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Scam callers - back to analog lines?

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 Ridge 14 Jun 2021

Have been without BT broadband (via ADSL on old copper wires) since the 4th June. Landline still functional.

May just be coincidence, but Mrs Ridge noted that my friends at Microsoft, Amazon, BT, the department of National Insurance numbers who can issue fines via the US justice system etc, haven't been calling me for the last 10 days. I've really missed our chats.

A nice man from Openreach has just restored the broadband, and within 30 minutes another nice chap from “BT” called to say my broadband would be suspended if I didn't open up my PC etc, etc.

I know very little about these things, but is it possible the autodiallers and number spoofing software, or the VOIP phones used by scammers, don't connect when there's only an analog landline available? I am going to get rid of the landline altogether (been experimenting with LTE Router using EE), but I am curious if there's a link with having a broadband service on the landline and scam callers.

 mondite 14 Jun 2021
In reply to Ridge:

As far as their end of things are concerned what is happening your side would be irrelevant as far as I am aware.Its bouncing through a couple of countries networks to get to you.

So either chance or maybe your line was dodgy and your broadband was blocking the phone signal?

 timjones 14 Jun 2021
In reply to Ridge:

It's an interesting question.

I don't know the answer but we binned the landline, switched to 4g broadband and transferred our old landline to a VOIP service in early March. I cannnt remember receiving a single scam call  on that number since then.

OP Ridge 14 Jun 2021
In reply to mondite:

Landline was working (bit noisy according to the Openreach guy), and we did a few test calls in and out when the broadband was off which worked fine. Just seems a very strange coincidence.

Post edited at 11:49
 Toerag 14 Jun 2021
In reply to Ridge:

In a nutshell - no. There is no information available to callers that would let them know the type of line they're dialling until after they've dialled it. Even so, all they'll know is if it's residential or business, and analog or digital.  They may not even get that information depending on the interconnects used.  They won't know if it has broadband running on it or not.  These days they're either working of a list of numbers obtained by hacking, or they're simply going through every single number one after the other.

 mondite 14 Jun 2021
In reply to Ridge:

Maybe someone sold the number as a currently active one?

 dread-i 14 Jun 2021
In reply to Toerag:

There are various interconnects with other telco's around the world. Some of these are big old companies, like AT&T, others are some bloke in a shed in the back of beyond. What happens with SMS is that the spammer, will try to use legitimate companies to send their spammy TXTs. These, quite rightly, get dropped as being spam. They then fall back to the dodgy smaller companies (grey routes). This has led to telcos allowing only certain interconnects for bulk SMS. E.g. legitimate companies, that provide a bulk SMS service for, say, NHS or banks etc.

It not beyond reason to think that there is something similar for VOIP interconnects. A linux box running Asterisk, can manage thousands of VOIP calls, so would give the spammer a lot of bang for their buck. It could be that the route the analogue and VOIP traffic takes is different. Or it could be that the call center in some part of the world, got to page R in the phone book at the same time the OP's line went live.

OP Ridge 14 Jun 2021
In reply to dread-i:

> It could be that the route the analogue and VOIP traffic takes is different.

That was my thinking. I had analogue landline plus broadband (well, about 4mbps worth), and was getting around half a dozen scam calls a day.

The broadband went down, although the landline was working. No scam calls for this period.

Openreach then fixed the broadband, first scam call came through 30 mins later. (Unfortunately the broadband has gone again, so I can't test this hypothesis, although no scam calls so far).

> Or it could be that the call center in some part of the world, got to page R in the phone book at the same time the OP's line went live.

😃

 wintertree 14 Jun 2021
In reply to Toerag:

> There is no information available to callers that would let them know the type of line they're dialling until after they've dialled it

Via the line itself, I agree. 

Two possibilities spring to mind.   

  1. Ridge’s telco provider is compromised and the spammers know from a compromised side channel which phone lines are ADSL active 
  2. Ridge’s landline phone number has been associated with their activity on one or more websites identified as coming from the telco’s routers.  They only bother spamming when users are recently active.

Both seem perfectly possibly but highly implausible to me.  Unless of course the OP has been identified as a high value target.  Lots of valuable information in the pet food canning business I imagine.

 Toerag 14 Jun 2021
In reply to Ridge:

> That was my thinking. I had analogue landline plus broadband (well, about 4mbps worth), and was getting around half a dozen scam calls a day.

> The broadband went down, although the landline was working. No scam calls for this period.

Pure coincidence. I drive telephone exchanges for a living, and scam calls come and go in waves. I always put it down to them starting up, getting discovered, being shut down, then starting up again with another network.

 Toerag 14 Jun 2021
In reply to dread-i:

>  It could be that the route the analogue and VOIP traffic takes is different.

Nope.  To do this the caller would

a) need to know the type of line they're calling (they won't)

b) have a reason to think that a line with broadband would be more likely to be answered. The reality is that more people want BB than want a phoneline so targeting ADSL lines would be counter-productive as people with them are less likely to have a phone plugged in and working.

