Does the bill even provide funding to put out public service announcements to tell people about this new law and how to contact the proper authorities?
Blocking doesn’t help anything. Doing so means the poor schlub who actually has that number won’t be able to call you. The phone spammer will likely never call you again from that spoofed number either, so you’re not hindering them.
Yes it was an intentional feature, specifically designed for companies with PBX systems. Think of a company you call for customer service, you call one phone # - 800-CALL HER(e) or 800-225-5437. When you call that #, it’s routed to the next available customer service agent. When they call you back (remember, we’re talking hypothetical scenario here; it’s about as plausible as one of Skald’s ;)) they wanted your caller ID to show 800-225-5437 instead of the individual agent’s desk phone #.
Here’s the outgoing greeting on my machine. People I know or do business with will show up by name on the caller ID, and I pick up the phone for them. Otherwise, they hear this:
I know it’s pointless to insult a robot, but it amuses real callers.
On my land line, I do get a display of the caller’s name (regardless of my address book). However, this may be a Canadian thing. Quoth Wikipedia (bolding mine):
We do get the occasional “You’ve won a cruise” call anyway, but maybe less than other locations because of the Do Not Call list + the language barrier.
one legtimate use case: protecting victims of domestic abuse. without ability to hide or spoof caller id, abused spouse can’t contact their children (still living with abuser, for whatever reason) without revealing their location and opening themselves up to harm.
Also, companies want to be able to point all callbacks to their customer service line regardless of what number an employee calls from.
How will passing a law help? Because criminals just ignore the law anyway.
What’s even more stupid is, when I am bored and answer these calls, most every time there is no one there. What’s the point of scam calls if you don’t actually make an effort to scam someone? Lazy scammers think I’m just going to send them money without any effort on their part? 
Autocaller going down a list of numbers in a row, and checking off those that pick up. List is then sold to telemarketers as valid phone numbers.
For my VoIP provider there’s an entry for what number I want to show up in the caller ID. So I could put anything there.
These robocallers do VoIP at their end. So it’s no problem for them.
Note that they have to have a gateway teleco going from the Internet to the phone network. Legit telecos don’t like robocallers like this and don’t do business with them. Which is a teeny, tiny annoyance to telemarketers. They just use one of the many other companies that look the other way in return for some dough.
They have a limited number of people to pick up when someone answers. If no one is available you get dead air.
Whoosh.
Get NoMoRobo (free for landlines) which kills most of them after one ring.
For ones that get through let voice mail or an answering machine pick it up. Real people will leave a message.
If you do pick up, I’ve found that not saying anything fools the calling software into thinking no one is there. I suspect if you say something it will either transfer the call to a person or play the spam message. It seems to recognize answering machines and hangs up at the beep.
For cellphones there is an app (for Android at least) which crowd sources reporting of numbers from spam callers, and blocks them if enough people report the same number. For some reason I get almost no calls on my phone but my wife gets a ton and this works great.
We get 10 - 15 calls a day but have to deal with none of them.
I get a shit-ton of calls about student loan forgiveness and my fictitious application for health care. Of which there are many apparently. 95% come in with the same area code and prefix I have. Usually I’ll call the number back and let the person know they’re number is being spoofed and to call the provider to let them know. Maybe if enough people call the providers they’ll put pressure in the FCC or someone to curtail it. Though, as pointed out, US law isn’t going to stop scammers in foreign countries.
I think part of the reason is that family plans often use the same area code + 3 digits for everyone on the plan. At least Verizon and (I think) T Mobile.
Also, some of these calls may be real people who were called by your spoofed number, and are calling back to see who the heck called them.
I used an Android app to block all of them for awhile but it required it to be always in my notifications so I don’t use it anymore and just put up with these.
I suspect the provider could easily see large numbers of calls coming one after another from supposedly residential numbers. But there is nothing they can do about it except block calls from that number, which would also block legitimate calls.
Since the person with the number can’t do anything about it, calling it just adds one more useless call to the pot. Since I can see the numbers of the calls NoMoRobo blocks, I can tell that a lot of different spoofed numbers close to me are used.
This is one nice thing about living in a different state than I was when I got my first cellphone. If I get a call from 406 (Montana), it’s either the alumni office, a wrong number, or a scammer. If I get a call from 216, 440, or 330 (Cleveland and the surrounding area), it’s probably legit.
Yes, this is the primary reason why I keep an area code I haven’t lived in for 10 years.
Yes, calling the number back wouldn’t help much. I was just thinking if providers had enough complaints they might try to get something done about it. I know that if someone called me because my number showed up trying to complete a bullshit health insurance application, I’d be on the phone with T-Mobile and would be on the call for quite awhile. Let’s keep in mind how much telecommunication companies spend on lobbying for any number of reasons. I’m sure they could find the scratch to get something done.
The more I think about it the more I think they can do something. I get that there are apps and programs and there’s no way to practically prevent foreign sources from doing anything. But these companies know at least a little about technology. For instance, I have T-Mobile. Why do I get daily calls for health insurance and student loan help I’ve never asked for from the same area code and prefix as my phone? They assigned the number, they have no control over it?
For instance, let’s say a T-Mobile customer calls me. Same area code and prefix. I refuse to believe T-Mobile can’t have some autobot in the matrix that would know if it’s a T-Mobile number or a spoof.
Yeah, I know it seems a little Big Brother but fuck, I’m tired of these calls! And what the fuck good is the Do Not Call registry anyway!!!:mad:
The Do Not Call registry is working just as it was designed. Legitimate businesses respect it and don’t call. That way you know any other calls you get are scams. It never pretended to be able to block all telemarketers and scammers.