Software to fight back against telemarketers/ scammers!! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2020, 11:36:03 am
content: https://bobrtc.tel/It robo calls the numbers or you can call and talk from a different phone number each time. I got a phone call the other day from my "doctors office" that doesn't employ any indian people, I played along to get all there info only to find they had all of mine!. These people were trying to sell me a back brace and had my medicare # (The new ones that are supposed to prevent fraud) and everything else. I reported them to the FBI because I have no idea how they got all of my info I use a different address for everything and they had my home address, it was like they hacked my doctors office for all this info.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2020, 12:39:57 pm
content: If it's a call from an actual person, hold the phone up to the smoke detector and press the button.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2020, 01:24:31 pm
content: You don't need software to fight these morons. Indian scammers were calling me twice a day. I changed my landline number and made it unlisted - that got rid of the pests.I was getting many robocalls calls from politicians, especially local politicians in Canberra and surrounding areas. I got 17 calls from a bozo politician named Clive Palmer during the last federal election. He would harass me often with dodgy texts and robocalls, usually during working hours, changing his number each time to bypass number blocking. The latest robocall from a Canberra politician alerted me he would call again the next day and the call would be redirected to a virtual town hall meeting about the Canberra electorate. I live in Melbourne, not bloody Canberra, which is about 700 km away. I emailed the politician, stating that if he calls me for the meeting, I will let all listeners know what I think of him and his Canberra. Furthermore, I would record the entire call and all the metadata as evidence to be used in subsequent legal action. He got the message. The next morning, I received an email promising they would not call me and that my mobile phone number was entered on a list somewhere as a Canberra resident. They said they contacted the robocalling company to remove my number from the list. They did not call. We will see what happens in the future.By the way, the politician robocalling problem was so prevalent at the last election, I had a Facebook page set up naming each offender with the details of the call. I altered our local federal MP, Gladys Liu of the Facebook page (she was also an offender) and asked her to get the law changed so that people can opt out of unsolicited robocalls from politicians, unions and charities. She has done nothing. We have a Do Not Call register, but the law created by the politicians exempts politicians so they can robocall people as often as they like.

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2020, 05:11:49 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on December 06, 2020, 01:24:31 pmIt used to be illegal here for telemarketers to call your cell phone but when the conservatives took over our country in the 2000's they got rid of all the consumer protection laws, privacy went away too.We have a phone company called verizon that will detect spam calls and display "potential spam" on your caller ID which I thought was great except if amazon tries calling you or your doctors office with a blocked number, or you are using a third party to call an uber driver it says spam, so you still have to answer the call, useless telemarketers that use your local area code and prefix get through every time which is 95% of robo calls.

author: Larryc001
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2020, 10:12:49 pm
content: I have a device which attaches between phone line and phone. It intercepts the call before the phone rings and requires callers to press a key. There are different keys for family, friends etc. Machines calling cannot press a button and so are blocked. I got it from a thrift store for cheap. Unfortunately now we only have cellphones but they are easier to detect spam callers when you only accept calls from numbers in your contact list. Still we get our share of nuisance calls.

author: digsys
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 06, 2020, 10:40:34 pm
content: A simple trick that works for well over 95% of cases .. auto diallers wait app 1.5-2.5 secs for an audio response before switching to a "human". If they don't detect audio, they just hang up. It is a way more efficient system - for them. So, for unknown numbers, no caller id#s or sus numbers, I leave a 2-3 sec silence before replying. On the rare occasions it IS a real person, you'll get "hello, anyone there" :-) I can only recall twice this year, when I got caught out

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 07, 2020, 12:38:49 am
content: Quote from: digsys on December 06, 2020, 10:40:34 pmAsking a question like this is how many telemarketers in the US get you to say "yes". They record you saying and, they use that to claim that you agreed to buy their product or service. AT&T started this, years ago they called people that didn't have AT&T long distance service and got them to say yes to anything and then they switched them to AT&T long distance service and at a greatly over inflated rate and claimed that the customer gave their permission. A practice called SLAMMING. The long distance service charge is included in most people's LOCAL phone bill and most consumers didn't realize that they had been switched until months later but by then many of them owed many hundreds or thousands of dollars in long distance charges. For that reason, I NEVER answer "Yes" to ANY question from an unknown caller.MANY telemarketer phone calls in the US start with them immediately asking "are you there?" or "can you hear me now?" (and in a voice that sounds like an automated call) and never the normal "Hello". When I get a call with a question like that I just answer "what do you want?" or something like that.That must not be the answer that their looking for because so far, everyone of them has hung up at that point.

author: mag_therm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 07, 2020, 12:55:27 am
content: I use an android app for call blocking. I think there are many of them.This one has a setting that sends all calls to vm except calls from those in the contacts database on the phone.It also has a cloud database that users can upload spam numbers with small description, then other users of the app can elect to block those.The problem with that is , the robocalls just use fake caller ID, so the same spam calls can come in to vm from many numbers.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 07, 2020, 01:00:23 am
content: Quote from: Stray Electron on December 07, 2020, 12:38:49 amThat is good advice indeed. I never answer yes to any of their questions. Over here they usually they start with a question like 'am I talking to -fill in your name-'.

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 07, 2020, 02:08:18 am
content: Here in Australia the Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA) recently announced that they are going to compel the carriers to actively address the issue of scam callers, not before time either.I will really miss these calls because nobody else bothers to ring me anymore.ACMA Website.https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2020-11/new-rules-detect-trace-and-block-scam-calls