SpamScam Phone Calls

I've just has 8 calls from the Amazon scam in the last hour (and counting). Fake Caller-ID of course and different each time

Is this a new approach where they bludgeon us to death in the hope that we'll push a button?

They are ramping it up it seems. We had 14 attempts yesterday, their bot is getting more sophisticated. Before we got chinese language message starting with "ni hao" right away, now we are getting 10 sec of English before the chinese language starts. Always a different number used, none seem to be traceable, none take a callback, and all can be blocked. Blocking doesn't help though because they are using a new number every time. This must add up to millions of numbers, which makes me wonder if the phone company isn't selling the scammers a deal on one time use numbers or some other gag. The phone company could stop all these crap calls if they wanted to. I'd love an option from the phone provider for no phone calls from specified particular countries to my cell or landline.

Edited By Jeff Dayman on 21/12/2022 22:29:05

With the CRTC in their pockets they ain't likely to be stopping them soon. I've maintained for years that the telcos' computers know exactly in which country all calls originate and they could therefore offer their customers the option to block certain countries (it would be easier for customers to state which countries they will allow than which one's they won't). Not holding my breath.

Might be better to nationalise the whole data/information structure and put it where it belongs - in public hands.

Whenever a website insists on my phone number, I give a number that the page accepts but which is not a real phone number.

If they really need to contact me they have my email address, and I don't get any scam calls.

I think there should be a facility on smart phones to only allow calls from numbers in your contacts list. That way you would know that if the phone rang it would be from someone you actually know or trust. Would have to be careful with bank phone numbers which can be spoofed of course. (It should be made impossible to spoof numbers anyway.)

I have had problems going back months, I get calls from numbers that start 0483 the rest of the number changes every time it calls, the call only rings about three rings then disconnects, if you ring the numbers they don’t connect. I used to get uptight about it but now I just let my phone ring for a while before answering, if it is the 0483 numbers then it disconnects itself if not answered immediately. I carry my IPhone in my pocket but with my new hearing aids I can answer the phone by using my hearing aids and I don’t need to handle the phone so I don’t always see the number calling. I cannot see any purpose to just calling a phone then disconnecting after three or four rings and changing the number every time, who is it and what is the purpose of the exercise, as mentioned above more than likely has its origins in China. Dave W

John Doe 2

I realise that the facility for blocking all but your favourites list is possible but my wife is not in the best of health so some calls are from medical facilities that are number withheld so not a way forward for me. Dave W

I missed a call this morning, from 01189660774 [no message left]

… probably the usual Amazon Prime scam, but I think it worth noting that whilst the first part of that number looks like a geographical code for Reading, searching for 0118966077 returns mostly Chinese web addresses.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 22/12/2022 10:34:59

Makes a change from Indian accents

Spam calls are a bl*ddy nuisance and worse, but they're not easy to block.

Jeff says 'The phone company could stop all these crap calls if they wanted to.' and Peter says 'I've maintained for years that the telcos' computers know exactly in which country all calls originate and they could therefore offer their customers the option to block certain countries.'

Unfortunately, these beliefs don't coincide with how the telephone system works. It's a packet switching network, not a point-to-point physical connection between two handsets identified by unique telephone numbers. In the good old days telephone numbers really were physically related to the wiring, now they're mostly labels, not used for routing or any other technical purpose. Bad guys can put any phone number they like on the call-id, and it costs him nothing. Phone numbers are untrustworthy.

In the past, telephone networks had their own infrastructure. Not now. Telephone conversations share the same general network infrastructure as the internet and data communications of all kinds. In terms of traffic volume, the telephone system is a minor player, just one data service amongst many. The advantage of sharing is cheap reliability; local, long distance and international calls cost very little, which also opens the door to abuse.

The system works something like this:

• You dial a number on your phone which is converted to a network address by the exchange. What you say is digitised and sent as a stream of thousands of individually addressed packets. The provider simply charges by call length and destination type.
• Each packet is loaded into a sub-network. A simplification, but the sub-network routes by directing packets with an address it recognises to a device (such as a telephone exchange), and if that fails by forwarding them to another sub-network. Each sub-net does the same until the packet's destination address is recognised.
• The way packets are routed means the network sends packets by any combination of available pipe. If the preferred transatlantic fibre link becomes busy, the system automatically routes with another one or by any available satellite. Users are unaware that their conversation is split into fragments and each fragment can travel by a different route.
• Provider pay backbone network suppliers a bulk rate for data, not individual calls. At the receiving end, there isn't much notion about where the call came from other than it's 'International' or 'Regional'. The system is analogous to the way magazines are distributed postally. Thousands of mags in pallets are handed over to the Post Office. The Post Office opens the pallets and distributes each magazine by whatever route is convenient. This probably includes bundling for transfer abroad, where another Post Office handles delivery to the customer, by whatever means he has available. Multiple couriers and shipping arrangements are used.

