Robocalls - the next level [telecom]

[sneck]

Robocalls, and other forms of 'cold-call' marketing *rarely* know much of anything about "who" they are calling. Challenge-response about the intended recipient can be very effective -- e.g. 'what is my eldest daughter's first name?' with voice-recognition of the response. Especially if you _don't_have__ a daughter. anything that sounds like a name, gets routed to the bit-bucket voice-mail while "you don't have one" rings through.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Please join me in welcoming back a long-time contributor to the digest.

Bill Horne Moderator

I think the actual problem is that telemarketing and unwanted robocalls can easily sum up to more than half of the telephone traffic, resulting in tens of calls per day, which can be a real nuisance in a setting where answering the phone is always an interruption of what we might be doing at this point.

It's not the incident that is bother some, it's the number of incidents.

Greetings Marc, who notices that this problem has sharply declined in central Europe over the last ten years and has been nearly reduced to a non-problem.

------------------ !! No courtesy copies, please !! -------------------- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Mannheim, Germany | Beginning of Wisdom " |

Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 621 72739834

Common sense, plus existing good spam filters (that in my case are somewhat crowd-sourced).

Snail mail, btw, isn't an issue. It comes to my house, and I sit down with it at my leisure. It doesn't throw itself in my face and force me to dispose of it and/or make a decision about it on the sender's schedule like a phone call does. Snail mail isn't at all equivalent to a phone call in this regard, and is off the table for dicussion.

Notice how people--even smart people--are getting caught up in various scams that come across on the phone nowadays? IRS, jury duty, whatever--these scammers aren't using snail mail or email. They're using the immediacy of the phone call to hit their marks. This is just more evidence that it's time to acknowledge that th usefulness of the telephone as we grew up with has passed, and that we need to move on to alternate means of communication.

At the very least, start treating the phone like email. Anymore, it has about the same amount of usefulness. Therefore, turn the ringer off and go back to the days of voicemail. Quit thinking that just because the phone rings, you must drop what you're doing and put all of your attention to it.

But phone voice communication involves multiple entities--the sender, the receiver, and the carrier--and the problem can't be solved by simply the receiver. Receiver-only tools end up nullifying the usefulness of the phone call. You might as well not have a voice communication instrument like that.

Just go with Apple Facetime or MS Skype or similar. There's your verification, right there--intelligent human interaction and facial recognition.

Per Michael Dunn:

I get the impression that you do not get that many telephone solicitors or robocalls.

Our ratio of junk to legitimate calls seems quite high.

"Seems" because I have not been reduced to counting.... yet.

But if I had to put a number on it I would say three or four junk calls for every legitimate call. Some days, we get a half-dozen or more robocalls - and we are not always sitting next to the phone, so that means interrupting a task, walking into the house or another room...

Day-after-day.... that's a significant deal to me.... The way I see it these bottom feeders have undermined the utility of my phone to a considerable extent.

It's for *exactly* that reason that the issue generates so much concern!

There are far more important and interesting things to do with one's life than answer unwanted phone calls, read unsolicited emails, greet uninvited guests, etc.

Does your email agent provide you with an indication of the sender and subject matter of each message? How would you react if all email in your inbox was labeled as "From: Undisclosed; Subject: Unknown"? Would you open each email, read a few sentences/paragraphs and then decide to delete it as "unsolicited"? Do you (or your email provider) employ spam filtering? Why not open EVERY incoming piece of email and "if you don't like what the [sender] has to say, hang up"?

Does your front door have a peep hole? Do you use it to decide when to greet visitors and when to just ignore them? Why not "open it and, if you don't like what the [visitor] has to say, [close] it"?

[Yeah, it *may* be a safety issue but, I suspect, 99.999% of the time it is used to filter out unwanted visitors, not "guys with shotguns!"]

How much time do you give to each piece of junk (snail) mail that you receive? Each piece of spam email that makes its way through your filters? Each political canvasser, businessman or religious zealot who wanders through your neighborhood?

I think most people consider these uninvited distractions -- which take them away from "all the IMPORTANT things going on" in their lives.

The fact that there was a perceived *need* for a Do Not Call registry and so many complaints about its ineffectiveness suggests this is far from a minor inconvenience to most/many people.

No one is *forcing* you to screen/filter/CID your calls, etc. If you are comfortable keeping your phone on your person (or perpetually within arm's reach) AND responding to each chirp, then you should feel free to continue this usage method -- no one is requiring you to pay for a service, inconvenience your callers, etc. OTOH, for folks who don't wear their phones and don't want to have to reach each time Pavlov rings a bell, there's no reliable OTS way of avoiding this -- despite mechanisms that were allegedly created for this express purpose.

