Canada Do not Call list.

[Chuffered]

Linus was talking about Canada's strict spam laws not working on WAN show.  Trouble is if you don't know about Canada's do not call list web page. It won't work. You have to register your numbers. Complain about all spam and robo calls for about 6-8 months diligently. After that you will never get another spam call. I did it once a week every time i get a new number, until the calls stop. I have been using it for over 10 years and it's worked every time. Even american numbers can be listed, but not get a portion of any fine recovered. I have a US and a Canadian phone.  Yes you get a cut of fines collected for abusing spam laws in Canada. Once you learn how it works it's amazing.

[Spotty]

We have the same idea here in Australia. There's two glaring problem with these do not call registries that make them rather pointless. The first is that it's only going to stop companies who are abiding by the law and companies which are operating in your country. Most scam call centres are based outside of the country and are operating illegally. The second problem is these lists make an exception allowing charities and political organisations to call/text you. The two things most people will want to block (overseas scam calls and political groups) are not bound by the do not call lists.

 

Google/Apple's call blocking ("Suspected scam call blocked") works much better than those Do Not Call registries.

[Dutch_Master]

I've dealt with it slightly different. On my then land-line I installed a FAX unit that answered the call. Anyone who I wanted to contact me knew the number of my mobile phone, so they'd use that. In the beginning, the FAX unit worked overtime, later it hardly ever rang. I dropped the landline after switching to Fibre internet last year.

[Kilrah]

14 hours ago, Spotty said:

The first is that it's only going to stop companies who are abiding by the law and companies which are operating in your country. Most scam call centres are based outside of the country and are operating illegally.

In theory there should still be some recourse since the call centers aren't gonna be doing actual international calls with the associated costs, they're going to use a VOIP relay in the country so said relays could get a stern talking to and threats to get shut down if they don't do their reasonable effort of refusing service to scammers. Now whether that happens...

 

[TetraSky]

The Do Not Call list is useless when scammers and spammer spoof their numbers. Until the carriers fix their shit, either through STIR/SHAKEN or something better, to stop this plague, it won't stop. 

[Lurking]

19 hours ago, Chuffered said:

Linus was talking about Canada's strict spam laws not working on WAN show.  Trouble is if you don't know about Canada's do not call list web page. It won't work. You have to register your numbers. Complain about all spam and robo calls for about 6-8 months diligently. After that you will never get another spam call. I did it once a week every time i get a new number, until the calls stop. I have been using it for over 10 years and it's worked every time. Even american numbers can be listed, but not get a portion of any fine recovered. I have a US and a Canadian phone.  Yes you get a cut of fines collected for abusing spam laws in Canada. Once you learn how it works it's amazing.

I admire your patience.... you also could just buy a Pixel phone and be spam-free from day 1 without having to deal with a government agency. 

[wanderingfool2]

8 hours ago, Kilrah said:

In theory there should still be some recourse since the call centers aren't gonna be doing actual international calls with the associated costs, they're going to use a VOIP relay in the country so said relays could get a stern talking to and threats to get shut down if they don't do their reasonable effort of refusing service to scammers. Now whether that happens...

 

Not really.  Spam calls these days are generally using VOIP but also exploiting the archaic system to spoof numbers local which then means tracing the call back to who it truly is is effectively pointless for most people to pursue.

 

So really you can't go after the relays because there won't be too much to go on.  Really what needs to start happening is some of the local telco's need to crack down on allowing those spoofs to originally get in (although ultimately it's also because we rely on older tech that really didn't have safeguards in place)

 

On 12/13/2024 at 10:22 PM, Chuffered said:

Trouble is if you don't know about Canada's do not call list web page. It won't work. You have to register your numbers. Complain about all spam and robo calls for about 6-8 months diligently. After that you will never get another spam call

Majority of what people call spam calls are actually out of country (and for a while they would purchase those numbers as they now had verifiable people).  Like there genuinely was a time where putting yourself on the list would increase the amount of spam calls you got.

 

Anyways, out of country and spoofing pretty much eliminates their incentive to follow Canadian laws, as many are already breaking the law

[Kilrah]

8 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

is effectively pointless for most people to pursue

Sure, but I meant the authorities could do something.

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Sure, but I meant the authorities could do something.

They can't, cause the spam comes from out of country.

 

The only real solution to these things is to stop using phones "as phones" entirely. Which is what Apple and Google want you to do.

 

As an aside, most of the 'spam' I get, is a spoofed number, and I know it's scam/spam because it's either political or starts in Chinese.

 

No Legitimate business phone call:

• Starts the call in any language other than English. If the business has a customer relationship with you already, they will speak the language you speak.
• Starts with a "press # for (language other than English"
• Comes from any number that is not a TFN (Toll Free Number)

 

If it's a local business that is family owned, yeah sure, maybe it might be in your area code, but do you know many times I've seen "my area code" which is NOT my city? BC has both a split (250) and a overlay (604/778/236/672). No mobile phones except those ported from a landline are 604, so in BC, if you see a 604 area code, that better damn well be Metro Vancouver. If you see 250 it's OUTSIDE Metro Vancouver. Scam call centers don't know this, heck even many residents don't know the 236 and 672 area code, so they probably won't answer a phone call from one if the number wasn't added to their local phonebook in their phone device.

