The Supreme Court today further empowered Dark Money into politics in its ruling in AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY FOUNDATION v. BONTA. They have effectively said no state has any say in trying to provide clarity on political advertising (i.e. who is behind the ads).
The First Amendment now means anyone, anywhere can spend any amount of money to affect American Politics, and the People have no ability to find out who is behind the political advertising.
Is this OK?
I’ve had one approximately every 25 minutes since 7:50am today.
I normally get a few but not this bad - it feels like they’ve really ratcheted up in the last few weeks. Has anyone else noticed this? I’m starting to think changing my number is my only option.
Edit: it’s 2:45pm, and I’ve had 12 of the bastards so far.
Most spam calls these days are robocalls where you need to enter the prompted number to be put through to a live operator. E.g. "You have been found to be owing $10,000 in tax, press 1 to speak to an agent and resolve this matter or risk..." The reason they do this is so that only the most vulnerable/gullible people are put through to real people thereby minimising the time and money wasted on impossible marks.
If you get such a call, press the number to be put through to a real person and act like you are interested/believe what they are saying for a couple of minutes, then make an excuse such as "there's someone at the door" or "I have to let the cat out" and put them on hold indefinitely. They will usually wait for a very long time as they think they've struck gold with you. Sometimes they will hang up and call you back. Simply pick up, talk for a bit, and put them on hold again until they catch on.
You're wasting their time which would otherwise be spent scamming someone else and if enough people did this their business might not even be viable. Additionally, you will get some personal benefit out of this. The place that called you will blacklist your number and never call you back, I suspect they may even share these blacklists with other scammers so this might even reduce the overall volume of scam calls you receive.
Note: It should go without saying but never reveal any personal information to these people. Use you common sense and don't let them reel you in. No legitimate company/government organisation uses robocalls as a way of screening calls.
This article is behind a paywall, (alternate link posted) but it is time for the carriers to fix and stop this scourge. And if they won't then the FCC and FTC needs to come down hard.
https://rexoxer.in/att-verizon-and-t-mobile-challenge-rule-targeting-robocalls/
I swear with Rogers I'm getting 20-30 robocalls a day. It's just relentless ringing! Has anyone found a way around this? I can't get into Online Manager.
As of April 15 last year, only overseas callers will have the "+" prefix. Local numbers do not have this prefix, making it a good way to identify scam/robocalls.
Examples:
- 9234 5678 - local caller
- +4241 5678 - international caller, may or may not be a spoofed number
- +6955 0221 - international caller, likely spoofing a local number
- +65 9234 5678 - international caller, likely spoofing a local number
I receive almost one robocall every day, and so far the above has been a reliable way to identify them. If you've also been receiving many robocalls lately, check your call history. You should see a "+" prefix in front of their caller ID.
That said, this is still not a foolproof identifier. VoIP calls by their nature will also be flagged as international with a + prefix. This is actually one of the many ways to spoof a local number. Hence, if a legitimate local entity is using one of these VoIP services, they may be mistaken as a spoofed number. But the next time you receive a call from an unknown local number with a + prefix, you'll know that it is likely to be a spoofed call.
u/InterTree391 also suggested using the NCPC app ScamShield if you're on iOS, which further filters from a known list of numbers.
Sources:
Idk I’m just tired of 90% of the phone calls I receive being spam.
The robot voice tells me that they are “federal agent Sarah (Schulz??)” from the legal department and that I should drop all work immediately and attend to this important phone call. It then goes on to say press 1 to be connected to the “concerned department”. I’m not sure what the department is concerned about, probably the price of gas to which I too am concerned. It then goes on to end by saying if I don’t connect with the department then they will be forced to take legal action.
These calls really suck because I’m applying for jobs and get a lot of out of state numbers calling me from various offices around the country so I always take the calls hoping it’s a job prospect. Anyways, anyone else had this robocall yet?
This article is behind a paywall, (alternate link posted), but it is time for the carriers to fix and stop this scourge. And if they won't, then the FCC and FTC needs to come down hard.
https://rexoxer.in/att-verizon-and-t-mobile-challenge-rule-targeting-robocalls/
