NoMoRobo

Yes, I know I bungled that date. Here's the corrections :
In early 2014 Google was beginning studies ...
Later In mid-2014 a nearby lightning strike ...

Oh, good, now we don't need to see "Oh really" bumped to the forum list view three times a month by antsy trolls .... right, guys? Hmm? Are we done?

Before a phone number can be assigned and given to a consumer, telephone carriers test the number to see if it receives a large amount of phone calls. Because consumers do not want a new phone number that receives numerous unsolicited calls, the numbers receiving large amounts of calls are taken off the market and deemed “dirty” or “abandoned.”

Interestingly, Telephone Science Corporation (“TSC”), which operates N_______o, has reportedly purchased hundreds of thousands of these “dirty” numbers from various telephone carriers.

TSC uses this collection of dirty numbers as “honeypots” because they attract a significant amount of unsolicited, telemarketing calls. When telemarketers call these abandoned numbers, they inadvertently allow TSC to put the received telemarketing number into its ever-growing internal database. TSC is then able to keep track of the amount of times a telemarketer makes an unsolicited call to a TSC-purchased “dirty” number with an internally-developed algorithm.  The technology allows most of the originating calls to be traced.

TSC uses this information to assert violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) against the telemarketers making these calls. It’s also used to fund N_______o by selling its collected robo-call numbers to other telephone carriers, like Twilio and Ooma, who can then use the numbers for their own call-blocking systems.

TSC has alleged TCPA violations against a growing number of different companies, some with overseas connections. One such action against Hilton can be viewed here:
http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2lwumh5ih/fl ... ons-company-llc

Soon, N_______o will be available for cell phones. Unlike their landline service which is free, this will be a paid service. However, with the large number of free blocking Apps already available for smart phones… I think it will be a hard sell at the proposed pricing of $4.99/month!

In contrast, a Pennsylvania woman was shot down last month for building her own TCPA honeypot, a shoebox full of mobile phones collected for the sole purpose of filing lawsuits against callers which may have been illegal on paper but were desired in spirit. Maybe she needed to paint her operation as more altruistic or in the colors of the private attorney general. That bloody Spokeo case has inspired a wave of "no concrete harm" defenses.

Filing TCPA lawsuits: 'It's what I do,' professional plaintiff with 35 cell phones says

Is there documentation for the "taint test" of disconnected numbers? I'm curious what threshold is met to take a troubled number out of circulation.

I don’t know how the carriers identify “dirty numbers”… that stumps me.  No doubt, none of them uses the same methods or the same criteria!

How does one know the number being traced hasn’t been reused? Many of us, myself included, ported our old POTS number to VoIP, and some may have ported to cellular numbers too. This complicates the technology used to trace the numbers through all the networks that may be involved.

There are internet services (like http://www.imei.info/faq) that can help trace “dirty numbers” for certain types of carriers, but not all. There are many services that can trace blacklisted IP addresses, but those of us using dynamic IP assignment with our VoIP services may have many different IP’s associated with our phone numbers over time.

Perhaps the DNC can be leveraged for testing, and maybe TSC themselves have a testing capability these days?

Maybe there is a phone carrier employee out there that can give us some better idea how the numbers are tested.

>> There is an entire discussion in the 608-371-6666 thread about whether spammers are spoofing the N______o phone number.  <<

True.
And, poster "John" attempted to state that number belonged to Nomorobo, but was unable to do so.
Then, rather than follow the link to THIS thread, where he could post is information without fear of the automatic PMA, he decided to regurgitate, and eventually insult.

That was unfortunate, since he was intelligent enough to get around the filter in one post ... and could have done something similar to give the full link to the zendesk site (home of nomorobo)

Basically, Nomo has a safety feature that allows callers to answer a Captcha.  If they do, their call is sent to the Nomo subscriber, using the 608-371-6666 number.

However, the 608-371-6666 could be spoofed, or the spam caller can answer the Captcha, and a spam call get through to the subscriber.

Apparently "John" was trying to tell us that 608-371-6666 belonged to nomo, rather than the spammers, but could not get past the automatic PMAs, or my attempt to elicit non-PMA info from him.  That is somewhat similar to Bob's post, stating the policy was wrong, but not suggesting a solution.

Telespammers have started “spoofing” numbers within my own exchange to fool the “no more robocall” service! Over the past month, I’ve had a couple of “Rachel calls, and several “You’ve won a trip” calls blow right through! And unfortunately it doesn’t do any good to report them on this site, or to the robocall blocking service. Because tomorrow, they’ll be calling from a different number! And they’re even using numbers that have a valid caller ID “name” field associated with them!

Actually, she did make a logical choice to ask a question on how to contact NoMoRobo and add spam that got through.

It's difficult to post a comment under this forum topic anymore. The reason is that the name of the thread can no longer be mentioned without getting PMA'd, because the topic name has been banned by 800Notes.

There are at least six posts that have been PMA'd (banned) and are waiting to be approved by Admin. Some of them may contain information useful to visitors, some may not, but we will never know unless Admin processes these PMAs. Would it be possible to lift the banned name only within this topic thread?

Thanks