CallerId4U, Inc. - Millions of Illegal Telemarketing Calls

Iv'e got a question.

If Callerid4u eventually gets destroyed will the harassing scam calls stop or will they just change the name of their company and continue being scammers. Also Callerid4u I believe distributes numbers to other telemarketers, so even if Callerid4u seizes to exist will the illegal telemarketers that they've distributed your number to continue to call??? I just don't see any possiblilty for the scammers to stop calling, I don't know if there is any hope. Also I am SOL as I can't change my number as I have a business number, also it's impossible to block the numbers as they just use new ones each time they call you. "Sigh" please somebody out there, tell me that I am wrong and their is hope that if Callerid4u gets destroyed that the harassing calls will stop.

Sorry, about all you can hope for is 15 minutes of silence. By then everyone will have reconfigured and fired back up.

However, you could configure an IVR/auto-attendant to handle them.

"To speak someone about our copier, press 2. If you would like to help us sell our business, press 3. If you want to make an infomercial about our company, press 4, for GSA services dial 5..."

You nailed it there.  Probably nothing that could be done.  Just need to hope that eventually, somebody has enough of these [***], and makes an example out of one of their mindless employees in the parking lot after work...  sadly, it needs to happen to send a message.  Nothing more useless than a scumbag telemarketer.

Anybody have a physical location for their call center?  Is it really in Seattle at 93 S Jackson Street?
They claim to be in New York when asked.

Hello I got another question. Since it's illegal for them to be calling me as I am on the do not call list. How can I sue them or get a lawer to somehow set up something so that each time they call me I get $500???

Some data points that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread:

If you have CallerID, every time someone calls you, your phone company looks up the incoming number in one of the "CNAM" databases that maps number to name, in order to display caller ID name.  Your phone company pays that database vendor a small amount (in the range of 1/10 of a cent per call) for that privilege.  That database vendor then pays a portion of that back to the vendor who populated that name in the database to begin with.

So... CallerID4U, by providing a list of numbers with associated names to the CNAM databases, is actually making money from all the phone companies, as part of their service!  And they kick some of that back to their customers.  

Therefore... as long as a robocaller is paying a tiny fraction of a cent for each call they make (e.g. VOIP) they are actually profiting from the calls.   They don't care if you buy anything, they may not even care if you pick up the phone... they just want to make a call to your phone if you have Caller ID.   AND YOU ARE PAYING FOR IT with the caller ID fee in your monthly phone bills!!!!!

This link, although not related to robocalling, gives a pretty good explanation of this issue:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/107887709/DAL-and ... imony-for-Qwest

And this YouTube advertisement:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3v-iwlgszU

And the second video on this page:   http://markobreeze.hubpages.com/hub/Wholesale-VoiP--CNAM-dip

Is the solution to drop Caller ID and just look at the incoming number to know who's calling you?  I don't know.

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Also, I see that an email I got from CallerID4U's "support" line, came from an IP address in Montevideo, Uruguay.  So I doubt you'll find anyone in Seattle for these [***].

Your point is well taken, and has been covered in some threads on CID4U, although it certainly may bear repeating, as a lot of post skipping and "speed reading" goes on in all the threads.

However, I have one small quibble: you seem to be muddling the distinction between caller ID, and caller ID with name delivery ("CID Deluxe" as some providers call it). If you "drop caller ID" then you will have neither name nor number. Straight CID is the part that delivers the number to you.

In response to the question you have posed, let's explore "dropping" the service for a moment.

Say half a million people read your post, and that 50% of them think it is such a good idea that they actually implement it.

Let's further say that 50% of them actually get a call from these "maroons". Using your .001 figure, you have now impacted CID4U's revenue by a whopping $125.00 .

Even if all 500,000 readers (an optimistic number my my thinking) joined in, and all 500,000 were called, the impact would be a paltry $500.00 . So no, I don't believe the answer is to give up your very useful caller ID with name delivery service. Please don't feel guilty if you choose to continue the subscription. ; )


But let's carry this a bit further. At this exact moment the U.S. Census projects that our population is 315,566,228 . That includes everyone - infants, people who are on their deathbeds, people who have no phone, people who share a phone, and everyone in between.

I'm feeling generous, so let us assume that everyone of them will be called by a CID4U provisioned number. And let us also assume that they all subscribe to both CNUM and CNAM delivery. Calling everyone in the US would generate a maximum income of $315,566 .

Now that is a fair amount of money, but I'm pretty sure that they are not generating anywhere near that many calls in a day, week, or month, or even a year. Based on operating all of their customer's boiler rooms 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, they would in aggregate have to be generating in excess of 1043 calls PER SECOND! So I believe the real number of CID4U calls is much, much less than my hypothetical case.

The total number of unwanted calls reported to the DNC/FTC web site in 2012 was 3,840,572 and the total number of registered users was approximately 217 million. This is calls from ALL sources. So I'm thinking that the CID4U calls are nowhere near the numbers i have discussed. Perhaps a few percent - at most. All of the reported unwanted callers in the country would appear to have generated an aggregate rate of only 717 calls per second, for a maximum total look up revenue of only $217,000. Remember, the vast majority of them are NOT CID4U customers.

But let's just stick with the implausible $315,566 of revenue. In the overall scheme of things, it isn't that large a sum. For context. based on figures from the Huffington Post, it would only be 12.67% of the cost of ONE Presidential vacation. : )
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/20/obam ... _n_1158825.html

Remember also that they share this revenue with their customers according to their promotional material.

