Phone Tag (telemarketing?) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: metrologist
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2017, 06:46:47 pm
content: 2017 has brought me many hang-up phone calls. Ring once, or twice, or several times, and then just hangs up. They come from all corners of the country.Do we know why or what is happening with this? Are these just telemarketers having line switching problems, or is there some meticulous application worming through the system and logging data for some future world ending nefarious plan?This is perplexing. I look up the numbers and find sites with long lists of people complaining about the same thing, hang-up calls, and they persist for some time. A recent number was listed as by a Peerless comm. I find this more interesting when I search this company (first result:http://www.peerlessnetwork.com/contact-us/do-not-call-lists/). Maybe this company will be listed as the owner of all the millions of numbers they provide to customers, I don't know, but if this is a problem why can't these network operators take control and shut this activity down? I mean it would seem easy enough to ban people from their network, permanently. There has to be a money trail that could be closed permanently for whoever is paying to set this junk up.I mean, if Dave can keep people off his forum, what gives with the experts that actually build the system? I just conclude that these companies are in it for money and their public statement there is a bold face lie in your face.I already registered for the do not call list and am getting these hang-up calls 3-4 times/week.

author: iainwhite
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 24, 2017, 10:19:26 pm
content: I'm not sure which country you are in but in the USA the "do not call" list is largely an honor system - the reputable marketing companies tend to comply with your wishes, but the bottom-feeding near-criminal operations do not (and they don't care).The bad guys also do things like generating a fake caller-id string to disguise who is calling you.In general the phone companies don't care as they are not responsible for policing the system - that falls to the Federal Communications Commission, who have minimal resources and little power.The reason for the hang up calls is probably due to the 'predictive dialer' systems that the telemarketers use - basically a computer that runs thru a database making hundreds of calls on multiple phone lines, and connecting any that answer to a marketing person - when all the marketing people are handling a call, the predictive dialer simply drops any surplus calls and waits for an agent to become free to take a new call.All in all, a pretty dirty business.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 24, 2017, 10:21:38 pm
content: Many robo-calling systems make calls like this to determine if a number is legitimate. If you answer, the system knows it's a good number and then the real calls start.

author: metrologist
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2017, 11:39:22 pm
content: It would not seem to matter if I answer because if the line is dead it would not patch through, or maybe it patches to the disconnected recording(?). Otherwise, I cannot think of a cell service that does not provide voice mail, so the phone system will answer itself (I don't know how to stop that), and from the tm point of view, all calls will be answered. The activity has picked up quite a bit in the last few months, but has been going on for years, and I have never received an actual tm call on my cell phone. At some point there just has to be a return for these people.I would be perfectly OK with collateral damage from equally inexpensive tactics being used by our enforcement branch or carriers to fight this (but I think there are kick-backs and that is why it happens). But the excuse is that they are being technologically out smarted by the bad guys and just can't stop it? I do not buy that at all.There just has to be more than 100:1 that dislike all this. I think some savvy people who have some clue how to stop this could set up a go fund me project or whatever. I bet every human on the planet minus telemarketers, MS execs, and cell carriers, would donate a buck and there would be like 5 billion dollars to stop it. Add spam to the project and you might get a lot of people donating big dollas...

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2017, 11:53:30 pm
content: As has been stated, the reason for the short call or line dead response if picked up is that the auto dialing computer allocates answered calls to call handlers until it runs out of handlers. It calls say 10 numbers at the same time per handler, as soon as someone answers one of those 10 calls it drops the other 9 and the system continues to do this in order to maintain a high hit count on 'victims' connected to call handlers. If a 'victim picks up and no handler is available at that moment, the line drops. Sadly the computer will continue to dial a persons number many times as they are on a rotating call list. I investigated this as my parents kept getting hang up calls and dead lines upon pick up. It is just the way the grotty call centres operate.I kept getting missed calls on my mobile phone from Ontario and I am in the UK. Weird I thought. Today they caught up with me and I answered. After a long delay and a lot of voices in the background, an Indian chap asked how I was and said that I had enquired about a second income..... I hung up on him at that point. I made no such enquiry and a call obviously from Asia being routed through Canada to disguise its origin is of no interest to me. It was obviously a call center as you call hear the jabbering of other handlers in the background. They had tried to call me on seven different occasions so they were pretty determined I must say. Thankfully I rarely get such calls.Fraser

author: metrologist
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 12:34:26 am
content: Quote from: Fraser on February 24, 2017, 11:53:30 pmI understand the mechanisms, but not the motivations to allow it to continue. What you are saying is that the system is designed to harass much more than 90% of the victims because 9/10 calls are dropped, then 8 of those would be dropped on rotation, then 7, etc...This must be affecting the top execs of several service providers and gov officials, and their families. Why is is there no movement to stop this machine harassment? What is motivating this complacency?

