something like 80% of the phone calls I receive are straight up attempts to defraud me and no prominent politician has thought to make a big deal of it
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If I don't recognize the number, I don't answer because of this. If it's important, the person can leave a text, voicemail or email. Considering how many politicians ask for donations over the phone though, I doubt they care that much about scammers
They've been trying for about a month now but for some reason it hasn't really generated much media attention. They started talking about it early 2022 and last month they started criminal investigations.
Somethingike 80% of the sms’s I get are from politicians trying to get me to donate.
And my personal Email inbox has been rendered nearly unusable because my address is being sold by one candidate campaign to the next and so on. Unsubscribing and blocking doesn’t stop it
Slight tangent, but is it possible to live where you are without a home phone and without sharing your mobile number? Idk about you but I feel less and less like I need a phone number at all.
i had a friend who had no phone, he had an ipod touch that he made phone calls on with google voice so if you wanted to get in touch with him you had to wait until he was somewhere with wi-fi, which is no big deal until you're trying to find him somewhere in public and you can't just call lol
I think they're holding it behind their backs as a macguffin for when they want to take another stab at another scheme for overt control of the internet
And hopefully when people have had enough of it too, society doesn't make the exact same mistake and rent open and free technology back from monopolistic corporations. Even if they're presently making that mistake with Zoom, Teams, Facetime and other similar tools.
At least it works for friends and family, but only by maintaining the contact list, the veracity of which has to be secured by completely separate channels.
Watch Telemarketers, the new doc series on HBO. The first episode is about Civic Development Group, which scooped up millions $$ in donations intended for police, firefighters, & veterans. One of its owners was in this insanely shitty band: https://music.apple.com/us/album/three-crosses/322210545
A candidate could sweep if they made stopping these calls a major priority. Every one in the country gets those stupid scam calls. It would be a bipartisan, universal issue.
It's funny to think of issues that have built in audiences hankering for attention.
Fake DMCA strikes (Sony, et al) is one I've pondered. Lamentably, streaming (and podcasting) can now be careers. Doesn't even need to be SotU, just put a line on a policy page, they'll sniff it out like truffles.
it's so bad that I've begun to wonder if a politician could run with correcting this as Main Issue #1, with their Main Issue #2 being something completely awful
Like, what's the worst thing #2 could be, but this person would still be electable?
A family member of mine was selling a property. They don’t have a cell. Somehow my number was somewhere somehow associated with it even though I never lived at that address or own it. I was getting fraudulent calls and texts every day about it.
I accidentally picked up a scam call while making an offer on a house a week ago and have gotten easily more than a thousand calls since. 7 am-4 pm every day.
I can fast scroll my recent call list and it takes four full minutes to see them all
once they get the idea that there's blood in the water they get really aggressive, which is why people say to never even answer their calls, not even just to fuck with them
Remember https://donotcall.gov? People got sick of spam calls and for once Congress did something about it. Except now the spammers are ignoring the law and I'm sure if the Dems tried to enforce it the GOP would suddenly decide that no, everyone in America WANTS spam calls.
Iirc they reversed it let the meat of that legislation lapse, which is why the phone calls are so bad again. I don't recall it being a rep/dem thing specifically either.
My understanding is the calls originate from overseas, using VOIP.
I’m all for sending in the local flight to show the scammers the error of their ways, but that’s more of a law enforcement problem.
I had to intervene in real time as I witnessed someone being phished on the phone the other day. The "don't share this code with anyone" in 2FA SMSes does nothing.
I was having this conversation with a friend recently! IMO, if a Democrat tried to legislate against scam calls, Republicans would be like "Scam calls are good, actually, because FREEDOM, and greed is good." I wouldn't hold out much hope.
That's why I set up my phone to ring only if the caller is in my contact list. I got so tired of pretty much every call being someone trying to sell me something.
Pretty sure it’s about 99% for me (no joke). I dread those small windows of time that I toggle unknown calls back on when I’m awaiting a rare call (eg doctor).
One time I had a spam caller while I was waiting for DoorDash so I answered and they started their spiel and I said “oh sorry I thought you were my doordasher” and they laughed. It was a fun human moment. But for real, I don’t even answer my phone anymore unless I’m expecting a call.
Sometimes I get one where you can hear the call center in the background and they say “grandpa?” And then I tell them to do something that would violate tos were i to repeat it here
entire political movements are being built around a handful of videos of kids looting retail stores but we’re all just casually glancing at actual organized crime operations calling us twice a day or so
Interesting.
Still, they could take a hit on the efficiency of their own operations (by targeting the worst offenders like # spoofing) and reap the positive press.
Does make it a more delicate calculus though.
I will become a zealot for any person or party that stops spam phone calls. It’s bad enough my phone rings, the fact that it’s bullshit is an extra slap to my face.
I was part of a team doing something about that in terms of software.... the biggest hurdle is the capital it would take to bring everything up to compliance, and not a single federal agency seems interested in enforcing laws on the books that would make these companies jump.
Listened to a guy tell me I won $6m and a new car and then when he asked me if I was interested I said "nope" and he hung up at 10:15 a.m. the other day
I normally have my phone set to ignore callers outside of contacts but needed to let insurance call me and disabled it. Within minutes a number called, I answered, and it was someone asking for money to support cops. Just turned it back on and waited for voicemail. It’s all fine.
Yeah, I had to turn off the auto block because the travel company I use kept getting sent to voicemail, but one bonus of the calls from cops (versus any of the others) is that I just start chanting “stop killing black people” until they get so mad they hang up on me.
Those money for cops fundraising calls are a for-real scam. They don’t actually give any money to cops. Apparently, the kind of people who would give money to the already overfunded police are a scammers’ target demographic.
based on the times my grandfather got got, their main motivation is not talking about it ever, they'd prefer nothing change over being reminded about how they got tricked due to their fading mind
generally this is also the main mechanism that drives everyone after their 20s to solidify their entire character and no longer change. adult humans are afraid to admit mistakes (if they were scammed, who theyve "voted for", shortcomings - self inflicted or not, etc). self reflection dies before 38
And not only organized crime, but the only people who fall for it are the elderly and vulnerable populations. It's like straight from a bad political novel
It’s a bit baffling. Like here is an entire means of communication that (especially here) costs a fortune and has become basically shit-infested and no one bats an eye
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“Don’t call me”.
“Or what?”
And my personal Email inbox has been rendered nearly unusable because my address is being sold by one candidate campaign to the next and so on. Unsubscribing and blocking doesn’t stop it
Fake DMCA strikes (Sony, et al) is one I've pondered. Lamentably, streaming (and podcasting) can now be careers. Doesn't even need to be SotU, just put a line on a policy page, they'll sniff it out like truffles.
Like, what's the worst thing #2 could be, but this person would still be electable?
I can fast scroll my recent call list and it takes four full minutes to see them all
I’m all for sending in the local flight to show the scammers the error of their ways, but that’s more of a law enforcement problem.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/21/tech/fcc-robocall-crackdown/index.html
Still, they could take a hit on the efficiency of their own operations (by targeting the worst offenders like # spoofing) and reap the positive press.
Does make it a more delicate calculus though.