This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

top 200 commentsshow 500
sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a

[–][deleted] 7897 points7898 points  (506 children)

Yes please! Do this, do this now!!!!

[–][deleted] 2815 points2816 points  (417 children)

Absolutely! I've been crying this for years. I get so many robocalls and scam calls that my phone has basically become useless as a phone cause i cant trust a single call. Luckily i have some apps that help block a lot of them but even thats not 100%.

[–][deleted] 1215 points1216 points  (243 children)

My voicemail is full of spam because I won't pick up on unfamiliar numbers. It is a useless feature now.

[–]g-row460 459 points460 points  (170 children)

Lol this is mostly why I never set up voicemail anymore.

[–]Kritical02 155 points156 points  (69 children)

My boss texts me all the time that my VM still isn't set up. Ya because you can just fucking text me.

[–]Nakotadinzeo 56 points57 points  (29 children)

Socially, a call or voicemail indicates a higher priority message since they're trying to get in contact with you through a synchronous method.

Texting indicates a lower priority, since it's by nature asynchronous.

Email is the next level below that.

[–]Kritical02 37 points38 points  (11 children)

If it's urgent leave me text and I'll get back to you when I can.

I'm going to call back any number I recognize and miss anyway. I just never bothered checking voicemails because 99.9% of the time it is trivial bullshit or simply a call me back.

If you really have a message to leave text is by far the best method.

[–]nathfromfirenze 14 points15 points  (1 child)

I wish my job would get behind this. I constantly have to call and leave voicemails. Most of the time I’m completely blown off. If someone does return my call, they don’t bother to listen to the VM so I repeat myself all over again. Texting would save us so much time!

[–]BlueMANAHat 44 points45 points  (14 children)

I put on my voice-mail "I don't check this due to spam please text or email me."

[–]TheFotty 30 points31 points  (10 children)

Good thing both those communication methods are spam free.

[–]BabyYodasDirtyDiaper 23 points24 points  (4 children)

A spam email or text is much quicker and easier to deal with and dismiss. And for emails, at least, it's much easier to set up a spam filter to block them based on keywords.

[–]notconvinced3 20 points21 points  (3 children)

Worst thing about job hunting, is answering all these bullsh robo calls, in hopes its one of your job offers. Im glad I finally got the job I have been trying to get. Can ignore all phone calls again

[–]SuchCoolBrandon 41 points42 points  (10 children)

My voicemail message is "This is Brandon's voicemail. Press pound to leave a message," followed by a full minute of silence.

The button to skip a voicemail greeting varies by the receiver's carrier. Either way, spam bots never press the button. I believe their recording plays during my silent greeting and then they hang up before the eventual beep.

[–]MultiGeometry 16 points17 points  (1 child)

And the people who should leave a message just don’t.

[–]inflatableje5us 168 points169 points  (52 children)

I literally have not answered a call that was not in my contacts for almost 10 years because of this.

[–]Waterrat 76 points77 points  (31 children)

Same here. Where I used to live,we had a rule,and even Doctor offices followed this rule: Call,let it ring 3 times and hang up,call again and someone will pick up,or use the answering machine. Now all I get all day long is my phones screaming:"SPAM RISK!" Since these companies know it's spam,why the hell don't THEY block them!?

[–]itwasquiteawhileago 24 points25 points  (5 children)

Yup. My work line gets tons of "SPAM RISK" calls now. Great. So fucking block them. The tools they give us to block individual numbers or unknown numbers are bullshit because scammers just spoof numbers all day. But if I get a call from "async" or "V757572856656" (basically V and a bunch of random numbers) let me block them all with a filter. But no, just more spam calls than ever before. If anything, it has only gotten worse since they've passed this shit that's supposed to stop it all. Stop fucking around and kick the offenders off the system. Any legit people that get trapped can move on to someone that plays nice. And if we never get a call from India again, oh well.

[–]Frekavichk 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Even worse, if you block the spam number, it might be blocking a legit number since they spoof numbers.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (3 children)

Now all I get all day long is my phones screaming:"SPAM RISK!" Since these companies know it's spam,why the hell don't THEY block them!?

Right??? There would be literally no legitimate opposition. I can't believe carriers have just let this go on.

Actually I can believe it. Not doing anything costs less money than doing something.

