Phone Scams And What Can I Do About Them?

[Ar-Pharazon]

On both my cell phones (personal & work) I constantly get scam calls. About 95% of the time they have the same area code & prefix as each phone. I block the numbers right away of course, unless there's a voicemail indicating it's a legit call.

This is due to scammers co-opting existing phone#'s as some sort of masks. A shame there's nobody that can do anything about this (FTC is useless).

So today, I've gotten 2 calls on my work cell from...wait for it...my work cell. The caller ID shows it being "my name here" and my phone#.

Can I block myself from calling myself? Will this cause some sort of tear in time/space or blow up my phone?

 

[StarCruiser]

Yep - the FTC is useless but, it's also an FCC thing. Technically, the various phone carriers have been able to block "spoofed" IP phone numbers for years but, "it's legitimate business" is the Drumpf admin's attitude so...nothing gets done.

You should be able to block any number without issue but, I have only rarely gotten a call from myself - and since I'm not completely insane - I don't answer myself!??!

 

[Marc]

not much that can be done at your end beyond not answering calls from numbers you don't know. You should be able to add the unknown numbers to a block list on your cellphone and some home phones have a block list feature.

Some carriers in the U.S are starting to roll out technology that will automatically block calls that don't conform to proper calling patterns and other steps. However I'm sure political parties will still be able to robospam you.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...eral-announce-broad-campaign-fight-robocalls/

https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/09/att-automatically-blocks-fraud-calls/

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/25/tech/robocall-crackdown/index.html

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Yep - the FTC is useless but, it's also an FCC thing. Technically, the various phone carriers have been able to block "spoofed" IP phone numbers for years but, "it's legitimate business" is the Drumpf admin's attitude so...nothing gets done.

You should be able to block any number without issue but, I have only rarely gotten a call from myself - and since I'm not completely insane - I don't answer myself!??!

That's just it, these are real, legitimate numbers being used for the spoofing, and the proof for me is seeing my own #

Both phones probably have hundreds of #'s on their block lists.

The few VM's I have gotten are usually relating to the IRS looking for me (on my work phone that nobody technically knows is mine), student loan repayments and similar BS.

 

[StarCruiser]

Yep - my home phone (yes, I still have a landline!) is completely full of blocked numbers. The work cell has far more capacity for that and I use it liberally...

I had heard - months back - that some movement was going on about stopping some robocalls but, nothing seems to have stopped it yet. Even the arrest of some 80 or so scammers earlier this year didn't seem to have an impact.

Part of the issue is that a lot of the companies that run these scams are in India or Indonesia or the Philippines (etc...) and therefore, out of reach of US law enforcement. There have been a (very) few raids conducted by local authorities in India but, drops in a bucket.

 

[NCC-73515]

I added my number to the do not call list, and got maybe 50% fewer calls

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Instead of a black list, can you set up a white list?
Might be less work.

generally set your cell to only accept known numbers of friends and family and work or something like that.

edit: also, I am thinking they need to pull data from your phone book first to disguise themselves as yourself or close friends reliably.

that suggests to me, they have Spyware installed on your phone.
Maybe it’s time to make a backup of your important data and purge via hardware reset?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Instead of a black list, can you set up a white list?
Might be less work.

generally set your cell to only accept known numbers of friends and family and work or something like that.

edit: also, I am thinking they need to pull data from your phone book first to disguise themselves as yourself or close friends reliably.

that suggests to me, they have Spyware installed on your phone.
Maybe it’s time to make a backup of your important data and purge via hardware reset?

They're disguising themselves as hundreds of numbers with the same area code & prefix (not sure why that is). So kinda similar to those old auto-dialers, where they just dialed out to one number after another, except they're using number after number to dial out.

I think my number being used to call me is just the result of randomness. I'm sure my number has shown up on other people's cells before now.

 

[sadmeercat370]

On both my cell phones (personal & work) I constantly get scam calls. About 95% of the time they have the same area code & prefix as each phone. I block the numbers right away of course, unless there's a voicemail indicating it's a legit call.

This is due to scammers co-opting existing phone#'s as some sort of masks. A shame there's nobody that can do anything about this (FTC is useless).

So today, I've gotten 2 calls on my work cell from...wait for it...my work cell. The caller ID shows it being "my name here" and my phone#.

Can I block myself from calling myself? Will this cause some sort of tear in time/space or blow up my phone?

Well, I personally block my own number since maybe a year ago. It doesn't make anything happen. I never call myself, though.
I always ignore calls from any numbers that I am not familiar with. Even if it's from local area code, I don't answer them unless I've saved that number on my contact list. I also block each of them. I sometimes also share those numbers to some complaint boards like http://whycall.me so that more people will be aware of those spammers.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Those are definitely annoying. I periodically get one from time to time from claiming to be from a debt collection agency calling on behalf of a bank I don't have an account with, trolling hard to scare me into giving information. Sometimes I wonder if I've gotten a number that someone's previously had.

It certainly seemed to be the case when I got a phone with a brand new number to go along with a brand new phone, and days later I started to get random phone calls from strangers, and I had not even given my new number to anyone yet. That's just shitty. I think the fault lies with the carrier in allowing these things to happen. Although I've read that a lot of why this happens is due to numbers being spoofed by scammers. Scammer calls a number, sometimes leaving a message, and confused person at the other end calls the number back, only now it arrives at the real number where you have an equally confused person on the other end each wondering why the other called.

