Community Chat

[violann]

There was a comment about this topic on the NYC news this morning at 5 am but it must have come on after I got up.

Did anyone happen to hear it? It was on WOR 710.

Some kind of effort in our area to address this proble,I hope. 

ANYBODY HEAR IT ??

[Snoopp]

@Witchy Woman Funny you should say that cause the same thing is happening to me.  One call came in on the caller Id as spam?.  I googled the number and it was some microsoft scammer.

I've had a few spam calls keep calling, even after blocking them.  I wonder when they will give up.

[NickNack]

I have a call blocker telephone and have also signed up on the Do Not Call List and nomorobo and still get spam calls.  I don't ever answer them on my landline.

I'm getting more and more on my cell phone.  I do answer my cell phone because it could be anyone.  I have various people calling me that aren't in my phone book, and I need to answer.  I hang up the minute they start talking and block them, but it's very annoying.  I get a call about winning a trip from the same person repeatedly.  She called me twice in about two minutes the other day.  It's so annoying.  Nomorobo is $1.99 a month for cell phones, and I'm not sure it would do much good so am undecided about signing up.

[lainey1]

I've also noticed the calls have increased. And more and more they are using the same area code and prefix, I guess they think I'll think it's a local call and pick up.

They'are also local business names that show up in the caller id, for example: St. Mary's Hospital, Holme Elementary School, etc. The hospital and school are in this area but it's not their phone number.

How do they do it?

Spammers use voice-over-IP (VoIP) services and choose what number they want their "victims" to see on their phone's caller ID.

The spammer can select an area code, find numbers with that area code in a phone book and use the VoIP service to set their  caller ID with the same area code. Then they can call every number on the list!

To make the calls look local, spammers change their caller ID to  the same area code and same three to six numbers of your own phone number. That makes the number look local so you'll think a nearby neighbor or business is calling. So if your phone number is 111-222-3333 the spammer will set their caller ID to show up as 111-222-3334, 111-222-3335, etc.

[Mominohio]

The calls are up to 20 per day on the land line and now they are starting on my cell phone, several a day. I think our machine on the land line has call block, but I don't know how to use it. I'm going to have to figure it out though,

[grandma2pkmh]

@Witchy Woman I feel sorry for the spam callers. They must have an awful life for them to take such jobs. I hope they get the same calls they give.

That said, Comcast in my area finally joined with Nomorobo to let us set up the service with them. I still have a land line because of my security system monitoring. I don't have a smart phone or tablet to use for systems that have gone to that. If a call makes it past Nomorobo I can go online and add the number to their list.  It's amazing how much better things are now.

[dex]

I think only scammers would take those jobs.the companies  can’t be legal so most people would not want to do that for a living.

[cherry]

I just got a call from someone pretending to be from a pharmacy trying to talk to me about the pain I was having

I told her you are a scammer ,and don't call me again ,and blocked her..She did know my first name ,or she just guessed right

[millieshops]

A year ago when I started having problems with my old smartphone, I bought a Tracfone when it was a TSV.  For several reasons,  I decided I didn't want to port my old number to Tracfone and I gave its number to no one - just used that phone as my own emergency phone.  I was amazed how many scam calls came in.  All of them were robocalls, probably everyone some kind of scam.

  I don't hear the calls, don't answer that phone, but once a week I delete all the calls.  Looking at a week's worth at one time, you can see that the numbers are often sequential, one sign of those robocalls.

I almost never get unwanted calls on the phone I do use.  I think that's really strange.

[Witchy Woman]

I have the Panasonic phone set that was discussed on these boards and it blocks 250 calls.

Used to be, the same number would call over and over.  And some still do.  However, as I mentioned, the numbers/names/places change daily.

As one poster explained, technology has made it easy for the spammers.

Yes, I've gotten a call that shows SPAM 800 SERVICE.  

And, for those that mentioned it, Verizon does not support nomorerobo.

No, the only way to outsmart them is just don't answer and block as often as possible.