BT installs phone 'spam filter', says it'll strain out mass cold-callers BT has opened a free nuisance call screening service, which it estimates could junk 15 million cold calls - such as PPI and accident claims - to a voicemail box. The Call Protect service will use what it described as "huge computing power" to analyse large amounts of live data, said BT. The Register has asked for specifics on …
*ring ring* - *ring ring*
Me: "Hello?"
Caller: "Hi my name is (whatever) and I'm calling from (insert claims company) and we've been handed your details by the National Database of Car Accidents. Could I confirm that this is (my name)?"
Me: "Well yes, that's me."
Caller: "Very good, and it's correct that you've been involved in a car accident recently?"
Me: "Well you're going to have to be more specific, I've been in a lot of accidents"
*blip* - Caller hangs up.
If I have the time and inclination, I'll just sit and talk nonsense to them for ages, wasting their time, preventing them making any money...
The challenge is to come up with more and more outlandish injuries until you get to the point where they don't believe you any more.
We used to have a league table at work with the amount of time people had kept them strung along for before they hung up on you, that was fun :-)
Amongst my canned Spam call answers.
Accident Claims "Was it my minor accident or my fatal one ?"
Windows support "Will this make my pirate copy legal ?"
PPI claims (Still working on this one) "Sorry I live in the barter economy I don't use money, Would you like some organic compost ?"
Utilities (Gas Leccy Phone) on business line "We are in a serviced office no utilities."
Can we Talk to the Business Owner "We don't have one we are a co-operative"
I you have the time a well prepared reply script can be great fun' Tis the duty of able bodied people to waste as much of these parasites time as possible.
I know a place in America that plays Country and Western. That really IS torture.
After you hear the 3rd song about the dog dying and the wife running off with another guy you HAVE to drop the call or you lose the will to live
But if you play those C&W songs backwards, you get your trailer back, you get your wife back, and you get your dog back.
"then add their caller ID to my blacklist"
The problem with THAT is that whilst they're rotating through callerIDs that are mostly invalid anyway, sometimes they belong to real companies.
I've made a point of doing verification callbacks to the CID numbers and one of them was a dental surgery in Manchester. The receptionists were wondering why they'd had a spate of abusive calls (Personally I'd call that harrassment by incitement)
The problem with THAT is that whilst they're rotating through callerIDs that are mostly invalid anyway, sometimes they belong to real companies.
Mmm.
The issue there is that the Telco's are breaking the rules and being allowed to. Basically on a PABX you can arbitrarily set any Caller ID, but that caller ID has to belong to you, and be from that Telco's network. The Telco knows who you are because they have the accounting information.
The ultimate solution to this is to say to the telephone companies that are allowing companies to fraudulently provide caller ID that their access to the telephone network is being cut off in 30 days if they don't present their plan to comply with the rules.
" The Telco knows who you are because they have the accounting information."
Unlike the 90s when telcos had an entire department dedicated to maintaining interconnect agreements with every other telco, most calls are funnelled like Internet connections (the routing tables are similiar to BGP too, with zero security precautions against bad actors, which has meant number range hijacking has been a problem long before it IP block hijacking started being detected on the Internet)
That means the calls coming into BT from XYZ interconnect are a bundle coming from dozens of downstream telcos. The question then is whether BT is willing to cut off ABC DEF and GHI entire countries to try and filter the spam.
I found that I could shorten the call by just saying one word - "No" - to every question they ask:
Scammer: "Hello, am I speaking to Mr XXXXX?"
Me: "No".
Scammer: "Oh. Is Mr XXXX available?"
Me: "No"
Scammer: "Who am I speaking to then?"
Me: "No"
Generally they hang up after my 2nd reply, but if not, the grammatical absurdity of my 3rd No is enough for even the hardest-nosed scammer to give up. Annoyingly I can't seem to get it down to a single No (although I did have a lucky one the other day when he just hung up after I said I wasn't who he was expecting.
Please do resist the urge to be rude though, because these people do have your phone number, and they can make your life difficult if they really want to. A female friend of mine swore at one of the "Windows Support" crowd, only to have him ring back twice and subject her to verbal abuse of a sexual nature.
My response does depend on my mood, but the "Window Support" Spam/Scam usually gets either, "Sorry, I don't have a computer." (which does seem to throw them) or "F-Off you lying peice of *beep* *beep* *beep*".
