreneur probably best known for founding voip.com, a voice-over-IP (VOIP) service that allows customers to make telephone calls over the Internet.
Emails to the contact address at Creditfix.com elicited a response from a Sean in Creditfix’s compliance department. Sean told KrebsOnSecurity that mine was the second complaint his company had received about robocalls. Sean said he was convinced that his employer was scammed by a lead generation company that is using robocalls to quickly and illegally gin up referrals, which generate commissions for the lead generation firm.
Creditfix said the robocall leads it received appear to have been referred by Little Brook Media, a marketing firm in New York City. Little Brook Media did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Robocalls are permitted for political candidates, but beyond that if the recording is a sales message and you haven’t given your written permission to get calls from the company on the other end, the call is illegal. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), companies are using auto-dialers to send out thousands of phone calls every minute for an incredibly low cost.
“The companies that use this technology don’t bother to screen for numbers on the national Do Not Call Registry,” the FTC notes in an advisory on its site. “If a company doesn’t care about obeying the law, you can be sure they’re trying to scam you.”
Mr. Toha confirmed that Creditfix was one of his clients, but said none of his clients want leads from robocalls for that very reason. Toha said the problem is that many companies buy marketing leads but don’t always know where those leads come from or how they are procured.
“A lot of times clients don’t know the companies that the ad agency or marketing agency works with,” Toha said. “You submit yourself as a publisher to a network of publishers, and what they do is provide calls to marketers.”
Robby Birnbaum is a debt relief attorney in Florida and president of the National Association of Credit Services Organizations. Birnbaum said no company wants to buy leads from robocalls, and that marketers who fabricate leads this way are not in business for long.
But he said those that end up buying leads from robocall marketers are often smaller mom-and-pop debt relief shops, and that these companies soon find themselves being sued by what Birnbaum called “frequent filers,” lawyers who make a living suing companies for violating laws against robocalls.
“It’s been a problem in this industry for a while, but robocalls affect every single business that wants to reach consumers,” Birnbaum said. He noted that the best practice is for companies to require lead generators to append to each customer file information about how and from where the lead was generated.
“A lot of these lead companies will not provide that, and when my clients insist on it, those companies have plenty of other customers who will buy those leads,” Birnbaum said. “The phone companies can block many of these robocalls, but they don’t.”
That may be about to change. The FCC recently approved new rules that would let phone companies block robocallers from using numbers they aren’t supposed to be using.
“If a robocaller decides to spoof another phone number — making it appear that they’re calling from a different line to hide their identity — phone providers would be able to block them if they use a number that clearly can’t exist because it hasn’t been assigned or that an existing subscriber has asked not to have spoofed,” reads a story at The Verge.
The FCC estimates that there are more than 2.4 billion robocalls made every month, or roughly seven calls per person per month. The FTC received nearly 3.5 million robocall complaints in fiscal year 2016, an increase of 60 percent from the year prior.
The newest trend in robocalls is the “ringless voicemail,” in which the marketing pitch lands directly in your voicemail inbox without ringing the phone. The FCC also is considering new rules to prohibit ringless voicemails.
Readers may be able to avoid some marketing calls by registering their mobile number with the Do Not Call registry, but the list appears to do little to deter robocallers. If and when you do receive robocalls, consider reporting them to the FTC.
Some wireless providers now offer additional services and features to help block automated calls. For example, AT&T offers wireless customers its free Call Protect app, which screens incoming calls and flags those that are likely spam calls. See the FCC’s robocall resource page for links to resources at your mobile provider.
In addition, there are a number of third-party mobile apps designed to block spammy calls, such as Nomorobo and TrueCaller.
Update, June 27, 2017, 3:04 p.m. ET: Corrected spelling of Michael LaSala.
You do realize that because the robocallers go out of their way to obfuscate their identity that we have no way of reporting them.
Go ahead and report that number that looks like your same exchange with the last 4 randomized. What good does that do?
If carriers enforced only sending the Caller*ID of numbers owned by the originator or letting recipients see the actual ANI and not just the Caller*ID, this problem would vanish quickly enough. Then we would have verifiable information to act on.
Amen. Reporting to FCC achieves nothing.
But forwarding Brian’s fine piece to your Congressmen with follow up calls and requests for follow up may get results. Bug the hell out of people until you see results.