Nearly every individual that I telephone has some mechanism in place to try to cut down on these unwanted contacts:

- subscribe to a "CID required" service from the telco

- "memorizing" the numbers of desirable callers that appear on cheap CID's

- real-time screen calls with an answering machine

- unconditionally route calls to an answering machine (delayed screening)

- unlisted/mislisted numbers

- "never" answer incoming calls (or, leave voicemail perpetually "full")

- "toys" that try to convince callers that their line is out of service, etc

In *my* case, the screening function is a consequence of the authentication mechanism that is needed for "access control": so select callers can *do* and *see* things in my home, remotely. Why not extend that list of do-able things to include "calling me"? :>

On a related note, will CallerID ever be made "spoof proof?" That would help, a lot

-Gary

I've been pushing for "spoof proof" for some time, but there seems to be little interest, at least in this newsgroup.

The implementation and total cost is not trivial, but spread over all land lines and cell phones it's virtually negligible per phone.

My proposal is at

My congressman sent the proposal to the FCC about 2 months ago, but I have received no response as yet.

See also my posting of 12/30/2014 in this newsgroup.

r.e.d.

***** Moderator's Note *****

There are a number of ways to eliminate the problem of robocalls and/or spoofed Caller-ID. However, they all require that the law be changed, and I don't see any champion for it.

The interest is in effective and workabe solutions. How does yours stack up?

Bill Horne Moderator

Some people get a lot more junk calls than others. I get maybe one a week, but I gather there are plenty of people who get 10 a day.

So, you're relying on a mechanism to do your "attendant function". Why can't a mechanism be applied to phonecalls, as well?

Knock on front door? You won't even *know* who has knocked unless you get up and go to the door to check!

The point is, there are lots of asynchronous, undesired interruptions that permeate our daily lives (I work at home so I don't have the "luxury" of being able to hide behind a receptionist or secretary for 40 hrs/week).

If there are objections to the hurdle that an "automated attendant" places in the way of callers, imagine what sort of friction there is getting someone to use ? None of my (older) relatives would ever think of emailing me. I suspect most of them don't have email addresses! Do I teach the others how to encrypt their correspondence to keep prying eyes from snooping it (e.g., gmail)? (Does that bring those correspondences to the attention of gummit folks wondering what they are hiding??)

Do I tell my MD he can't call and leave a message but, instead, has to send personal health information (HIPPA) in plain text via email? Ditto dentist?

I've not answered a ringing phone (unless waiting for a return call from a doctor, etc.) in more than 25 years. We treat the phone as a device for MAKING calls, not RECEIVING them!

Our ringer, here, has been off for 20+ years -- letting everything go directly to voice mail. Once a day, we'll spend a few minutes scanning *sequentially* (because an answering machine isn't any smarter than that!) through the recorded messages to see who we might want to call back. Something with more brains could eliminate the

*daily* robocalls that tried to sell us the exact same crap the day before (we didn't respond yesterday, what makes them think we'll have decided to buy it *today*?)

However, in some cases, there is an immediacy involved that can't be predicted (like my waiting for a return call from a Doctor who's called in an Rx). This approach fails in a big way in those cases.

E.g., Saturday, a neighbor had to come to the front door to ask if I could repair/replace the battery in her vehicle. This is a bigger interruption than if she (could have) called -- as now I have to get dressed to greet her!

[snip]

Welcome back Robert! I'd like to bring up an old thread: do television stations include area codes in phone numbers in video advertising?

In August 2009 I posted:

Whereupon you posted:

Well I suppose you have some documentary evidence to back up your claim. But in my experience, most station care even more now than they did back in 1990. It's certainly the case here in the Houston DMA where I live: every ad, PSA, or news story that includes a phone number also includes an area code (or a toll-free code). It certainly seems logical that stations would do this: the Houston Metro area has four overlaid area codes and the surrounding counties (outside Houston Metro but inside the Houston DMA) have three more area codes.

I can't imagine that any station in the Chicago area -- the land of (at least) ten area codes -- would omit the area code in advertising: 219, 224, 312, 331,

630, 708, 773, 779, 815, and 847.

I see the same thing on outdoor advertising and vehicles. Driving around Houston and suburbs I occasionally see an obviously-very-old sign with a 7-D number, but I'd guess that in well over 99% of cases the full 10-D number is displayed.