Only once did they call right back. I just picked up the phone and then hung up on them. They got the message after two or three tries.
Off topic, but ...
I was in Curry's one day with the family. Forgive us, I think we must have been bored ...
Sales dweep: "Are you allright, Sir?"
Me: "Meeep".
<< Repeat several times>>
Confused sales dweep "Something else equally crass"
Me "Meeep".
.... etc.....
Took him far too long to not work out if I was eversoslightlystrange, bored or taking the piss ...
Begun to think I should have brought a cattle prod ... Eventually he wondered off looking confused.
A few minutes later came across him in the car park attempting to "help" some poor mark load his purchase into his car ... and caught his eye.
Me (sweetly): "Meeep". His face - nearly pissed myself.
On topic ...
<< Voice from somewhere on the sub continent >>
"Hello, is that Mr Zondek?
"Oh - no, I'm sorry, he went mad, you know, we had to shoot him."
>> slight stunned pause - obviously not had that one before - get in quick before he comes to <<
"Yes, it was VERY sad. Made a TERRIBLE mess on the bathroom walls, <slight pause> But we've washed it all down now so that's ok. Sorry I can't help you. Bye. <Click>
OR ....
<< Female voice from somewhere on the sub continent >>
After several seconds ....
Me: "Excuse me, before we go any further, can you do something for me?"
Scammer: "Er ..."
Me: " Will you run upstairs for me and stick your bum out of an upstairs window? .... And then run downstairs and throw rocks at it?
Pause while she works that one out ... and strange sounds of disquiet start to come down the line ...
>Click>
"A female friend of mine swore at one of the "Windows Support" crowd, only to have him ring back twice and subject her to verbal abuse of a sexual nature."
The thing about them doing that that is that it crosses the line from illegal to flatout criminal and if she'd bothered making a police complaint the phone company would have had to pull call accounting records (not just callerID records)
If that happens enough times then the telcos might start taking some action.
Scammer: "Hello, am I speaking to Mr XXXXX?"
Me: "No".
Scammer: "Oh. Is Mr XXXX available?"
Me: "No"
When our phone still had my grandmother's name on it, it was fun to torment the callers who would use that name.
Salesdroid: "Mr Oliver?"
Me: "He died in 1965"
Salesdroid: "B.A. Oliver?"
Me: "yes, my grandmother"
Salesdroid: "Is she there?"
Me: "she died in 1982"
Salesdroid: "um.... <mumbles> sorry" (and then they'd give up)
I had enough time to string them along a few months back and ended the call fairly sure that the insurance scammers have some form of access into the DVLA.
Specifically, I gave them the registration of a car I used to own (scrapped) but with wrong colour and engine. They immediately asked whether I'd gotten the colour wrong and coached about the right colour, then did the same about engine size.
The part that gobsmacks me is that both the DVLA and the ICO seem completely uninterested in this aspect.
"Specifically, I gave them the registration of a car I used to own (scrapped) but with wrong colour and engine. They immediately asked whether I'd gotten the colour wrong and coached about the right colour, then did the same about engine size."
Not hard to find either of those things. If you know the make and registration, the gov lets you know this. https://vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/ (you don't need V5C)
If all you've got is the registration number, any car parts website (Halfords etc) will tell you make and model which you then stick into the checker above.
"Not hard to find either of those things. If you know the make and registration, the gov lets you know this. https://vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/ "
I know that, but
1: The results took far longer than these guys took.
2: If all queries are being logged (and they should be), you just located the IP address of the spammers.
Anyway, being a _scrapped_ vehicle, it doesn't show on the public query system and website lookups like Halfrauds (and others) don't bring back colours.
"Anyway, being a _scrapped_ vehicle, it doesn't show on the public query system and website lookups like Halfrauds (and others) don't bring back colours."
We Buy Any Car brings back everything, even for scrapped cars (or knows about a car I've had scrapped anyway). Takes less than a second from you giving me your registration number to me knowing everything I need to know about the car. In the time it take you to tell them your engine size, they've already looked it up.
If they wanted to put some effort into it, it wouldn't be hard to build a front-end for the call-agent and screen scrape a bunch of these sites.