On June 22, 2017 the FCC proposed to fine a single individual $120 million for running a massive robocall operation. The Citation and Order goes into considerable detail about the consumer complaints received and the FCC’s investigation of them. This case was in development before the current FCC administration.
https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-proposes-120-million-fine-massive-caller-id-spoofing-operation
Report to the FTC the originating company that (inadvertently?) hired the robocallers. Once there’s a record that a company is knowingly using illegal means to reach potential customers, the liability shifts (somewhat) to them.
They can’t continue to wash their hands of it like described in this article.
Wrong. Act interested. When they pass along your contact info and the underlying business calls you’ll find out who to report. I’ve done that with solar electric companies, a local chimney cleaning service, and a few others which no longer call. I still get calls about lowering my credit card payments because to proceed with them you have to give them your credit card info which I don’t want to do
This makes me wonder if it would be possible to use a prepaid visa with a few $ left on it.
Nomorobo (via Xfinity): useless.
That’s interesting. We have NOMOROBO through Verizon FiOS on all 3 of our landlines, and it works great. In fact we are getting fewer and fewer robocalls, and I must assume that’s the reason.
My family had Verizon FiOS and is very happy with nomorobo too.
The most annoying robocall that I get is a debt collection agency in the midwest that calls and tells me I have outstanding debts and need to call them. They always call on a Saturday, and there is no way to punch through to a live person unless you call them directly.
Web searches show that if you call the number back, they escalate and accuse you of having collection notices against you.
Strangely enough, I have no debt anywhere near a collection state.
I used to get those calls, also. They were never for me. Some agencies call numbers in the same area as that of someone who owes money. It wouldn’t surprise me if some people give out wrong phone numbers.
Debt collection agencies can also buy lists from others and try to coerce payment on old debts.
Some people spend a lot of money for an iWatch that buzzes periodically to remind them to get up from their desk and move about for health reasons. I have a cheaper solution: Just locate your phone away from your disk. Then when the robocalls come in, you are forced to stand up and walk over to the phone to answer it. Works great for me!
The Do Not Call Registry does not work! We get calls daily, sometimes twice, about credit repair services or 0% interest rate credit cards. These calls come from all over the United States, Ohio, New York, Florida, California, etc; the one thing consistent is the caller ID: XXX-XXX-9047.
Zombie Debt Collectors are a scourge. A number of years ago after my employer switched from a switchboard system to direct-dial, I started getting calls from debt collectors. I ignored the calls since I wasn’t “Cole Brown”, but a robocall from a healthcare provider got my attention since healthcare providers and insurance companies can wreck lives. The robocall from Carolina Alliance just provided a seven digit number; they didn’t include the area code. But that provided me with a clue since South Carolina, at that time, had three area codes. I found that they were located in Charleston (843) and I also found “Cole Brown” in the same online phone directory. I have no clue why they were calling Columbia (803). On rare occasions, a live person called. One asked is this 803-XXX-XXXX? I answered “Yes, but we have three area codes.” Another occasion, a coworker asked me about a question when the phone rang: “Is this Cole Brown?” “No”. Mark said “It must not have been an important call.” I said “No, it’s just a debt collector. Mark’s jaw dropped.
I’ve gotten Zombie Debt Collection calls also from my cell phone. One collector swore that my number was on their credit application. No, I don’t know who she is.
We have our home phone registered with NoMoRoBo (http://www.nomorobo.com/) which won a shoot-out sponsored by the FTC to block robocalls. For the most part, it works except for spoofed numbers. During the South Carolina presidential primary season in February 2016, our home was mostly quiet. One call came through from Bernie and Hillary, but I reported those.
I get those zombie debt collector calls all the time. They seem to be looking for ‘Sharon Miller’ every three months. I’d say it’s possible it was a previous owner of my phone #, as I’ve been getting them the whole 5 years I’ve had it, but I’ll get random calls and texts looking for this person for things like car insurance quotes and such. I’m thinking mine is the wrong # that person is giving out.
SOLUTION:
Forward your line to a FREE GOOGLE VOICE number, which first SCREENS your calls, and then forwards to your cell AND OR to another number you actively use. Then:
— ALL calls get screened by GV with these rules:
—– 1. The number IS in my contacts list, (the list can be uploaded)
— A. Phone rings cell and or another numbers with CID name, and I answer or:
— B. It goes to Voicemail, and I get a transcript via email, on the website, in GVoice App, AND a text message. And of course, I can also listen to it from any of these notices.