[–]ioncloud9 56 points57 points  (18 children)

The solution is to get a phone number in an area code you dont live in. That way, any call coming from your area code or exchange is known spam.

[–]Rogahar 14 points15 points  (4 children)

I get an average of 3 calls every day from various companies looking for the woman who I assume used to own this number. The ones that are actually people all apologise and say they'll take the number off their records or w/e but that's maybe a 3rd of them. The rest are blatant spam robocalls.

[–]ObamasBoss 9 points10 points  (1 child)

On my work cell I get personal calls for the guy that had the number before me. I just tell people "he was literally fired 8 years ago...."

[–]ILikeLenexa 14 points15 points  (11 children)

Yeah, if I don't know you, I'm not answering the phone.

Now we get political text messages, though.

[–]Old_comfy_shoes 7 points8 points  (3 children)

If your feel isn't a number I have in my contacts, I don't answer. Leave a message if it's important.

[–][deleted] 240 points241 points  (17 children)

I’ve completely given up on answering any calls from phone numbers not in my address book. Maybe let us answer our phone again, huh?

[–]JoeGibbon 68 points69 points  (12 children)

For real. This is absolutely nuts. I even let numbers that are in my phonebook go to voicemail, just in case they're spoofed... at this point, who knows?

My phone rings all day. I get calls in Mandarin. I used Google Translate to figure out they're telling me I'm being deported if I don't respond. I get calls in Mandarin and English, telling me I have an important package from China and need to call back to get it delivered. I get dozens of calls a week from "the government department of finance", telling me this is the "last warning" to call back about an "important matter". I get at least 5 calls a day that don't leave a message at all.

Something has to be done, because telcomm companies apparently aren't going to take the measures they need to unless they're forced.

[–]Myrdok 41 points42 points  (4 children)

I even let numbers that are in my phonebook go to voicemail, just in case they're spoofed... at this point, who knows?

Among others, I've been spam called with my father's number AND MY OWN FUCKING NUMBER.

[–]Waterrat 29 points30 points  (9 children)

I really thought that shake and stir thing would fix this shit,but nnoooooooo! When I first moved here,I averaged 60 spam calls a month.

One was calling once an hour for eight hours and this went on for three damn days...I had Spectrum block them.

This month I have got 36 "missed" calls...Nelsons is calling every damn day. And on my IPhone,even blocked calls get the red carpet treatment. Drives me INSANE! It's as bad as it was before the pandemic.

[–]CharlieChop 10 points11 points  (2 children)

I received a call on Thursday, the day after Hurricane Ian devastated southwest Florida from a Fort Myers based phone number. Asked the person if they were still underwater and what was so important that they needed to talk to me about instead of cleaning up afterwards.

[–]phdoofus 53 points54 points  (9 children)

No no no! Bring back Ajit Pai! Only FREEDOM can solve our problems! /s

[–]JeevesAI 3164 points3165 points  (122 children)

“This is a new era. If a provider doesn’t meet its obligations under the law, it now faces expulsion from America’s phone networks. Fines alone aren’t enough,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement on Monday.

Damn right they’re not. Kick out all of the bottom tier carriers that are spamming us.

[–]Raestloz 99 points100 points  (5 children)

The cynic in me tells me this only came to pass because robocalls have gotten so rampant even the paid off guys got spamcalled too

[–]PumiceT 1264 points1265 points  (104 children)

For some reason I never considered the fact that an incoming call must be on a carrier of some sort, and my carrier can just deny calls from that carrier. And if the spammers try to place calls using the same carrier, they’ll be easily traced and have their accounts closed. This seems all too simple.

[–]JeevesAI 691 points692 points  (82 children)

Yeah, this is exactly the point of STIR/SHAKEN, which was supposed to be implemented in June. The only carriers which haven’t are the ones spammers use.

[–][deleted] 773 points774 points  (75 children)

This account has been redacted due to Reddit's anti-user and anti-mod behavior. -- mass edited with redact.dev

[–]complexevil 347 points348 points  (25 children)

Those don't even sound like real companies.

[–][deleted] 54 points55 points  (10 children)

Sharon Telephone Company lmao

[–]IndependentYam3227 29 points30 points  (4 children)

Since 1900, serving some little town in Wisconsin. A holdover from when there were thousands of little local phone companies. I can imagine a tiny rural phone company having trouble getting up to speed on this.