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 03:12:22 am
content: Quote from: Fraser on February 24, 2017, 11:53:30 pmCanada is one of the cheapest places to buy international minutes on a wholesale basis so it may just appear to originate there not as an obfuscation tactic but because that's really where the international telephone switch it's routed through is.I suspect your marketeers were poor in their technical abilities as it's easy to slap any apparent origin on an internationally routed call if you're buying minutes wholesale. Obviously, if they knew how to do it, using an apparent UK origin when calling a UK destination would make more sense.

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 03:15:29 am
content: I've gotten a few that go like this -"Hello is Steven there (or some other name)?"I say "No you have the wrong number."Then they say "Well maybe you can help me - I am representing blah blah blah ..."

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 04:47:44 am
content: I find that the number appears is spoofed often to look like an AT&T cell number. TM calls to house and cell are quite common. I get the "Some one you know referred" and I cut them off and say no they didn't. Or I get "this call may be monitored or recorded", I tell them no you can't record me. I love the hangups. Can't forget the Microsoft security team and the IRS phone calls. That group of idiots actually called twice in one day.Talk about persistence.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 06:04:54 am
content: Only reason to be thankful for high call costs here is the robocalls are not too many, about 3 a week. Most come from a certain blue labelled bank, and are an attempt to upsell me as a customer. the next higher are from the local telco monopoly, aiming to reduce the competition ( those cost them nothing, they own the network) from the other 2 network suppliers. Then far down are the others, like insurance companies and other.The MS scammers are often using the call centres of the other companies, moonlighting as and when volumes are low ( and obviously there is really little supervision on them as well) to do this, using the call list they enter. Most are from Mumbai ( accent gives them away) and a surprising number are local, calling from large call centres in country, again from regional accents on the call.most of the time the caller ID is either spoofed ( way too many digits, but the network ID is correct) or withheld, making it hard to block them easily. None of them originate from the fixed line infrastructure though, all are VOIP calls.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 06:49:38 am
content: Quote from: metrologist on February 25, 2017, 12:34:26 amReputable companies do not use these systems. It is the easiest and cheapest way to build a list of valid phone numbers. The actors using these devices are nearly always scammers.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 03:27:28 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on February 25, 2017, 06:04:54 amNot really an issue in this context as wholesale calls costs don't look anything like retail prices. My current wholesale buying price for international calls to SA landlines is $0.0124 USD/min; compare to calls to the USA (nearly always the cheapest) $0.0098 USD/min. Not a lot in it.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 04:01:16 pm
content: Keep an old smoke alarm on your desk. The next time you get one of those telemarketers, put the phone over the alarm and press the button.Now I wonder what it would take to write an app that sends the loudest, most annoying noise to the caller...

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 05:06:38 pm
content: Most scam calls and predictive dialing attemps in Germany are originating from Turkey. Of course they fake the CLID too. I assume that each region has its own phone scammer's paradise. Actually telcos could filter most scam calls easily but they prefer the revenue. The SS7 signaling includes the calling party's ID, which is displayed and can by faked if not filtered by the originating telco, and the "real" ID for accounting. If the CLID is a local number, but the call originates from another country, the telco on the destination side could reject the call by comparing the country prefixes. Another sad thing is that there are telcos offering "you can fake everything, we don't give a damn" services. Instead of putting them on a black list, other telcos are happy to forward the calls. This is something the telecom regulation of each country should be interested in.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 08:48:16 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on February 25, 2017, 04:01:16 pmThe maximum signal level for G.711 (uLaw on a DS-0, in North America) is about +3dBm. If you have a TDM trunk (e.g. T-1) or VoIP hookup, you could play this directly on the audio stream. For something like a POTS line, you will need to adjust for loop loss, and for a cellphone you'd be fighting the codec and AGC so I don't even know where to start.For people with phone systems, there are all kinds of things they will do to telemarketers, like forwarding them to a deeply nested, endless loop voice menu system, send them to milliwatt tones (0 dBm), forward them to the Butterball Turkey Hotline, etc. Searching for "asterisk telemarketer torture" will show examples (Asterisk is an open source phone switch).Speaking of autodiallers, something that people have done for decades that still seems to work is trying to trick them into thinking the number is disconnected, by playingSpecial Information Tones(in North America, the three tones you get preceding a recording that a number has been disconnected and is no longer in service). There used to be a product in the 90s called theTeleZapperthat did this for you, on a POTS line.Of course, now days, people justdo it with Asterisk. I take all my calls through a phone system which forces the caller to state their name before being connected, which has pretty much entirely cut out robodiallers and hangups (AsteriskFollowMe, option a). I just have my cellphones silently reject all calls except those from the phone system.

author: W2NAP
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 09:16:35 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on February 25, 2017, 04:01:16 pmuse a pbx phone system, have a whitelist of numbers that rings as normal, all else gets the sound of a old 56k dial up modem

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 25, 2017, 10:03:24 pm
content: I was thinking something simple like an Android app that anyone can download and use. It just has to send the bit pattern that decodes to a very loud noise, although it would probably require root. Maybe it would be easier with a custom ROM like LineageOS.