—– 2. The number is NOT in my list of contacts
— A. Number is checked by GOOGLE’S LIST for spam and (rejected if so, and puts call in spam folder).
— B. Number is looked up in MY” BLOCKED” spam list, and if they are all marked, PLAY the “NOT IN SERVICE” MESSAGE, (GV calls it “Block”) You can add any number at any time.
— C. Voicemail message says that “I don’t have you in my list, and you must give me your name and number, and I will listen to your message, and call you back shortly”. Again, I get a transcript, so I see any calls in near real time.
— Adding Blocked Numbers — Generally, I look them all up in search FIRST, and also try to use 800Notes.com as well. Lately, I’ve been getting a bunch of spoofed REAL numbers, but all from my local exchange, (few people I know are in that exchange.)
PROBLEMS — Why +25 spam calls per day?
— I’m a CEO, so I get barraged.
— I also inherited an EXISTING phone number from a real deadbeat. (Don’t EVER take a new number that was in-use before! If so, they have a RIGHT to call you–for YEARS!)
— I also have relatives who have credit problems.
Add these up, and I used to get 15-25 calls per day. Now I get less than ONE call per day, and those are almost always blocked before my phone rings. Google’s list also seems to be getting better all the time. I still think the “not in service” recording is the best defense though–and this is a built-in feature of Google Voice.
I moved my cell number, which I’ve had for well over a decade, to Google Voice out of frustration last year. I made the mistake of using it for a side business, and the SPAM calls for various business services were unliveable.
The “do not disturb” setting, combined with what you describe, have been wonderful. Maybe one call every few days, and I never hear it.
“If so, they have a RIGHT to call you–for YEARS!”
Not true. Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, they MUST cease all telephone calls upon request, and switch to written communication to the address provided. The FDCPA gives you a lot of power in how to limit the communication — that can be only call within a certain window, don’t call during these hours, or don’t call at all, only sending snail mail. If they ask for an address, tell them no — you’re not obligated to do so.
Every time a collection agency violates the FDCPA they’re liable for a $1000 fine. That can add up quickly. Every time they call, get the name, number, and time of call, and inform them along with your intent to follow up with the FTC regarding the FDCPA violation. Threatening you with arrest, or threatening you with a lawsuit (if they don’t follow through) are also violations and subject to the same fine.
I should clarify my claim they “have the right to call you for years”.
With notice, the specific company that owns that debt can’t call you. However, when they sell that “dead account” next month, the new company can start fresh.
Without any notice from you each time a new collector of that debt acquires it, that new debtor has no way to legitimately know you inherited someone else’s number, or are a relative to their debtor or not. Since there were literally dozens of these debtors calling me at once, it would have been a huge burden to send them all letters advising them that they can’t call me.
It also would be futile. When they sell the account to someone else, since the new debtor can’t know that they can’t call you, the same debt starts the calling from elsewhere. This series can and has gone on for decades.
I had one such case against me. The case was dismissed before we even went in front of the magistrate. This was in 1973, over FIFTY years ago. About 10 years ago, a company tried to collect for this “debt” that was dismissed. I was so incensed at the time, I hired THAT former judge to sue the collection company for knowingly and fraudulently trying to collect on this debt.
Still, the calls keep coming. For me, my GV has worked best. Legislation won’t ever be a cost-effective deterrent. Even if you get a judgement, good luck on finding assets you can attach so you can collect. And, as we all know, this is only one type of robo calling…. The support scams, the IRS scams, even the power company cutting off your power in 2 hours scam…. if these come from overseas with faked numbers, who do you sue?? No one.
Just stop and block the calls yourself, is the only cost-effective method. IMO.
Trump’s FCC is not going to do anything about this. In fact, they will probably loosen or eliminate many of the existing regulations. That’s what he does to most of the agencies under his purview
“Birnbaum said no company wants to buy leads from robocalls, and that marketers who fabricate leads this way are not in business for long.”
So they change their name and start over?
Sounds like robocallers exist because there is a market for their services, regardless of what Mr.Birnbaum says.
Very interesting – just picked up a new Samsung last week. As I’m cooking dinner 15 minutes ago, the phone starts ringing. I look over to see who’s calling and it says Robo Call on the display. Nothing I’ve installed. Verizon is the carrier.