 

And that's how we have to deal with scam phone calls now. Everyone you know and deal with, you put them in your phone and give them the "this is a Family" ring tone or a "This is someone I know" ring tone. Everyone else goes to voicemail. I even add the phone number that sends the SMS 2FA codes as a "2FA - (service)" entry so I don't open texts from scams either.

 

And the reason scam call centers can spoof numbers is because of how the entire POTS works. There is not one number, but two. There is a number that is assigned on the outbound line because the internal lines are not one-number-one-phone. It's a computer somewhere in the building that connects directly to Fiber over VoIP. When you call someone inside the building to someone else inside the building, it doesn't ever touch the POTS system. When you call someone directly, yes they have an extension, but that extension has a "real phone number" in order to call out on it.

 

Hence why scam call centers can spoof it. They basically tell the phone network that they are that number. The same way two call centers to the same business on either coast will have the same TFN during different hours of the day. During Eastern Time, you get the NY branch, and during Pacific Time you get the SF branch. Phone calls go to both branches during the peak to peak time. Just if you call that number, you will never get the scam call center, because the scam call center doesn't own that number.

 

The best way to solve this problem is require customers to initiate the phone call 100% of the time. If something is urgent, I don't want phone calls from my bank for marketing crap to come from the same number that a security issue comes from, so I can no longer trust ANY company-initiated phone call.

 

[Ravendarat]

On 12/14/2024 at 7:18 PM, Lurking said:

I admire your patience.... you also could just buy a Pixel phone and be spam-free from day 1 without having to deal with a government agency. 

Hows this work? I have a Pixel Pro Fold and get spam calls every day or two

[wanderingfool2]

23 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Sure, but I meant the authorities could do something.

They've been saying that for the last like 10 years that they are going to crack down on it.  It never ends up happening because you realistically can't..or at least not really without messing up a bunch of legacy stuff

 

There are multiple systems that effectively can be exploited to send as though you are anyone.

Like what @Kisai. Other ways, iirc, was they send it through an old analog line which still identifies the number it's calling from...except now without the modern checks.  So in that case you can spoof over that line.

 

The whole digital age thing really made lines vulnerable though because there isn't checks and balances and even worse carriers have to be able to handle all numbers effectively coming in (like no database saying xyz number belongs to this carrier and verify with that carrier first before connecting the line).  When I managed some of the digital phone numbers (like TFN and a few local call center lines) I could literally make any phone call out using any number I wanted (there was a massive warning saying I could only select numbers which belonged to me...but I do know I could have typed in a number which wasn't directly belonging to the same carrier).

[Lurking]

6 hours ago, Ravendarat said:

Hows this work? I have a Pixel Pro Fold and get spam calls every day or two

On the Pixel 6Pro just search for " Spam" in settings and enable all the spam settings. i can't find it right now since they switch stuff around. There also is the call assistant that gets rid of 99% of the robocalls (or calls from weirdos). If someone who isn't in your contacts calls you, they have to talk to Google and state who they are and what they want and youc an read the transcript before answering. 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Lurking said:

On the Pixel 6Pro just search for " Spam" in settings and enable all the spam settings. i can't find it right now since they switch stuff around. There also is the call assistant that gets rid of 99% of the robocalls (or calls from weirdos). If someone who isn't in your contacts calls you, they have to talk to Google and state who they are and what they want and youc an read the transcript before answering. 

Just FYI, call screening (Which is what that feature is known as, and long predates cell phones) doesn't work.

 

One of two things happens:

- People you know, that you haven't whitelisted think they've called the wrong number

- People you don't know that are supposed to call you (eg a job interview) won't bother. They'll hang up.

 

So yeah, it's effective, but it's effective at making nobody want to call you.

 

The ideal situation is a whitelisting system that simply does a challenge-respond automatically.

 

eg, I have a cell phone. I have three entries on it

- Mom

- INTERCOM

- BANK NAME

 

If I get a phone call from any of these three numbers, I answer immediately. Any other, get an empty voice mail message. NEVER put your name on your voicemail, use the default "You have reached ###-###-####."

 

Known businesses with an important service (eg security, law enforcement, IRS/CRA, etc,) could send a text message two minutes in advance of calling identifying who they represent, and who they are. If that number does not match the advance text message, then you don't answer it, or you tell the person you are busy and will call them back in 2 minutes. When you start talking to the person on the phone, you go to the text message and confirm you are talking to that person via the text message. Because if they don't get the text, then that text was spoofed, or the phone is spoofed, or both. You can only spoof outbound phone caller ID's and text message origins.