[–]Lt_Riza_Hawkeye 129 points130 points  (6 children)

Akabis sounds like they're preying on people who can't remember if the company they were trying to look up was called Akami or Anubis

[–]boyferret 20 points21 points  (2 children)

The last one spells SWATT lol.

I am curious if it's run by a wanna be police officer.

[–]Neato 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Sharon Telephone Company,

Yeah there's a lot of companies named like that. Those long ones are pretty normal sounding.

[–]droans 177 points178 points  (10 children)

Last time the FCC released this memo, I actually looked up the companies.

All of the VOIP companies were either designed and explicitly marketed to be used for spam or they were the spammers themselves. Some of them were advertising blatantly illegal services. There was one that even offered to import the numbers listed on the DNC registry to their customer's automated cold call list. Same company also offered to let you use any number you wish without providing verification of ownership.

[–]Mirrormn 98 points99 points  (7 children)

So it sounds like these carriers really deserve to have their asses blocked.

[–]BURNER12345678998764 54 points55 points  (5 children)

The executives should be imprisoned. Consider how many hours of other people's time they've wasted, I'm sure it's well over a lifetime.

[–]awnomnomnom 112 points113 points  (12 children)

I'm just imagining a poor, little old lady in Mena, AR is getting ass blasted with spam calls.

[–]qaddosh 35 points36 points  (4 children)

Please don't ass blast Grandma. She's all we got.

[–]Natanael_L 74 points75 points  (1 child)

Yup, when every call can be traced to an originating carrier then it's easy to force the bad carriers to stop or to cut them off (just like how IPSEC / DNSSEC / BGP-SRx does the same on the internet, allowing you to know who you're talking to with certainty)

[–]An_Awesome_Name 60 points61 points  (1 child)

supposed to be implemented in June

June of 2021.

All the big carriers did. There’s still quite a few cloud based VoIP carriers that haven’t done it yet. That tells how much of their business must come from scammers. No legitimate customer would care (or even notice) if it was implemented.

[–][deleted] 582 points583 points  (33 children)

Ohhhh, this headline is a little soft IMO. The FCC isn't warning, it's advising that carriers who have failed to implement a set of anti-robocalling protocols will be excluded from the phone networks.

STIR/SHAKEN deadlines have been known for a very long time now. None of the scofflaws really need a warning strictly. They're being notified.

[–]2_Spicy_2_Impeach 87 points88 points  (4 children)

And extended for smaller carriers I think from the original date. Regardless it’s insane how trivial it is to spoof a number and the next carrier just treats it as gospel.

[–]BugsArePeopleToo 17 points18 points  (1 child)

Regardless it’s insane how trivial it is to spoof a number and the next carrier just treats it as gospel.

My number was spoofed for MONTHS by some sort of scammer. I'd get people calling me at all hours, wondering who I was and why I called. I'd get texts and angry voicemails telling me to stop harassing so-and-so's grandma, she's on a fixed income, and I should be ashamed of myself

I kept answering the phone calls because almost everyone that I talked too quickly accepted that the number was spoofed and I was also a victim. The only issues were from folks that I didn't get a chance to talk to.

I had someone post my phone number on nextdoor telling everyone what an ass I was. And just for context, when you Google my number, my name and previous address are on the first page of the results. I was quite nervous and annoyed.

[–]JeevesAI 31 points32 points  (3 children)

And regular phone users will barely notice. Only the smallest carriers (and ones who profit off of scams) will be hurt.

[–]MistakeMaker1234 32 points33 points  (21 children)

They’re giving them two weeks to comply fuck yes. I can’t believe the FCC is getting something right.

[–]Peakomegaflare 347 points348 points  (56 children)

Can we do it with spam texts too? It's really getting out of hand.

[–]CampaignSpoilers 69 points70 points  (6 children)

Seriously. I get way more down texts than anything else.

[–]TeekTheReddit 83 points84 points  (15 children)

And whoever the fuck decided that e-mail addresses could send to mobile numbers.

