this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024

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I am getting inundated with calls from some sort of tax scam and it's driving me nuts. (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Just a sampling from last week. Every single one of these is the same scam. I had another seven yesterday.

I never answer and they always leave the same prerecorded voicemail message (although that message seems to change every few days) about me owing taxes, which I absolutely don't.

I also get most of them within an hour, which makes it even more annoying.

And yes, I'm on the do not call list.

Someone please make it stop!

all 39 comments

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It's likely a robocaller, in which case, send them to a recording of the SIT intercept tone.
This thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IC_SIT.ogg

It needs to be the first thing the machine hears, so might not work as a voicemail welcome message if your provider has their intro before your message.

It might take a few calls/days before you're purged from their multiple instances of robocallers.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

A cropped version of this used to be the outgoing message on my voicemail for years. People hated it, but it did seem to trick robo calls with that tone. But yeah, it depends on the carrier not inserting their own message before the user-configured greeting.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

That's cool. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Settings -> Apps -> Phone -> Silence Unknown Callers

Might make it more bearable if you're not already using it. But it's still annoying even then.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, that will help. Although I hope the legitimate unknown calls I get, and I do get them not infrequently due to things like medical issues, will know to leave a voicemail.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They will unfortunately also get filtered. What I do is to direct important callers to ensure they leave a VM, or send an email or text.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Well, at least I can turn it on when the block of calling starts. I can turn it back off later in the day.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Does anyone answer if you call back?

I love fucking with the actual scammers. Last time I actually paid for an eFax subscription and kept spamming them back with fax calls.

It took a day or two but they stopped calling.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (2 children)

These scammers generally call from spoofed numbers. If you call them back, some very confused person is doing to answer and have no idea what you're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I’ve never personally used it, but https://www.trapcall.com is a service that can reportedly unmask spoofed/blocked numbers and provide you with the actual number a person is calling from.

I did computer telephony work many years ago and have a general understanding of how this works. Caller ID is trivial to spoof, but there’s an underlying protocol called Automatic Number Identification (ANI) that was historically used for long distance billing when those calls were billed by the minute. Since it involves billing it can’t be spoofed by the caller, and the telephone companies are careful to ensure it’s accurate. What Trapcall apparently does is replace the spoofed Caller ID with the ANI.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This looks like a cool service, but I can’t find their subscription plans/cost anywhere on the website. It looks like I have to sign up for the free trial without knowing how much I’m on the hook for if I forget to cancel in time, and that seems sus.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ugh. I didn’t realize that & haven’t checked out their site in ages…

I just searched for their app in the Apple App Store and it looks like there are at least a few competitors out there now, so if you’re interested in something like this then I’d suggest shopping around to see what alternatives are available.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's cool I didn't know about that. But what prevents the telcos from always using the ANI to identify every call?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

ANI and CallerID serve two very different purposes. Suppose you managed the telephones for something like an insurance company, where you have lots of customers calling in, but also have lots of employees calling out. You want the Caller ID on your customers phones to show the main # for your company whenever you call them, so it would show something like 1-212-555-1000.

Because the company has a lot of employees, it has 100 individual phone lines, so 100 agents can be on calls at the same time. The phone company actually allocates 100 numbers in that case, and those numbers could be very different than the above -1000 number. So the numbers 1-212-555-7000 through 1-212-555-7099 all belong to the company. Each time an employee makes a call their telephone system finds any one of those numbers between -7000 and -7099 that isnt in use and uses it. The call is billed to that specific number, and the bills for all 100 lines are combined & billed to the company at the end of the month.

If the company couldn’t configure its phones to display 1-212-555-1000 as the Caller ID then customers would see random numbers in the range of -7000 to -7099 any time the company called them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Good old caller id spoofing.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'd be worried about trying because they'd think I was doing it because I missed their call and would be a good mark.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's when you've got them on the hook. Then you string them along until they finally realize that you've been messing with them the entire time and start angrily cursing you over the phone.

I make it my personal mission to waste as much of those shitbags time as possible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Not all heroes wear capes. Thank you for your service!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I had an older lady call me to ask why I had been calling her phone. Had to explain that scammers were faking caller ID numbers, it wasn't me, and everyone was dealing with the same garbage phone calls. She was initially ready to chew me out, but deflated pretty quickly when she realized her vexation would have to be vented toward someone else.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you can, turn off unknown callers from being able to reach you.

I’ve done this and it’s been wonderful. The spams have actually decreased significantly since I don’t answer the phone for them at all anymore.

It’s under Settings > Phone (have to go into Apps in iOS 18) > Silence Unknown Callers

Anyone who is not in your contacts gets a ring but the ring doesn’t go to you so you don’t hear it and don’t answer. They can leave a voicemail but scammers never leave me voicemails.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Someone else showed me that earlier and I turned it on. So far, so good!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Yet Another Call Blocker has worked brilliantly for me, for years how. This stuff doesn't even show up in my call log.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

you cant stop them, unless you make it not worth the effort and get removed from the call list.

Maybe answer the call like this https://youtube.com/shorts/2JYzH_CZ3Xo?si=EBugfIt-EXiGxATl

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm guessing if I ever answered, they'd call me even more.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Can confirm. I used to answer the calls to waste their time, ask them to hold while I go take a shit etc. I started to get more calls after doing this, until about a week in when the scammer told me to fuck off and stop wasting his time! After that, not so many calls.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The voicemails are prerecorded, so I wonder if you ever actually talk to a human or just enter your bank details via the number pad?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

They'll generally instruct you to press some number on the keypad to be "connected to an agent." That's the live person who will try to hustle you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I answer unknown calls and then immediately mute my mic. Most of the time it's a bot that might call back once more, occasionally it's somebody that gets an explanation of why i just made things weird. been doung that for years and now I only get spam calls maybe once or twice a month tops, if even that much

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

How do they get an explanation if you mute your mic?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Turns out I can unmute my phone when I realize it's a person I want to talk to. It's just crazy how tech has improved over the years

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Yeah...don't ever answer scam calls even if you wanna make some dumb tiktiok brainrot.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Any chance you have a frienemy that is doing shenanigans?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

If so, it's a long-term frienemy if they know my phone number.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Start reporting these numbers to the FBI as scam-related.

Once they realize any number that calls you gets burned, they’ll stop.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The can spoof any number. They usually go with something local (to you) to increase the odds of you picking up.

Calling back will get you Bob on the other side of town who has no idea what missed call you're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Do you have a source on them being able to spoof any number? I find that hard to believe

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I've heard of it in an old 60 minutes segment, but seems this commenter knows the technical details.

Veritasium had an episode on even more haunting exploits in the phone networks a couple of weeks back. Always prefer 2FA apps over SMS.