Brit regulator pats self on back over nuisance call reduction: It's just 4 billion now! UK communications regulator Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office have awarded themselves a pat on the back for reducing the amount of nuisance calls in the islands to a mere 3.9 billion last year. In an update on the joint action plan to tackle nuisance calls and texts, it said: “Ofcom’s latest estimate is that …
Fining the pittances it has, just isn't working. The business model is still profitable, else we would be having 60 call per person statistic. The ICO has got to grow some balls and step up to the plate.
Meanwhile the only solution I've found is to swear continuously at the callers in a non-stop barrage inc.insulting their parentage.
Curiously I've only had to do it about half a dozen times for a significant >80% drop in the nue-sence calls so I'm guessing there are only a small number of firms doing this, but pretending to be lots of different organisations.
Shame on the ICO that it doesn't seem capable of gumming them to death.
That's just over one a week on average. I'm TPS registered (landline and mobile) and very rarely get nuisance calls so some people out there must be suffering badly. Is it the TPS registration that protects me or the fact that I don't call lots of people or organisations?
I am on TPS.
I am currently getting several a week of the "International" recorded message from "Green Deal Funding" about double glazing replacements. This has been going on for months.
Using "5" to find out more gave a call centre mobile number with a Scottish accent - with a promise to take me off the list. Reported the calls via the ICO web site.
That was then followed up by another call yesterday from a mobile number 07804430544 with a Scottish accent. After I cut the sales spiel short - they confirmed the company name as "Green Deal Funding" - and promised to take me off the list.
A "silent call" has come in several times recently from 01254460171 - which others have reported as burglar alarm marketing.
What is suspicious about all the CLI numbers is they often contain "44" somewhere even more than once. That happens to be the UK International prefix - so I doubt they are their genuine numbers.
On old landline number I was on TPS and still used to still get plenty of "junk" calls.
Got a shiny new landline number (when did a total switch of phone line and ISP), ex directory, and get zero junk calls (so have not bothered about TPS on new number) - I'm guessing this is calm before the storm and even though ex directory at some point number will be leaked or brute forced and I will need TPS
My mum was getting loads of nuisance calls. The number has signficantly dropped since she went on TPS but she still gets a few. The thing is: you shouldn't have to register with TPS not to receive nuisance calls.
The biggest problem with the fines is enforceability. But the regulator has much better tools available for enforcement. The telephone network is, at the end of the day, a pay to play network. Networks that consistently allow scammers to call UK numbers can be blocked completely which means they have an incentive to clamp down themselves. Seems to work okay in other countries.
We sometimes get bursts of one or two every day. (We've been TPS-registered since soon after that service began). It's particularly annoying when they call at or around 0900, when some of us night owls are still trying to sleep.
"Hello". "Hello, is this Mr. Smith?" "Who wants to know?" "This is Jennifer/Roger calling from BT" [strong, almost incomprehensible Indian accent].
"Click".
"We used to get an international call every day about the same time (withno one on the line)"
IME, if you answer before three rings, it stays dead, if you answer after five rings it stays dead. Computer makes the calls at a rate it "thinks" operators are available to take the calls, assuming a certain proportion will go to answerphone (they get dropped) or ring for too long (also get dropped after about 10 rings), but if more people actually answer than operators are available, you get a dead/silent call.
The computer will also take note of the what happened, eg was call answered but no operator available? This must be a good time of day to call again. Was call not answered at all? Try again at a different time of day.
What really needs to happen is the companies using the "lead generators" should be fined too for not doing due diligence and monitoring on the people they contract to make the calls in the first place. Since it's all "computer data" GDPR might come into play.
If the average person gets 60 calls a year, I feel sorry for who ever's getting the 50-odd I'm missing out on.
Mind you, most of the ones I do get are silent calls from random, but legit looking, numbers. As soon as I make a noise, the call drops. I'm not sure if these are malfunctioning spam calls, a weird stalker, or just errors in the network.
The way spam call centres work is that they have a warehouse full of people in cubicles with a phone and a script.
At one end is an automatic dialling machine. This dials numbers, and every time someone picks up the phone it allocates the call to the next free spammer in their cubicle, and continues calling.
Now the spammer may be having a smoke, or just bored, and may not pick the call up. So, after a pause of 10secs or so the line is dropped.
That's usually the reason for most voice-free calls....
@ AMBxx
Any junk call numbers are added to a list of unwanted callers.
You're probably wasting your time if you're relying on the displayed number or what 1471 tells you. The number will be probably be spoofed, and they'll use a different one every time, just like spammers never use the same email source address twice.
"My clever Fritz!Box router handles all my telephone calls. "
So does mine. The good part is that it has a seamless SIP facility that will link into various providers.
I have a 070 number with charge rate set to £1.50/minute that forwards to a SIP account that forwards to Fritz. For the most part if businesses insist on a contact number, that's the one they get.
If I get an unwanted marketing call coming in on that SIP account, its gets strung out as long as possible. I don't get any income from it, but I'm an evil bastard. The 070 providers laughed when I explained why I wanted it set to the maximum charge.
Yes, the TPS list seems a good way for scammers and fraudsters to identify numbers that aren't spare or allocated to fax machines, burglar alarms etc and may well be answered by a vulnerable person.
Most of my nuisance callers don't ask for me by name, so the TPS could well be the source.
