Ask HN: How have telemarketers been able to terrorize the US for years?

4 points·RandomTisk··4 comments

I'm really confused at how my phone can ring 1 to 5 times per day and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Between my personal and work iphones, I end up ignoring between 2 to 10 calls a day. I've read plenty of stories about how it's such a plague, but why can't the telecommunications companies deal with this?

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To be clear for those who somehow don't get these calls, telemarketers have been spoofing phone numbers with impunity for over 3 years now. At least, 3-4 years ago is when I first started getting daily telemarketing calls.

Telemarketers spoof the area code or prefix or both so at first glance it appears you're being called by someone local to you.

Lenny. Check out YouTube videos of the telemarketer’s nightmare. NerdVittles and some others have instructions for setup on voip systems.

They can deal with it. Verizon has a tool to block this spam that used to cost $3/mo, and that they’re finally making available for free.

Why they don’t simply block it from their network in the first place, though, is beyond me.

In Canada, apparently the Conservatives want to try their hand at spammy robocalling. For the past few years there has been scandal after scandal of their underhanded campaigns using this method. Some of them have gone to jail for it in the past, so hopefully the newest campaign they announced this week* will be met with similar disdain.

No honest product has ever been peddled this way.

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservatives-carbon-tax-ad...

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