I suppose my point is that while these revenues may be a nice little supplement to CID4U's income, I believe the primary income still comes from their subscribers, not CNAM lookups.

While I haven't looked at CID4U's rates, I typically pay providers about a penny a minute. So a one minute call would generate ten times the revenue for CID4U that a lookup does, and this is revenue that they are NOT having to share with the customer.

I do acknowledge that nationally we have more phone numbers than people, although not all of numbers have caller ID/CNAM service, or humans associated with them. I personally hold a surprising quantity of numbers (>20 .and. <100 - [I think].).

Even my octogenarian parents hold six of them by my count. But I also note that a fair percentage of my numbers receive NO unwanted calls. And this is in spite of some of them being "honeypots", meaning I have actively tried to draw unwanted callers to them!

(I suppose that would make them "wanted" callers?)


In fact, I believe that there is a definable sub-set of the active number population which receive a majority of the unwanted calls.

This is an evolving hypothesis of mine, but I believe it has merit. In fact, the DNC/FTC numbers would tend to support the idea, since at most, less than one quarter of one percent of registered DNC users filed complaints in 2012.

I am still trying to understand all of the parameters for being among we few, we frustrated few, we band of targeted consumers. [with apologies to Shakespeare.]

Even making a very large allowance for under-reporting of events, it seems clear that a lot of DNC registered numbers are getting few if any unwanted calls.

So where does all of this leave us?

In part, the answer is to convince (and empower) regulators to shut down rogue telephony providers.

But we must be careful that, in so doing, we do not let the camel into the tent, and allow regulators to become an even greater problem than the unwanted calls. After all, at some point in the future, a rogue provider could simply be a small operation whose owner had offended the wrong person, or failed to grease the right palms.

And just today, we have had a poster here vigorously accusing a telephony provider of being a haven for telephone predators, when in fact, my long experience with them is quite the opposite. So witch hunts are another concern we must place in the balance.

Because regulatory solutions are imperfect, and because many violators are out of easy reach in other countries, I continue to advocate for people solving their own problems, and in particular, the use of call blocking technologies.

I also think that the TCPA right of private action is a wonderful, consumer empowering tool for those who are inclined to use it, and a rare case of the government acknowledging that we are better at looking after our own interests than they are.

If most people were call blocking, or even if most were simply educated consumers who were savvy enough not to be scammed, the tele-predators would starve. Most would abandon these efforts, and return to their old jobs as politicians, used car salesman, television newscasters, journalists, bankers, or car thieves.

[By the way, I looked up what my provider charges me when I generate a CNAM lookup. I pay them $o.oo8 per inquiry. Those who are paying a traditional landline telco $4.95 for caller ID with name, and getting 50 calls a month, are paying $0.099 per call, or 12.375 times as much. Nice margin for the traditional telcos.]

Regards,

-LS-

Thanks for the clarifications.

PS:  The IP address on the latest email I got from CallerID4U points to a cable ISP in Mexico.  It's the overall issuer of Latin America IP addresses that's in Uruguay.

PPS: I am actively using CallerID4U's "Complaint" form and reporting the robocalls to their proprietary DNC list which they claim to pass back to their clients.   I have no idea if it will help, but it can't make it any worse.  And I have to say, no robocall from their numbers in the last 2 days....

David, would you consider sharing this IP address by posting a comment on this site:  telemarketerspam.wordpress.com

We have been been received a variety of threatening messages, which have originated from an IP address in Mexico... we've been trying to establish if this activity is originating from Callerid4u.

David,

Your reporting experience is very interesting to me.  When you have logged some time with this approach, I hope you will post and detail your results.

I would love to know what their motivations and intentions are.  Are they putting on a show to forestall regulators, seeking to avoid entanglement with possible trouble makers, engaging in a sham, or have they suddenly decided to go legit (yeah, right) ?

An ISP in Mexico, eh?  Might want to keep an eye out for La eMe soldiers hanging around your house ; ) .

-LS-

Hello all,

My court hearing was held today. I feel good about the outcome, and the judge said that he would take the case under advisement. The argument I made was that because Callerid4u pays telemarketers (via dip fees) to make these calls on a per call basis, they are "initiating or causing the initiation" of the calls as defined in CFR 64.1200 (which enforces the TCPA). I argued that their service is functionally identical to a company that tells a telemarketer to make calls on their behalf and cited Federal case law showing that such companies can be held liable for a TCPA violation.

I'll hear the result in about two or three weeks, and I will post back with an update then. I encourage everyone to exercise their rights and take these people to court.

Great job, we appreciate all of the effort you've put into your case against Callerid4u... keep us all updated on the decision from the court.  

If your argument prevails, you may have just set out a successful argument for a class action lawsuit against CallerId4u.

I hope your efforts are well rewarded and that my predictions were very, very wrong ;^)

I have a hard time believing that there is no way that these calls cannot be traced to an exact location.  I beleive there has to be a way...  I'm working on it, and have others working on it.  To the dirtbags in the boiler room at 206-397-1187:  You will be found.  Count on it.

I just found this site and since I have so many calls, decided to check numbers. I receive 206-445-6610, and 253-245-4798 with some regularity.   Thank you.  I just do not pick up the phone if I don't bknow the number.