Neal McLain

I see it in a more severe light: those bottom feeders have undermined my quiet enjoyment of my home and leisure time, and have presumed on my middle-class status and social training by expecting me to be courteous to strangers whom are trying to lie to me and con me.

Bill

When I used to work in an office, it was just a minor annoyance: I would come home and delete a few robocalls from my answering machine.

Now I work from home, and it rings several times a day. I let the machine get it, but it still interrupts me, and I have to listen to the beginning to determine if it's a real call that I should run over to the phone and answer (maybe once a week).

I repeat: the telephone as we grew up with and knew it has lost its utility. We can't win the arms race. Therefore, it's time to acknowledge that, perhaps mourn it, but regardless move on to other, different forms of personal communication.

Con men have been around since cavemen days. That's nothing new. Those like you (and I) have ALWAYS had to be aware of people taking advantage of social convention and twisting it to their own ends.

The ONLY difference here is, tools exist to allow the con men better to hide behind the telephone.

Getting billed 10 cents per air-time minute (or fraction thereof) for every robo-call I answered on my prepaid cell phone, I hesitate to answer them.

Having to replenish the ink and paper on the fax machine the robo-faxers exploit, I resent the intrusion of the robo-faxers upon my supplies.

Being still asleep when the early morning robocallers call, and trying to go to sleep when the late-night ones do, I'm grateful for my TAD(*).

On the rare occasion that I answer a robo-call and am threatened with immediate arrest if I don't pay my (allegedly) delinquent Federal tax obligation by EFT from my checking account (for which the caller "needs" my account number and bank routing address), I become hardened in my loathing for robo-callers of all stripes.

Cheers, -- tlvp

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ (*)TAD = Telephone Answering Device

An OTS(*) method that works for me: a plain old answering machine. I tell callers (on the OGM(**)): "Sending a fax? Go right ahead. Looking for a human? Tell us who you are, whom you're looking for, and how to reach you, and we'll be in touch with you as soon as possible. Thank you."

That takes 10 seconds to spiel off, short enough that the fax machine in tandem on the same line doesn't get discouraged waiting for the mating call of a potentially inbound fax, but long enough to give me a chance to pick up, if I'm home, and free, and know (and like) the self-identified caller.

And prevents my unexpected voice's ruining the occasional inbound fax ;-) .

Suits me to a T, though obviously, das Meiletsch von Anderen kann Vary-en.

Cheers, -- tlvp

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ (*)OTS = Off The Shelf (**)OGM = OutGoing Message

We use the same approach, currently -- except we don't bother customizing the outgoing message (in 2015, how many folks do NOT understand the role that an answering machine plays??).

[At one point, I had *no* OGM on my business line -- amusing to see how many callers got *flustered* when presented with the "naked beep"! :> ]

We keep the ringer off so we aren't even aware that someone is calling (unless we happen to pick up the phone to MAKE a call *as* a call is coming in). My sleep-wake cycle is highly variable. So, you are just as likely to find me asleep/awake at 5AM as a 5PM. Add to that the ~3 timezones and the fact that most folks FORGET that we *don't* observe DST, here, and you're almost guaranteed to be receiving calls at "unfortunate hours".

I'd like to gain the CONDITIONAL "immediacy" of being able to react to

*desired* incoming calls -- which our current "review messages at end of day" approach prevents -- without having to risk being awakened, disturbed, etc. EVERY time someone chooses to ring my phone. I.e., have something *smart* screening the calls -- besides a human! :>

E.g., certain callers (aware of my lifestyle, sleep habits, etc.) should be able to "bother me" regardless of time of day: "Sorry, we're unable to come to the phone..." "Hi, this is Penny!" "Can I take a message, Penny?" "I *need* to talk to you, right now.." (Phone rings through) without me having to *announce* what I am doing, currently (sleeping, taking a shower, working, "away"). I.e., know how to handle these calls wrt my current "caller-specific, call acceptance criteria"

***** Moderator's Note *****

You don't observe DST - but you're seven hours behind Greenwich Time.

That means Arizona. What area?

Bill Horne Moderator

Moving on to other forms of communication is not a solitary decision.

Everyone you deal with must be willing to move on as well, and in the real world, we often don't have a choice.

As mentioned, when there is an illness in the household, there are frequent calls from various health care providers (e.g. doctors, nurses, labs, pharmacy, hospital, health insurance, etc). These must be answered, otherwise, important information may be significantly delayed or lost.

(One might argue to get different health care providers, but often we don't have a choice about that.)

No, it's not _for_ that. ANI is pretty much spoof-proof though. Because it's supposed to be.

--scott