 ThunderCat 14 Jun 2021
In reply to Ridge:

On the subject of scam callers, we have a rule of thumb where if the number is withheld or unknown, it's gets left to trip to voicemail (this is on mobile - we don't have an active landline)

However we answered one that came through whilst in the car over bluetooth.  Bad line, but a quiet female voice which actually sounded like our daughter in a distressed state.  Massive panic, until the line cleared up a bit and we actually made out "Calling from Carphone Warehouse". 

I don't think I've ever yelled "f*ckoff you scumbag c*nt" down a telephone line before.  

death by drowning is too good for some people.

 profitofdoom 14 Jun 2021
In reply to ThunderCat:

> On the subject of scam callers, we have a rule of thumb.......

We had a rash of scam calls, including one guy last week who said without any preamble "This is HMRC. You owe us XXXX pounds in tax"

Mrs Profitofdoom (who is probably cleverer than me) told me a while ago "If you don't recognize the number, don't answer"

I follow that advice now. Works for me

 wercat 14 Jun 2021
In reply to profitofdoom:

if they say anything that sounds important before they have even confirmed who they are speaking to I just laugh out loud

This approach filters almost all recorded message scams without any further thought expenditure needed.  As I never confirm my own identity when asked unless it is an expected call it also filters a lot of boilerroom callers too.

Post edited at 20:04
In reply to Ridge:

> but I am curious if there's a link with having a broadband service on the landline and scam callers.

My late mother used to get a lot of the usual scam calls, incl “Microsoft”, BT, etc calls, yet she never had broadband, nor did the landline number ever had any association with a broadband account.

It’s was just misuse of data or auto diallers random coincidence with her landline as far as I could see.

As for myself, with broadband, I’ve found scam calls for many many years have come in waves with often no calls for up to 3 weeks at a time, then can be several a day for a week or more. Mondays and Tuesdays have always been the most popular scammer call days with me!

OP Ridge 14 Jun 2021
In reply to Toerag:

> Pure coincidence. I drive telephone exchanges for a living, and scam calls come and go in waves. I always put it down to them starting up, getting discovered, being shut down, then starting up again with another network.

Could just be coincidence then. Thanks for all the responses, and could I just reiterate that BT* are as shit as the last time I had to deal with them.

*excludes the engineers who keep getting sent to the wrong address, given duff information and hate the company as much as I do.

 nniff 15 Jun 2021
In reply to Ridge:

I posted this back in April.  Since then, I've done one more who was asking me to pay the 'postman' £100 when they delivered something.  I strung him along for about 20 minutes.  As a result almost all our spam calls have stopped - there's an Amazon spoofer still out there, so I'll try the same tactic with them.  Highly recommended and quite entertaining.  Be prepared for considerable verbal abuse at the end, because they are not good losers. 

-----------------------------

Going off on a tangent a bit, I had issues with my internet yesterday again, or so I was informed by the lady on the phone from Microsoft.  I had a bit of time spare and so she guided me to a fault log to show me the problem  and then to download a remote access ap on the net (mysteriously not Microsoft, but there you go).  I told her that McAfee had popped up and said 'ID 10T error'.  This confused her, so she tried again with a different remote access ap.  McAfee says 'ID 10T error' again I told her.  Then we're onto Control panel, to uninstall McAfee because that is clearly causing problems.  Each of her instructions are spelled out in the most appalling pidgin phonetic alphabet.  I wonder if uninstalling McAfee is a sensible thing to do.  She goes off to get a supervisor and on he comes.  He tries with the uninstall McAfee thing again, but eventually I persuade them that the thing to do would be to write ID 10T error down on a piece of paper.  I am struggling not to laugh at this point.  For an employee of Microsoft, he was really quite abusive.  That's Microsoft dealt with for a while,  I'm now waiting for Amazon, BT, HMRC or one of the others to give me a call again.  I was surprised at how much of their time I managed to take up. - getting on for half an hour 

Post edited at 09:08
 ericinbristol 15 Jun 2021
In reply to Ridge:

This person is amazing. She gets a scammer to think she is Siri and to think that Siri will work as a scammer. The whole thing takes a very human, empathetic direction

youtube.com/watch?v=AdTWOX7bEdc&

Her other ones are really original too. 

Post edited at 12:23
 jkarran 15 Jun 2021
In reply to wercat:

> This approach filters almost all recorded message scams without any further thought expenditure needed.  As I never confirm my own identity when asked unless it is an expected call it also filters a lot of boilerroom callers too.

I hate answerphones and I get a few legit calls on unknown numbers so I do answer quite a few scammers, I just say something along the lines of "That's interesting. Can I confirm who you're trying to contact please?", not a problem for a legit caller, for example my utilities co farms out meter reading to a call centre, they know who they're calling. Scammers just hang up at the first sign of any push back, sadly there are softer targets worth more of their effort.

Obviously it's not a foolproof way of filtering a scam but it means I do get to take the odd call I need without accidentally calling my vet a scamming cnut or wasting too much time talking to thieves.

jk

 jethro kiernan 16 Jun 2021
In reply to Ridge:

Had a sales call from a relatively local “home improvements company” the lady at the end of the line sounded initially quite old and local but not quite, I fobbed  them off, but it bugged me after.

Thinking about it it sounded like some one hamming up the “old dear” to sell worthless or unnecessary “home improvements” to old people using a trusted peer approach.


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