Anti-fraud tools can't keep pace with robocall scammers

The solution is accessible law, not better anti-fraud tooling. Introduce a spam / fraud button, using it requires your pin and costs $10, but obliges your telecom provider to record the call (preferably including a few minutes before you hit the button), email you a signed recording and if found to be spam deposit $100 onto your account. Your provider may then hand the fee +10% for himself to whatever network the call in question entered his own network from. The last cooperative network in the chain gets stuck with the fee, forcing them to either reclaim the money from the malicious customer, the next network in the chain (in court) or pony up the money themselves.

Result: All routes to non-cooperating networks get dropped within days to weeks and scam-calling stops being a lucrative business basically instantly.

One of the biggest concerns I have with phone scams is that the people most vulnerable are the elderly, and they don’t have the knowledge on how to block these calls (if a technical solution is the only option).

And further to that, the elderly are also the ones who cannot block unknown numbers, because doctors’ offices seem to have random numbers they call you from (they may have a pool of numbers but it’s not reasonable to add all of them to contacts). Blocking all unknowns would block these important health related calls as well.

I no longer can answer my phone. I get at least 20-40 spam/scam calls per day, and many are legitimate companies calling for loans and refinancing offers, which started after I got a home loan. I cannot seem to stop them from calling, and even though my phone number is listed in National Do Not Call Registry for many years, it hasn't worked at all. The only relief is that on my iPhone, I was able to block all calls not found in my contacts (ie whitelist phone numbers only).

Now, my only worry is that I might get a call from someone who I need to talk to, but is blocked and I won't even know it. For example, what if I get an emergency call from police/fire/hospital and I won't even know it. I also tried using "Screen unknown caller" feature, but then, no one likes them and sometimes they think it is AI bot and they usually just hang up (which is great for spam caller but not for legitimate caller)

My only solution that I could think of is to have a dedicated phone line just for friends/family/work, and a second line for banking/shopping/utilities/everything else.

Why are phones still so fucking far behind in the dark ages??

Instant messaging solved all this shit 700 years ago!

Let each number act as an "account" on the phone network/company, just like IM accounts, each with its list of contacts, and blocked numbers.

Shove incoming calls into "Strangers" with low-annoyance notifications (ringtones) by default unless they're from a "verified" company etc.

Oh and yeah as others said, a "Report Abuse" button.

Maybe this is a pipe dream, but wouldn't it be better to retire the legacy phone voice and messaging system altogether.

If 99.9% of us have internet phones, why aren't we using PKI, decentralized protocols, crowd sourced reputation to communicate instead of POTS phone numbers, SMS/iChat and relying on the carriers to police spam.

Is this a USA problem, or world-wide? If other countries don't have such a problem, why not?

dontscamgrandma.com is probably apropos to share here for the elderly / vulnerable affected by scam proliferation. It's a trainer that roleplays people through getting the confidence to hang up and call their loved ones back.

Full disclosure I'm the founder, and I've got a couple dogs in this fight

An ask: I'm trying to find out where substantive discussion by carriers AND other parties on mitigating phone spam (voice or text) is occurring. I'd very much appreciate replies here, email (see my profile), or hop on this Fediverse thread: <https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/116984051310517623>

Broadband Breakfast does seem to be one of those entities. ATIS (<https://atis.org/>) is another, though as a telco alliance I consider it highly suss.

(Submitter.)

I got an obviously-AI voice agent spam call yesterday. Had a bit of fun getting it to answer trivia questions (when was the treaty of westphalia ratified? answer in a rhyming couplet) as a precondition to handing over the keys to my bank accounts.

I get messages (and often don't answer my phone; my ringer is off) in which it's obviously this automated thing but they immediately dock it down to "press 1 if..."

'Kay. So you call people and just clearly have a tone the second you hear a voice which could well be someone's answering machine

(Of course most of it would be automated, I guess)

Special place in hell for these people

T-Mobile’s Scam Shield works really well for me. But you have to get the premium tier.

Hi - we're doing tree removal in your area. Call us back at 1-800-SCAM

Cheap messaging is as annoying now as calling. Ruining the phone experience overall. Soon Apple will have to do something.

Commerce should never have been made possible to happen on the internet. The moment it became possible to send and receive money through the internet, the end times began.

I genuinely don't understand why this is so hard to tackle.

Phone numbers are a scare resource and the telecommunications networks heavily regulated with numerous central points of control.

This bullshit is scaling because the companies which gate and sell that access have no obligations, legal or otherwise, to deny scammers access to their resources.