Not sure if this has been mentioned or if you know about it but it’s been the solution to my spam call problem. If you search on youtube Jolly Roger Telephone Company or go to his website http://www.jollyrogertelephone.com you will see a guy who’s name is Roger and is a Telephone engineer and he created multiple robot’s that talk to the spammers. If you get a spam call, you just forward the call to a number he has created that you store in your phone and let the robot do the talking and not waste your time but theirs. He’s done TED talks about the system and uploads the best calls he had from people who get the scam calls to his youtube channel. Certainly worth a look as my spam calls have dropped alot.
ROTFLOL!! That is the best idea I’ve hear in a long while! I’d do that myself but I really don’t wan’t anyone knowing my number is active. It is fun to mess with phone crooks.
I just signed up for his Google Voice product; the only con I’m finding so far is it doesn’t work on calls that are made to my real cell phone number and only works on the calls to my Google Voice number. Despit solely using my G-Voice number for everything, somehow my real cell phone number still gets sold to these scammer/telemarketers.
I believe he is beta testing his cell phone product ‘Pirate Voicemail’. If I wasn’t so entrenched in Google Voice I’d seriously considering trying his new product. Gonna say it again, please Brian review Jolly Roger Telephone Company and talk to Roger.
1. You can set your phone to only accept calls from your Google Voice number. You can configure Google Voice to show your number on caller ID. You lose the visual caller ID, but can trust that only calls that Google Voice accepts will be delivered.
2. You could disable inbound calling in your phone, user Hangouts (Google Voice via data) in your phone for all involved and outbound calls. It will ring the same way, but you’ll be billed for data.
Well Matt…..your spiel sounds exactly like 3 or 4 other comments on this thread, essentially advertising for Jolly Roger…..almost so similar as to make generally intelligent folks think you are the same person, posting under different names….
I was expecting that and i am shaking my head at you. So because i have had a good experience with the service he is offering and multiple other people have had a good experience, they cannot give feedback. Just check it out on Youtube and will see that i am not advertising for him, just really happy with what he has offered.
I am definitely not Matt but re-reading my two posts and even I sound like a shill and couldn’t help but cringe at my own posts.
The Ted Talk he gave and his youtube channel of recorded calls speak for themselves, if those won’t convince you, nothing will. Wasting these scammers time is the only real way to get back at them because “time is money”. The more time they waste on these bots is less time they’re making money by scamming the less informed users who don’t use these apps or services.
We live in a “senior facility” and we’ve received calls for everything from reverse mortgage, debt consolidation to solar panels. Our Verizon cell phone allows us to block calls once they have occurred. We only get a few.
We’ve also learned that somehow [I don’t know how it’s done] certain phone prefixes [the same as ours] are being used for mass marketing. I looked the number up on the Internet and there was an informative article on the very same number, being used by several mass marketing scammers.
We also have a “land line” and I have the answer machine start with, “…we’re not at home, or maybe we’re just screening your call…”
Do we still get the calls? We do, but now we don’t waste our time taking to some schmuck. All we get are hangups. That’s fine. Life is still very, very good!
Permitted for political calls. Why?
Special interest groups in Washington helped write the law; but you know no politician is going to want to block political robo calls.
Because politicians always exempt the legislative branch from laws that restrict activity.
When I get these allowed calls, I tell them I am on the do-not-call list. Most hang up then, but some try to argue with me, saying this is not a sales call and they are exempt. I then tell them that being exempt doesn’t make their call welcome, and I won’t vote for politicians who ignore the do-not-call list.
I have a personal policy that I will not vote for any candidate that Wrobbel calls me. I inform each candidate office after receiving a Robo call and inform them that I cannot and will not vote for any candidate who believes that they should exempt themselves from the laws that the rest of us must hold two. One of the office administrators have the audacity to claim that they did not do robot calls and their opponent was probably placing the calls on their behalf. Cute.
Lol, don’t be cynical.
Political speech in the US can’t be completely by FCC or FTC or legislation because they’re the government. And our First Amendment to the Constitution prevents this.
Otherwise, the party in control would always elect to block the opposition. (And the situation would reverse when the other party is in control).
For this reason, neither party has the gall to even try throwing up aN impediment to political calls.
(Edited, if uou could replace this for other comment , brian…)
Lol, don’t be cynical.
Political speech in the US can’t be completely blocked by FCC or FTC or legislation because they’re the government. And our First Amendment to the Constitution prevents this.
Otherwise, the party in control would always elect to block the opposition. (And the situation would reverse when the other party is in control).
For this reason, neither party has the gall to even try throwing up an impediment to political calls.