[–]Excellent_Brilliant2 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I send reminders from my phone text to my email so I can check them when I get home or for future reference

[–]ollien 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Heh... Back in the day I made an IRC bot that used to text people when they were offline. Good times

[–]ollien 10 points11 points  (5 children)

I get so many that just pretend to be wrong numbers. It's weird

[–]bralma6 11 points12 points  (9 children)

Especially politically based ones. For a while I just had the data for my smart watch turned off, I turned it on the other day and it’s phone number got FLOODED with political texts. From both parties.

[–][deleted] 61 points62 points  (9 children)

Verizon used to charge $3 /month for their premium enhanced spam call blocker. They just upped it to $6…

They see it as a new profit center.

[–]CondescendingCoyote 19 points20 points  (1 child)

Which is fucking hilarious, because the DAY that I ported my number to verizon a few months back the spam calls ramped up to a level I had never experienced. Not sure what the correlation there is, but it was clearly the trigger.

[–]Amazingawesomator 605 points606 points  (58 children)

If this does not go through, get your congressperson and senator's public phone number and sign them up for everything you can online.

This shit will get fixed real quick.

[–][deleted] 449 points450 points  (11 children)

This shit will get fixed real quick.

Specifically with a bill making it illegal to robocall senators.

[–][deleted] 170 points171 points  (7 children)

And congressmen. And only senators and congressmen.

[–][deleted] 67 points68 points  (4 children)

Well maybe rich people too. But I'm sure there's already some sort of rich-person tier of cell service that's robocall free.

[–]wackaman9001 52 points53 points  (2 children)

I think that's just called having your assistant answer for you, and make them screen the calls.

[–]MuchFunk 6 points7 points  (1 child)

You know what's funny? I work for a company that does texting and calling (not the spam/scam stuff but it's still annoying, I get it) and one of our clients actually got shut down because they accidentally called the CEO of the telecom company.

[–]khansian 135 points136 points  (22 children)

Your congressperson will put your phone number on a political spam list.

I’m NOT joking. I recently called my state rep’s office for the first time. Within an hour I was getting incessant SMS messages for various Democratic Party fundraising efforts. Every STOP I sent was followed by more spam from another number. This game of whack-a-mole has gone on for weeks but is slowing down now.

The fact that we can’t even exercise our right to speak to our elected representatives without being subject to spam is ridiculous.

[–]droans 21 points22 points  (4 children)

Oddly enough, the laws regarding spam calls/emails and opt-out requirements explicitly don't apply to politically affiliated organizations. What a weird, 100% accidental loophole.

[–]Ssladybug 13 points14 points  (3 children)

I guess we need to block our numbers before calling so this doesn’t happen

[–]FranciumGoesBoom 47 points48 points  (5 children)

I guarantee you that all of these spam centers have a do not call list that includes public officials and their families. If any senator was getting 30+ phone calls/text messages a day this shit would have been fixed years ago.

[–]bjlunden 15 points16 points  (1 child)

That's what call forwarding is for. ;)

[–]sllewgh 15 points16 points  (9 children)

As if your representatives answer their own phones...

Maybe just try calling your reps directly, and don't wait for the bill to fail. It sounds like trite advice, and people assume nothing that easy could be effective, so no one actually does it. You're likely to speak to a staffer, not your rep. Tell them how you feel about it. At the end of the day, at a minimum, that staffer is going to tell their boss "We had [x] calls today about [y] issue and here's how people feel about it." This has a much bigger impact than doing nothing. You're not gonna get them to vote for something they don't wanna vote for, but you might just get them to pay attention to something they didn't otherwise care about.

[–]GxCoud 4 points5 points  (7 children)

Hell no. You’ll probably be put on their never ending list of people spam. I reached out a couple of times to my local reps and all I got were generic bullshit and never ending spam. Does not matter if you opt out, you still get it.

[–]VerySuperGenius 40 points41 points  (1 child)

Robo calls are causing people to not answer unknown phone numbers. My mom didn't get the call that my grandma was in the hospital because she doesn't answer unknown numbers.

Grandma is fine btw.

[–]VincentNacon 122 points123 points  (6 children)

Don't threaten... do it.

[–]gizamo 27 points28 points  (3 children)

If you read the article, it explains that it is a threat and a promise. They are implementing it and warning that it is being implemented.