Better approach: broken "english" accent, call centre background noise - put the phone down. That's saved me hours of my time. My professional hourly rate is £lots, their's is statutory minimum if UK based, a couple of pence in an indian call centre. So who's the mug for wasting time with them?
I prefer to wind them up, especially the ones pretending to be "tech support" or pretending to be from my bank.
Hey, they're trying to commit fraud by deception, so why should I care if my unique style of "professional unpleasantness" leaves them upset and annoyed ? They're criminals and they deserve an ulcer or two.
Call from withheld, unavailable or international number comes in.
10s.
Answering machine pickes it up.
"Hello, thank you for calling. So that we can deal with your call efficiently please select from the following menu:
If you're a claims management company press 1;
If you're a boiler room press 2;
If you're a bogus Microsoft engineer press 3;
etc."
For some reason they don't seem to want to play ball. Can't think why.
I go for this approach:
Spamer - "Spam spam spammity spam"
Me - "Just a moment, I just need to grab a pen and paper so I can write down this amazing offer!"
* leave phone by TV or radio, and come back in a few minutes to see if they're there, if they are
Me - "sorry mate, still looking for that pen, just hold on a sec ok?"
and repeat.
Most of them give up after five minutes, lightweights!
(Mind you, I don't have a landline, and almost never get spam on my mobile)
"Most of them give up after five minutes, lightweights!"
I just leave the phone for a good while & then hang up; usually they've done that themselves. But I did have a very persistent/dumb company (double glazing, of course) where the sales manager rung back to say the line went dead.
I never identify myself because your data is more valuable to them just by confirming your number is still associated with that name. If I get one like that I say "Never heard of him" and put the phone down. If they address me by name I ask "Who are you? Have you got a wrong number?"
Don't give the bastards anything, at least until there's a button that sends a remote electric shock down the phone.
Typical spam call I DO NOT GET.
Hint: I retired BT service in favour of first sipgate, later teleappliant in 2007. My "fixed" lines are actually terminated on an asterisk PBX.
I never had a cold call ever since 2007. I used to have some anti-spam rules on the Asterisk, but dropped them as they were not getting hit at all for years.
The reason you get scam calls is because BT directly sold them your data.
So all this means that now the cold callers will be paying an extra premium in order to get to you direct to BT. Sweet revenue, here it comes.
True in the US as well. Not sure why you were downvoted.
Signed up for Verizon landline/DSL at a different location for temporary project. Telemarketers start calling as soon as I plug it in. Verizon rep says the number is being gotten from the directory, that they don't sell numbers. I point out that the calls came before the account was even billed, much less published. I had looked myself up on Verizon's own online white pages and I wasn't there yet.
Filed a complaint with that state and FCC, Verizon suddenly calling me to apologise. Telemarketing calls stop.
First step: remove fox from henhouse.
"And presumably if it's redirecting to voicemail, BT are still getting their coin for connecting the call through, so they still get some revenue anyway."
The "huge computing power" is actually just enough storage to ensure BT can record the calls and claim the spammer revenue.
While it doesn't require "huge computing power" at present, once they start selling the automated spamming services to allow both the call and receiver to be connected to the same system and cut out the inefficient third-party systems, the requirement to automatically provide spammers with numbers that then divert to the spam mailboxes will drive requirements through the roof...
Actually BT & GCHQ have had this facility since the turn of the millennium, you just needed to know who to ask!
As its becoming more of an issue now affecting many people, its now being made available, but its got limited application when calls come from abroad and the number is withheld especially when considering how easy it is to get a VOIP number hooked up with VPN to some remote server in the back of beyond.
TalkTalk have something similar introduced some months after it was announced they were hacked in Nov 2015 but if a rogue calls does get through you have a number to call which bans the last incoming number, thing is I can never remember what that number is not that it works when its a withheld number from abroad anyway.
Managed to wind one of them up today though, had an Indian/Pakistani sounding chappy on the phone, couldn't remember what ISP he was calling from, so dragged call out, managed to get his supervisor on the line, who couldn't pronounce the word "voice" properly, but sounded deliberately Russian like Anton Yelchin when he appeared in Star Trek, thing is there was also a South African accent as well sneaking out as well.
Anyway how do I get rival companies on the ban list or get my mates number banned so he cant phone his gf?
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