 

[Marc]

It certainly seemed to be the case when I got a phone with a brand new number to go along with a brand new phone, and days later I started to get random phone calls from strangers, and I had not even given my new number to anyone yet. That's just shitty. I think the fault lies with the carrier in allowing these things to happen.

problem is there's a finite numbers of available then so carriers are limited in what they can provide to you so numbers tend to get recycled and located at on a random basis (did care billing for rogers for 11 months so I've seen it first hand).

and yes it's a pain when the number is encumbered or well known to the smelly marketers. I had that with a number on a tablet I got (was a promo for those who did care billing) and the number had some premium services attached. Even knowing the system and procedures still had a time getting it removed and the charges credited back.

Number porting is always good thing unless you're being harassed on it and if you're being overly harassed you can apply for a new number (if you can convince the rep it's harassment the fee gets waived or at least you used to be able to) though you've then got the pain of letting people know your new number.

You need to get lucky and get a number that's in a newly opened range (assuming there's such a thing in your area). When I get my cell phone the 313 range was fairly new and hadn't been bandied and was very different from other local numbers (so probably never used for a landline either).

 

[Owain Taggart]

problem is there's a finite numbers of available then so carriers are limited in what they can provide to you so numbers tend to get recycled and located at on a random basis (did care billing for rogers for 11 months so I've seen it first hand).

Yeah, I think I had read or heard something about that.I just thought that maybe there'd be something on the carrier end that they'd do to protect customers. I know that in Ontario, at least my area, numbers were starting to become scarce, so what they did was made it so that you had to dial the area code even if you weren't calling long-distance. When it came to selecting my number years ago, they let me create my own number, although I guess there's always a chance of landing a previously assigned number even then. It's kind of hard to know ahead of time.

You need to get lucky and get a number that's in a newly opened range (assuming there's such a thing in your area). When I get my cell phone the 313 range was fairly new and hadn't been bandied and was very different from other local numbers (so probably never used for a landline either).

I think at the time I created my number, it was on a fairly new range (822). I've also got a U.S number that I use while travelling Stateside and that one gets loads of random calls, ie the one I got spam calls within days of activating, so I guess that one is well-travelled And yeah, speaking of landlines, I'm probably wrong, but I think there used to be a distinction reserved for numbers used in landlines and ones used for cells, but I think that's disappeared, with cell phones eventually recycling former landline numbers. My parents still have a landline, but boy, when that's given up, whoever gets it next will have a field day with that one. So many scam calls. Doesn't help that ours is a pretty unique number and last name in the local database since 84.

 

[Bronze]

I added my number to the do not call list, and got maybe 50% fewer calls

I did it once,and i didn't get a call for 2 days.

 

[Marc]

My parents still have a landline, but boy, when that's given up, whoever gets it next will have a field day with that one. So many scam calls. Doesn't help that ours is a pretty unique number and last name in the local database since 84.

we get a few but not to many fortunately and I don't get many on my cellphone but it helps that both numbers aren't widely given out.

My wife has had our landline number since she moved to the city 25 years ago so we can tell when they are working from old data when they ask for Mrs <maiden-name> which she hasn't gone by in over a decade.

Our surname is pretty unique (only one in the local phone book) but it doesn't seem to get much attention.

only worry I've had in the past is while most of the job allocations I get come via e-mail, the dispatchers sometimes call and it doesn't always come up from the main number and they are in different locations across the country.

 

[Owain Taggart]

we get a few but not to many fortunately and I don't get many on my cellphone but it helps that both numbers aren't widely given out.

Yeah, I don't widely give mine out either, which is why it surprised me how much of it I'm getting. I forgot to mention that when I initially created my number, I was on Telus' pay-as-go system, which had far fewer features than If I had gone with a contract, which is probably par for the course when it comes for these lower tiered systems, but I didn't have the ability to block numbers. I'm not with Telus anymore, but moved to Koodo which is still technically using the same infrastructure. I think they're in fact the same company offering different services, but I'm technically on a contract now but the ability to block is still not available. I don't know if it's my dated phone or what, but I think I'll go have to talk to them to see what can be done. I looked and looked and it's not in the UI.

 

[Marc]

. I don't know if it's my dated phone or what, but I think I'll go have to talk to them to see what can be done. I looked and looked and it's not in the UI.

It's purely a phone functionality thing

How dated is dated?

my wife's phone is an old windows phone I bought in 2011 and it has a block number feature and my old Asus phone running Android 6 had it.

You simply press down on the number you want to block and it pops up with a list to do things like add to contacts and at the bottom is add to block list.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

I tried blocking numbers on my landline, but Comcast only lets you block 25 numbers. There are a LOT more spammers than that.

 

[Marc]

I tried blocking numbers on my landline, but Comcast only lets you block 25 numbers. There are a LOT more spammers than that.

One of the features of my home phone is that ability to block numbers and has space for several 1000 numbers. My phone provide wanted to charge $4+ per month and their list didn't host much more than yours.

the phone has long since paid for it's self

That said, very few of them actually try a second time.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

One of the features of my home phone is that ability to block numbers and has space for several 1000 numbers. My phone provide wanted to charge $4+ per month and their list didn't host much more than yours.

the phone has long since paid for it's self

That said, very few of them actually try a second time.

That's just it. I would imagine if one scammer doesn't get through with a spoofed number, another scammer will eventually use that same number. I reckon they're just using sequential numbers to hide behind.

 

[Owain Taggart]

How dated is dated?

It's an Acer Z220 which came out in 2015, and it's an entry-level phone to begin with. Looking around online, I see that the feature is available, but looks like I might have to enable it first. I'll have to look into it.

Edit: I looked into a help page to try to help me figure it out, and nope, it's simply not there. There's no option for it. If I go into 'Call Settings', I see no Call Reject option like it says there should be. I'm mystified.