I suffer this problem from a different direction. My landline is one of a relatively small number on that prefix and I get calls from local people complaining that my number is robocalling them Since many are elderly I don’t think they believe I’m not the bad guy 🙁
I don’t understand why callerID spoofing is permitted for any marketing purposes.
Sometimes I’ll answer and scream as loud as I can or I have a whistle I blow . It’s hilarious.
I hang up as soon as I hear the pause after I say hello.
The pause at the beginning of the answered call is the give-away that it’s a robo call.
Even though it connects pretty fast, there is still a delay when the computer realizes the call has been answered and it then tries to connect you either to an operator or play the recording.
If it turns out to be someone who is just slow in talking they will call me back.
A friend of mine has his fax on the same line and he hits the start button as soon as he senses a robo call.
I’ve found that if I omit the “hello,” I get silence instead of the robocall. After about 10 seconds, I ask, “Is anyone there?” and the caller terminates the call.
Let’s see… at least 5 billion humans are desperate for some sort of decent job, including phone sales. Our government is dismantling most major legal protections. Who would do anything about robocalling under these circumstances?
I am using Nomorobo, and it has cut down on the calls quite a bit. My phone rings once for these calls, and then Nomorobo has figured out it is a robocall and dropped it.
I’m seriously surprised that the telcos are seriously trying to do something about the spoofed number problem. I’ve been a victim of a local phone thief, who would collect the numbers of people he found had discovered his treachery, and call random people with these numbers he spoofed in a bid to discredit them. It was probably 10 years ago or so – and I’d never known it was possible till then. I did some searching online and found there were apps that could be downloaded to your cell phone to spoof any number you wanted. I did a police report and invited them to check my land line phone bill to verify that the call wasn’t me – at least he couldn’t pull that off – back then!
This guy would find land line phone boxes with no lock on them and affix his radio walk about phone to the line, so he could make free calls at the expense of the victim – he could also collect numbers that the victim had received and called out on. All he had to do to make a free call was get within wi-fi distance of the base with his walk about phone and rip off his victims. It was actually a friend he did it to, but I knew what happened and advised him, about these scams from a time when one of them did the very same thing to me.
I’m just regurgitating what Roger Anderson said on a recent Tom Woods podcast but if sophisticated users manage to block these robocalls with apps such as Nomorobo and Truecall that just means these automated phone systems will move on to the next number and are more likely to get non-sophisticated users (i.e. your grandparents). The best solution for now is to tie up or waste their time with bots such as the ones at the Jolly Roger Telephone Company. I’ve seen a handful of mentions in the comments for this service and the idea of wasting their time with Roger’s bots and keeping them from reaching the less sophisticate user is sound. I’m using his Google Voice product and at only eight dollars and change a year it’s a bargain considering I don’t have to hear from the so called “AT&T Service Center” anymore. The service even got me to turn off the built in spam filtering in Google Voice.
I really hope Brian reviews or talks to Roger Anderson.
One small correction: Little Brook Media appears to be based in “New City”, NY (in Rockland County), not “New York City”, NY.
Also, Little Brook Media’s website is easy to find online at http://www.littlebrookmedia.com. Their listed address of 20 South Main Street, New City looks old via Google street view. And yet the guy who registered the Little Brook website, Dan Steele, appears to have used his home address on the registration. And he has a public profile on LinkedIn connecting him to Little Brook. I stopped digging at that point but I’m sure there’s more to be discovered about the Little Brook/ Dan Steele group.
Or you could help the programmer who wrote a script that calls phone scammers 28 times a second causing service denial and preventing future scams. Seems like he identifies the actual number’s they’re calling from using SIP and tracks Google complaints to look out for new numbers:
Here’s the video and call logs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzedMdx6QG4
Has a Patreon now called “Project Mayhem”:
https://www.patreon.com/ProjectMayhem
What makes you think that the outgoing calls have any connection to the phone that accepts incoming calls? This seems an exercise in futility and you may be hurting someone innocent, which is a crime.
It’s easy enough to call the number and confirm it is a call center focused on scamming people, such as the Windows Support callers.
Afaict, most scams include a callback phase, maybe because they can escalate payouts by convincing marks they’re real?
Thus, there is a number one can tie up, even if it isn’t the outline solicitation “number”.