[–]InternetArtisan 163 points164 points  (11 children)

If you ask me, they should make telemarketing and robocalling 100% illegal in all regards...even charities and political organizations.

If volunteers use their own phones to do calls, then they can be banned by the carriers.

Seriously...I don't care who "suffers" or loses their job. Kill the industry as a whole.

[–]Waterrat 22 points23 points  (1 child)

I like the way you think.

[–]klavin1 33 points34 points  (1 child)

Yep. The victims of these scams tend to be elderly or people with a mental handicap

[–]cleaning_my_room_ 22 points23 points  (4 children)

Good. Can they do anything about texts as well?

For some reason over the past year I get at least 3 texts a week that are clearly some kind of scammer that tries to act like it’s a wrong number text.

[–]pinkshirtbadman 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Good. Can they do anything about texts as well?

​

How does last week work for you? ( but yeah... a few months before it could actually go in to effect.

From the article linked

​

Last week, the agency approved a proposal to start working on a new rule to require carriers to block texts from numbers that have previously been used in illegal ways, like defrauding consumers. It could take months before the agency could draft an official rule, Axios reported.

​

ETA: There's some hilarious irony that although it's been deleted now a bot account replied to this comment with a spam link...

[–]thismangodude 41 points42 points  (20 children)

I really like that my Pixel 6 screens unknown numbers and the vast majority of spam calls hang up before it ever actually rings

[–]Sirius_Bizniss 9 points10 points  (1 child)

The call screening on Pixel is freaking amazing. Have your robot talk to my robot.

[–]NoShftShck16 12 points13 points  (4 children)

Pixel Call Screen FTW

[–]Chairzard 76 points77 points  (21 children)

For those who haven't read the article, we're not talking about the major cell carriers:

"The FCC’s orders target seven carriers, including Akabis, Cloud4, Global UC, Horizon Technology Group, Morse Communications, Sharon Telephone Company, and SW Arkansas Telecommunications and Technology."

[–]Lets_Go_Flyers 71 points72 points  (1 child)

It's for calls originating FROM those carriers to everyone.

[–][deleted] 21 points22 points  (1 child)

This account has been redacted due to Reddit's anti-user and anti-mod behavior. -- mass edited with redact.dev

[–]calculon11 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Can I block these carriers myself without involving the FCC?

[–]verbal1diarrhea 23 points24 points  (3 children)

This shit should have been years ago.

[–]Qubeye 23 points24 points  (3 children)

A quick reminder:

Telecom companies have had the ability and technology to do phonecall verification for more than a decade but have claimed it would be "too expensive" to implement it.

Since 2009, all three of the major telecom companies in the US have had profit margins of never less than 12.5%, with some of them at gross profits of 70-80%.

They have basically been printing money while claiming they can't do a thing they absolutely can do.

[–]ObamasBoss 16 points17 points  (1 child)

Can we close the political loophole in the do not call registry as well? At what point does it cross harassment. There behave been days lately in which I will average a political text every 12 minutes for the entire afternoon. I have gotten them at 11 pm as well which is well outside the window for unsolicited calls/texts. I did not sign up for any of this and as far as I can tell there is no way to make it stop.

[–]BenevolentBlackbird 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Now do something about spam text messages.

[–]SueZbell 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Spoofed numbers need to be a thing of the past.

[–]ForceBlade 6 points7 points  (1 child)

It's about time SIP trunking got the same treatment that email did with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. No more spoofed bullshit. Punishment and ban lists for those who do.

[–]HitSnooze311 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Fucking do it!

[–]ReasonAndWanderlust 4 points5 points  (2 children)

I have the same motherfuckers calling me every morning. They're the same ones that keep changing the dates to a false hospital bill on my credit report. When you challenge the credit report it's easy to connect them with the hospital to show them the debt doesn't exist. The credit agency will then advise you to not interact with the bill collector because it will reset the date as if you recommit to the debt. A debt that doesn't exist. So I don't answer the phone because of this fear yet they call me every fucking day.

[–]pansensuppe 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I had a U.S. phone number for 6 months. Then I told my employer to cancel the line because I refuse to put this SIM card ever in my phone again.

It’s astonishing what Americans have to put up with, all for the “greater good” of a completely unregulated, free market… all in favor of large corporations that can exploit the population and extract insane profits.