Illegal Scam

In My Humble Opinion
1

For a long time, we’ve been seeing - several times a day - the screen on our landline displaying “SPAM RISK” when the phone rings. That’s a commentary on our times, for sure.

Well, Spectrum went one step farther today. The screen today displayed “ILLEGAL SCAM”. (OK. Actually, “ILLEGAL SCA”. That offers the possibility that’s they’re protecting us from an imitator of the Society of Creative Anachronism." But I have my doubts.)

Has anyone else seen this? Is this only on Spectrum customer phones? Do the people on the other end not test the calls to see how they come through? So many questions.

2

I have AT&T landline and I get “Telemarketer” or “Suspected Spam” a couple times a day.

3

Part of me wanted to ask: if the telco can identify it with sufficient confidence to label it ‘ILLEGAL SCAM’, why wouldn’t they just drop the call?

After a moment’s thought, I think the answer is: because that sounds like a service they could charge extra for, coming soon…

4

Aren’t scams illegal by definition?

5

At point of delivery, usually. At source, probably. Some people claim it’s not illegal to scam foreigners in certain countries; that seems kind of dubious, but if law enforcement is powerless or careless, then I suppose it’s sort of true in a defacto sense.

6

For a long time the number from my kids’ school showed up as “Scam Likely” on our callerID, probably because our provider was able to tell that they were calling a substantial amount of people in a very short time (for things like announcements on conferences, snow days, etc.) So just auto-dropping the call could result in a lot of people not getting needed information.

7

I get SCAM LIKELY on some calls (T-Mobile).

Regardless, I don’t answer any calls from outside my area code. There could be a legit reason why someone seems to be calling from Jacksonville, Florida*, but they can leave a message.

*they could be local but like me, kept a phone number from where they lived previously.

8

Yeah, I suppose I wonder what is the value of the ‘scam likely’ message in that case though if it cries wolf.

9

I’m a frequent flyer at the Red Cross Blood bank, and they’ll send me a recorded reminder call a few days before my eligibility comes up. Verizon Wireless labeled these as suspected scam calls until I put the number into my contacts list. I suppose the recorded or computer generated call coming from a toll free number might trigger some algorithm.

10

If some of called labeled spam are legitimate, don’t they leave a voice mail message if you don’t pick up?

I’ve never gotten a SPAM RISK call that left a voice message. Other scammers have, but they didn’t have warnings attached.

11

I recently started getting calls with that ID on my Boost Mobile phone and Comcast/Xfinity will soon start doing the same for our landline.

12

Verizon says Potential Spam. On my landline, if it gets through NoMoRobo they almost universally hangup as soon as the beep from my voice mail hits.

Most of the spam supposedly comes from within my area code. And from the same first three digits of my number.

13

My fiancée’s landline displays either “SCAM LIKELY” or “POTENTIAL SPAM.”

Frontier Communications.

14

I get warned about scams right away but they still take up space in my voicemail.

I only have three voicemail slots and yesterday all three were filled with spam.

15

Same with me on my landline. So I let the calls go to my answering machine, but they never leave a message (of course)