I’ve had the Verizon Call Filter Plus for over a year. As of late seems more and more spam calls are getting through. This was not the case when I first started the service.
Doctors are worst offenders by not having a caller-id, e.g. “Dr. Soso”, for their phones just the # and most of the time that # in not on their card!!
My guess is that Verizon Call Fiulter may be managed by an outside company. In any event, I assuume that they take peoples indications that a call is a telemarketer or spam and if there are a few entries, they add the number to their list. It may age out after a while. I could be wrong, but that is one way to track numbers. Also, unused area codes and unused telephone prefixes should be added, but who knows.
However, many/most telemarketers and collection agencies and spammers just pick random numbers. If that random number is used for a bunch of calls and gets added to the list of spammers, the valid owner of that number may not get their calls passed through to people because the system thinks THEY were the spammers.
If the service is only managed by Verizon, then that would cause problems. They would need input from other lists to be more accurate.
I get emails with numbers to call (because that way they skip the up to date listing on a spam reporting system and avoid postal issues if mailed). I recognize the scam because I do not use the services (like “Geek Squad”. Also I have had calls and emails with numbers from my area code and I know the company has no reps or office here. These are the calls I return and harass the person. Often the toll-free number is disabled within hours of the message as people have reported it.
My telco friend has said all along that verifying the origin of the call is critical, also whether it is coming from overseas or not. I hear the FCC is now attacking companys who are supplying these numbers and those carriers or turning a blind eye.
First off, DoNotCall.gov is all but worthless today. This is because it was intended for landline only, and no one that I know has a landline anymore. They have since expanded the site to accept mobile numbers, but the implementation on the carrier end is far different.
STIR/SHAKEN from the FCC is supposed to deal most effectively with mobile end-to-end verification, but it’s just not showing up much yet.
Here’s a tactic that I learned long ago: Record the old Bell System disconnect tone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI_wyiY4vyk) as the first thing on your voice mail message, then record your usual message. Robo-dialers will hear that tone and remove you from their list. These lists get propagated a lot, so you’ll start to drop off the call lists. Meanwhile, human callers will hear your message right after that and leave a message.
I was disappointed that the article appeared to only address spam on mobile devices. I don’t accept calls on my cell phone and am on the Do Not Call List. Despite this, I have been getting over 100 spam calls per month since September on my LAND LINE. I would like to see suggestions for dealing with this problem.
I get about ten per day, and probably 20-30 on Mondays. The interesting aspect is they almost never go to voice mail. After a certain number of rings, they click off.
Well, their computer clicks off.
Try this. When the phone rings answer it and get a person on the phone. Tell them politely “No Thank You” and hang up. Don’t wait for their response. I had my mom do this and it made a dramatic difference. It was places like our local PBS station, newspaper, YMCA, etc. They would call multiple times per day every day. Once they got a NO from her they took her off the list. It cut down a lot.
Of course my mom thought saying No Thank You and hanging up was rude. But I let her know that calling and bothering her incessantly is also rude.
No, the National Do Not Call Registry (Database #1) does not cut down on ANY calls, landline or cell phone. It appears to be designed for the exact opposite: to provide a ready-made US database of valid names and phone numbers to telemarketers, scammers and other organizations.
The Do Not Call Registry also has another, not-talked-about database (Database #2) of all the telemarketers, politicians, and other businesses that sign up to get access to the stored phone numbers. That is supposed to be so they can avoid calling the numbers. But there is no enforcement actions, and nothing is done if some of the entities on Database 2 do call some (or all) of the numbers on Database 1. What do you suppose happens?
There is no method provided on the National Do Not Call Registry to REMOVE your name from the registry. Once on there, it stays there forever, as far as I can tell. If you have not yet fell for this government-sponsored scam, then think twice before you put you name on the un-erasable list.