robocall_killah

Unfortunately, it's usually older and less savvy people that always get taken advantage of from scams like that. Look at the area code they're spoofing - Florida. But anyway...that wasn't your question.

Nomorobo looks at the incoming calls from hundreds of thousands of phone lines in real-time. Robocalling patterns stick out like a sore thumb. The phone number that called you was most definitely spoofed. But, they spoofed the same number to hundreds of people. Nomorobo has the data to detect those patterns.

Also, we have a long list of legal robocallers on our whitelist. This prevents school closings, prescription reminders, doctors appointment calls, etc. from getting blocked.

Right now, since the carriers don't want to cooperate (or can't, so they say), Nomorobo piggybacks off of the simultaneous ring feature of VoIP phones. This was my "hack" to get the product out there and helping people.

That's the main reason I'm going to the FCC on Tuesday. I think they should clarify their position and tell the phone companies that it's ok to block robocalls if consumers want it.

Totally. In all honesty, the ONLY people that disagree on that point are the carriers. And, my theory, is they're making $$ carrying these calls so they don't want them to stop.

The do not call list was created over a decade ago to solve a different problem. Legit companies were trying this new "telemarketing" thing. People needed a way to get them to stop. Thus, the DNC list was born.

And it worked...for a bit.

Nowadays, the robocallers are scammers, plain and simple. Trying to scam elderly people. Trying to sell people fake security systems. It's more like email spam than "telemarketing." I have tons of these calls recorded and they're awful to listen to.

Politicians are a different case. They just want to get elected so they'll do anything they can...including carving out an exemption in the law for themselves.

You're just a blip on a computer screen to these guys. One of thousands of calls they have to answer. Doing anything but hanging up is usually a waste of time.

This summer we tried messing with them hard but, I too ended up feeling really guilty. The people at the other end of the line are really just trying to make a living. It's their bosses that are the scumbags.

When we pulled back from harassing them and instead just setup dumb situations, that got really fun.

We made some cartoons from the calls and we're posting them on YouTube. The first one's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3rFlPc3b_Q

We did a bunch where were acted like we just got into a bad car crash. The people on the other end of the line didn't know what to do.

Another time, some SEO company thought they were calling a tire shop but I pretended it was an adult toy distributor. She kept trying to make the sale until the very, very end.

Hopefully! That's why I'm going to the FCC on Tuesday. I want them to clarify to the carriers that it's ok to provide robocall blocking services if consumers want them.

If we get them to say that, carriers can build robocall blocking directly into their system - just like email providers have spam filtering. And then, all these garbage calls will quietly disappear.