author: elecman14
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2017, 02:29:25 pm
content: Quote from: W2IBC on February 25, 2017, 09:16:35 pmI have something like this running on my home VOIP line. It is running NCID (Network Caller ID)http://ncid.sourceforge.net/on a raspberry pi. You can configure it for a white list or a black list and also play modem sounds at blacklisted callers

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2017, 02:39:12 pm
content: If it's not a number I recognise I answer the call with silence. Seems that 99% of robo diallers listen for about 3 seconds and hang up if they don't get any noise. As soon as you speak it tries to patch you through to a human.

author: bibz
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2017, 03:00:28 pm
content: Quote from: BradC on February 27, 2017, 02:39:12 pmYep 100% this. Robo calls are to build a profile of when you are home and likely to answer. You can tell them because they're noise gated. Any other phone call will have noise, especially when its from a call center. But answering to silence? Stay quiet and it'll be a good tell. Some also don't patch you through until you say 'hello'.I really dunno why I have a bloody landline but its free at this point so whatever.

author: Dielectric
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2017, 04:06:00 pm
content: I visited a robo-dialer manufacturer in the early 2000s. The poor guy was not exactly proud of what he'd created. Pretty sure they've shut their doors since then.Interesting tidbit I learned though, the "robot" is listening for a certain total energy level for activation. Most people answer with a bright and cheery "Hello!" which it finds easily, even if the spectrum is shifted for a deeper or higher voice. If you're on the fence about it, go ahead and answer the phone but use your best lazy Eeyore voice. If it's a human, all's well. If it's a robot, you may be able to just get the dead-air hangup.

author: W2NAP
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 27, 2017, 04:28:57 pm
content: Quote from: elecman14 on February 27, 2017, 02:29:25 pmbeautiful thing isn't it?

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2017, 05:17:07 pm
content: I have seen warnings that some of these calls want to you to answer "yes" to a normal question (e.g., "Is this John?") asked by the automated system so that they can record you saying "Yes" and insert that into some kind of fraudulent order.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 27, 2017, 05:44:23 pm
content: Here in France these calls are a very common scam - they abuse the fact that many people will call back when they see a missed call. And then the call goes to a special, very expensive number, either in France or abroad.There are several variants of these calls - one simply rings for a very short moment - sometimes the phone doesn't even actually start ringing before the call is terminated. The goal is simply to produce the missed call indication outright.The second type is a robocall where someone tells you something like "This is French Tax Office (Electricite de France/other utility ...) you have ..." <hangs up as if the connection has failed to make you call back>.The third type will claim that they are a court clerk/debt collector or some such and claim that you have some billing/payment irregularity and have to call back (an expensive number).The last two often leave voicemails too.I have lived in several countries, but here in France the amount of these phone scams is just crazy, both on landline and mobile. Surprisingly, regular telemarketing calls are not as prevalent, apart from the eternal Canal+ pay tv pushers. Most unsolicited calls I see are some variant of the above scams.

author: Gregg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2017, 12:17:05 am
content: I stumbled upon this a number of years ago:http://www.webwithwes.com/defeat.htmthat describes a device to play the USA telephone company standard "this number has been disconnected" triple tone before you answer. Or if you have an answering machine on a landline you can play it just before your greeting and it will stop some of the unwanted calls that use automated dialing.Telephone tones are the foundation of hacking; continuing the efforts is an honorable endeavor. If it weren't for phone hacking, we wouldn't have Apple products with their planned obsolescence.

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2017, 12:30:17 am
content: Quote from: Dielectric on February 27, 2017, 04:06:00 pmThat's what I was just saying. Just pick up the phone and don't say hello for 3-4 seconds and you'll get the click. No different to picking up the phone while trying to wrestle a toddler, there's still enough delay that the robo dialler hangs up, and your human on the other end either starts with "hello?" or waits for you to say something.

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2017, 01:31:04 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on February 25, 2017, 04:01:16 pmTotally understand the sentiment/frustration (we also get these calls despite the Do Not Call register!).I too would love to do this.However, using this tactic on the poor saps manning the phones is not really fair (I used to manage staff in a legitimate call centre for incoming calls only).The owners/managers of the Call Centre in some third-world country willnot give a sh$tabout the workers health or any compensation/sick leaveThe owners/managerswillnotgrow a 'conscience' if you do thisYou will damage the operator's hearingThe operators are paid a pittanceThe operators are told to just follow their 'script'The operators time is micro-managed to the minute and they are under pressure to get results

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2017, 01:34:53 am
content: Quote from: BradC on February 27, 2017, 02:39:12 pmGood tipI've just been saying hello and if there is no answer, hang-up straight away - but this will still work in the robocaller's favour.

author: MarvinTheMartian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2017, 01:37:30 am
content: Quote from: TimFox onTodayat 04:17:07Scary!Won't be using 'yes' any more!

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 28, 2017, 05:04:50 am
content: Quote from: MarvinTheMartian on February 28, 2017, 01:37:30 amCheck out the Peppa Pig episode where they play the "Yes No" game. She'll teach you how to do it effectively