The upshot is the world gets cheap phone calls and I can browse the world's websites for free. The downside is it's difficult to filter out nuisance phone calls. Inventing a straightforward way of blocking them would be worth big money, but it's beyond me! It requires much closer examination of network packets than a telephone exchange can manage. Possibly in the next generation: phone providers are pushing hard to get rid of the 'POTS' (Plain Old Telephone System), replacing it with end-to-end IP telephony.

The traditional telephone exchange, carrying data communications as a sideline, is disappearing in favour of a network data switch supporting telephony as a sideline. When the inversion is complete, it might be possible to manage unwanted calls, because an IP phone can apply the same sort of technology used to control computer viruses and email and browser abuse. And we all know how well that works...

Dave

I tend to let it ring 8 or 10 times many bots give up quickly and hang up. Noel.

i kept receiving Calls about energy efficiently,so instead of telling them to clear off i recently tried a reply with, ""excuse me madam,this is the butler speaking ,her ladyship is not at home thank you for calling" not had a call from that lot since.

If I feel like answering unknown number, I ask for ID number, usually phone goes dead then..If I answer and nobody there or they terminate, I mark the number with a ZZZ, so next time I see ZZZ coming up.

The exchange used to be in charge of "telephone numbers" for call display. Then, with the advent of portable exchanges, anyone who controls such an exchange can assign the numbers for call display. That's a problem relating to the dissolution of the large conglomerates, such as "BT" or "Bell Canada".

There's a new RFC out called STIR - Secure Telephone Identity Revisited dated 2021; last time I checked (probably back spring timeframe) it was being implemented, but is not there yet. Maybe it will help??

(I used to go to IETF meetings, and my name is on an RFC, if you go back far enough!)

Anyway, 99% of the phone calls and text messages we get, we just don't answer. More and more, we are going back to email, unless we've put the actual contact info for phone# into our phones.

Sigh.

>Anyway, 99% of the phone calls and text messages we get, we just don't answer.

Let me introduce you to my wife ....

>More and more, we are going back to email,

Unfortunately, more and more entities are refusing to communicate by email and insisting on phone (voice or text).

Scam calls are a thing of the past for me. I have a broadband only contract, so landline dead. Mob permanently switched off to conserve battery power. All callers to my mob have the chance to leave a message if they are serious about contacting me. If I recognise the number, I call back and the rest get deleted. Dr Surgery and certain others have my email address. Gets hard to resist calling some intriguing messages and emailed but not bothered about sexual offers at my age!

They are all getting clever. Now they are scamming in NZ with an Auckland 09 or Christchurch 03 prefix, giving the false allusion of a NZ based call. Typically they disconnect as you pick up, hoping you will call them back. The answer phone has been good at catching them, and they are back to calling cell numbers again. It comes through as missed calls with rotating numbers all being missed calls. The other one doing the rounds again is pretending to be be from an outfit that is employed by banks to be looking out for fraudulent transactions on credit cards or bank accounts. A friend recently was caught by a card skimming scam, but they were taking out amounts of less than $20 at a time. But over a week had taken out several hundreds of dollars. As she did not check her account everyday, it had been going on for 5 days when she realised what was happening. The bank refunded the money to her account as the transactions were all in another city. The people doing the transactions as far as I know have not yet been caught. She thinks it happened when her card went out of sight from a bad swipe of the card. They held the card below the counter and swiped it a couple of times then when it was OK, she entered her pin number, not realising what was actually happening at the time.

Had a few over the past week, supposedly from numbers with a local area code. The recorded message states that my Amazon Prime subscription has expired and that I have been charged £95 for renewal. Options of pressing 1 or 2 for further information (which of course I didn't).

Rob

What are you doing to "invite" such calls?

Never had one.

Good question, Kwil. I almost never give out my real phone number and when I do it's to someone or some entity that I'm 100% sure is legit.

That said, my number is "public" (not unlisted) and as far as I can see they just call numbers at random. If you ever find out why you don't get them, please let the rest of us know.