One person recently decided to take some action against one of the scammers directly. The fake IRS scammers often leave a message with a callback number, so the person behind the “project mayhem” YouTube account decided to give them a taste of their own medicine. One VOIP service, and a bit of scripting later, and they were flooding the Hindi speaking call center, with 28 calls per second, saying (paraphrased). “You are scammers, we are going to keep you from ripping of the unwary by keeping you busy. We won’t stop until you do.”.
FYI, the Republican Party and the US Chamber of Commerce have been actively supporting the efforts to allow messages to be dropped directly into voicemail. See https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.recode.net/platform/amp/2017/5/23/15681158/political-campaign-robocall-ringless-voicemail-without-ringing-cellphone-republican
First, the telecom companies can stop most of the rob calls using AI, IF they wanted too at almost no cost. Second, the government could force the telecom companies to do it, IF they wanted to. Since neither happens the only logical conclusion is that they do not want to do it probably because of the cozy relationship the politicians have with the telecom industry – THEY can robo call to sell you political baloney.
As far as illegal (sales and spoofed) human calls are concerned, the new dodge is to speak even if an answering machine picks up. They try, “hi” and “hello” and “this is (fill in the blank).”
As far as it being Trump’s fault, it’s the only laugh I’ve had over any spam call subject for almost two decades.
I have filed more complaints than you can count, it’s a waste of time, the right answer is huge fines and jail time and 20 percent of the recovered fines as rewards for those supplying information leading to arrest and prosecution. We have to get the insiders turning each other in – that always works.
very interesting fact you share with us. it will help lots of people.
On the rare occasions when these folks are busted the Federal and/or State Governments appear to be content to slap them with a major fine which they probably take out of petty cash. Basically the Fed and/or State is getting “their beak wet,” slapping the offender on the wrist and cutting them loose with the admonition “naughty boy, don’t do it again.” My solution would be a tad more draconian. Upon proof of guilt you would be remanded to the Warden of a Federal or State Prison; it would not be a work release facility, there would be no community service you would be in there with the general population and good luck to you.
More on this please Brian…
There is very little in my life that frustrates me more than robocalls. I love the morons here, oh sorry, these fine intelligent folks, who suggest not answering the phone unless you have the number in your contact list or recognize it. Really? I spend money to have a website to drive people to call me for business, and you suggest that I not answer the phone??? Sheesh, must be nice to be able to ignore a principle line of contact for business. Primarily I am getting spoofed numbers that are from my local exchange and then the recording starts. I just hang up as fast as I can. The real PITA is to put someone on hold to answer a call waiting ring through and it ends up being a robot, or drop what you are doing, typically with my hands covered in something I don’t want on my phone, dig it out of my pocket, then to have some asshat programmed message like “Jessica”. A team of retired SF guys and some white hat geeks could have some real fun putting the hurt on these robo-jerks. I really hate being helpless to stop this nonsense. /vent-off
I find these robocalls annoying since it doesn’t bother the ones who send the calls. I hope these new rules will lessen these annoying calls.
The proper solution to this would be authenticated caller ID. When a telecoms provider is assigned number ranges (by the FCC or equivalent authority), they are given a certificate which allows them to vouch for the caller ID of those number ranges. If they let another provider use those ranges they in turn sign their key and give them a certificate for this range, creating an audit trail as they now know who they allowed to use those ranges.
When a legitimate call is made the origin provider would sign the call initiation request which can be verified by all equipment down the line and the call would be dropped (or caller ID would be stripped) if the signature is invalid/missing.
This would make it easy to shut down spam-friendly providers as the caller ID is now the proof that this provider initially authorized the call.
Of course, this will never happen as telecoms providers get money from every second of voice transiting through their infrastructure – fighting spam would in fact make them loose money, so that’s why nothing is being done.
For all the “the security of our customers is our #1 priority ” talk, I am still amazed that the telecom industry somehow can’t manage to prevent CallerID spoofing. There is obviously a significant revenue stream from the spammers that is keeping this issue in the “fix, maybe, someday” pile. Besides these interruptions and annoying spams, much more criminal and dangerous uses occur as well (like swatting, which was used against Brian Krebs himself). If the toothless FCC can manage to stop invalidated CallerID from entering (or at least being passed along as valid), then the occurrences will drop dramatically.
Why can’t the tariff laws be changed to incorporate a “validated” flag (perhaps in the text section” that the carrier sets vouching for the CallerID? Or conversely, a “invalidated” flag. This can allow a mechanism for customers to identify such calls automatically for blocking. This is already the case for “UNAVAILABLE ” calls, but now spammers just spoof a number.