What was once a modern marvel, the home phone is now a serious vector for scammers.
I'd estimate that well over 70% of all landline calls we get are from scammer call centres.
Significantly over represented by actors from the sub continent it seems.
If I could put a block on all VOIP I would gladly do it.
I only have a land line to get broadband. If I could drop it I would but on investigation I can't, not yet anyway.
After Cock-wombles Plusnet took six weeks to turn on the phone line, and after they had issued me with no less than six new numbers in those weeks the very first call I got (FSM's honest truth) was "We understand you've been in an accident".
And since then I'd suggest that very nearly 100% of calls have been either accident claims scams, green-deal or PPI. The the rest have been wrong numbers bar 2 calls from my Mum.
Yep. Appoximately 100% of the calls on my landline are scammers. Maybe 10 a week, and I'm TOS registered.
So what do our friends in the Gummint propose to do to shut the door on the overseas call centres? It's all very well attacking the onshore ones, but in my experience, they're a small proportion of the total.
“So what do our friends in the Gummint propose to do to shut the door on the overseas call centres? It's all very well attacking the onshore ones, but in my experience, they're a small proportion of the total.”
One of a very small number of acceptable uses for a drone strike on a non-military target...
I have two ADSL landlines (to double my bandwidth). Neither has a phone attached.
If mom wants to talk to me, she can bloody well call the phone number I gave her. Which is my cell phone.
(Actually, I don't think there's cell service in the afterlife, but when she WAS alive. You know.)
As for nuisance calls on my cell... I probably get them about the rate described here, more or less. But I use an app to help screen the calls. Most of the time they don't make it to the ringer.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mistergroup.muzutozvednout
<pedant>
Blocking VoIP is easy - just block the SIP ports at your firewall
</pedant>
If you really mean that you want to reject calls originating from SIP providers into the PSTN, then that's something else. Have you looked at BT Call Protect, its their nuisance call filtering service.
The other alternative thats not simple to set up but is a lot of fun involves :
1. A Raspberry Pi with RaspPBX (Asterisk) on it to act as the PABX
2. An FXO (phone) interface to receive phone calls to a PABX
3. An FXS (PABX) interface so you can plug in a phone to receive the cleaned calls
4. Lenny to talk to the caller.
5. Some config in Asterisk to decide what caller ID's / types go where.
The other option to Lenny is the awful Abyss music on hold
Now you can have lots of fun with them instead.
Alternately, don't bother answering the phone and let voicemail cope with them, there are plenty of options here.
"The largest penalty - of £400,000 - was against Keurboom Communications Ltd for making over 99 million unlawful automated marketing calls"
I can't help feeling that if they got fines closer to the order of £1 per unlawful calls, they might pause for thought a little more. £400k might have been the largest penalty, but it's still insultingly tiny.
Don’t the telecoms company get a little bit of money for every call they connect? At around four billion a year I’d presume this isn’t chump change, so I’d guess they don’t really want it fixed.
A little like Royal Mail delivering spam through my letter box every week - it helps to keep all those Posties employed
Now that could provide an interesting way to limit these calls.
As the telcos record the metadata for all calls through their network it would be relatively simple to identify bulk calling and just switch it off. Legitimate bulk callers (if any exist) would have to register with their telco.
Simple penalty, money raised from each call is credited to the call recipients phone bill.
Make the telcos pay and they'll find ways to stop it overnight.
Seriously, on landline or mobile, I don't get them.. And I've had my mobile number since before the '07' prefix was added and got it in a bundle on One2One, so it's fair to say it's been a while.
Not only me, but I can't think of anyone I know who get's these calls, so I'm assuming some poor sods get 100s of the things. So what are they doing that gets them the grief? I can't help but wonder if at least in part somewhat self inflicted....?
No, like people who send their mobile numbers to any 'promotion' on Facebook. People who text for info on PPI claims, and people who insert their numbers on every piece of online marketing.
So absolutely nothing like your crass and disingenuous comment.
So despite the inevitable down votes no one has any ideas how the disparity comes about? It's a genuine observation.
Serious reply.
Our landline was a new number in 2013 when we moved, there is a chance it was used before. It's been given to two close family members only otherwise people are told to call our mobiles. The line is only really there for VDSL. It does get occasional calls (perhaps once a month) but since we don't answer it I've no idea whether they're spam or not. If they are junk it's likely an auto dialler block dialling every number in our STD code than because someone has that number from a previous subscriber.
My mobile number is from 2005 so likely new and unused before, but I'm also picky who I give it to (I have an older burner number to give to companies who demand one). It gets about 5 spam texts a year which are reported to my network but otherwise most of the spam I get on that is from my sodding network operator!
So I agree with you - not sure if it's me but I don't get many and consider myself lucky.
I just don't answer my cell phone unless it's a number in my contacts. If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail.
We have a free "land line" from T-Mobile, but we don't use it, no one knows the number, so the several calls we get a week are entirely spam. We did notice that T-Mobile at least started marking some calls as "potential scammer", which is nice. It's also easier to just unplug the thing and move on with our lives.
Even a small fee (a few cents a call) would basically put an end to this B.S. wouldn't it? I know people have proposed that for email before. Make exceptions for A) contacts that I choose [none of that pre-established business relationship B.S.] B) government entities and C) nope, I think that's about it.
Maybe I can sign up for a 900 (toll) number for my personal use?
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