It’s hard enough coping with all that spam clogging our computers. Now it’s stalking us on our cell phones.
Spam has gone mobile. Increasingly, consumers answer their cell phones thinking it’s important. Instead, it turns out to be a telemarketer peddling time-share resorts, bogus lotteries or even porn.
Illegal operators often use automatic dialers. Spammers sitting at a computer can zap millions of calls addressed to random cell-phone numbers. At the same time, cell-phone numbers are illegally bought and sold on Internet sites that are started up as fast as they are shut down.
The problem is so new that federal agencies still are unsure how bad it is or how to combat it.
Spammers Go After Cell-phone Users Too
Comments
- PaulRule to address this problem: Don't answer any 1-800/1-888 number you don't know. Let it go to voice mail then call back if it's valid. Same principal can be applied towards non-local area codes. Use your judgment..
- AmosJust keep in mind that calling back 800 and 888 numbers blows right through CID blocking. Recordings from collection agencies, attorneys, etc, will tell you when they dial a local number that their number has changed (to a toll-free), but one of the purposes of this is to make sure they have a way to call you back if you've blocked private-line caller ID. If you run into this situation, look harder for a local number.
- alex kTest those numbers using a land line phone instead of your cell so they cant store it in their system in case it rings through. Might be a clever way to store valid numbers.
- MartinI get at least a couple of junk calls a day on my cell phone. I save them under a name called "Junk Call." When they call again, that's what shows up on my phone screen. If you can't stop them, ignore them. Works like a charm! A few people have noticed that and asked "How did you get your caller ID to do that?!" and I tell them the technique.
- MichaelThe simplest way to hide your own phone's number when calling a toll free number is to call from a pay phone. Not only will the recipient of the call see the phone number of the pay phone (and not yours), he will also pay 35-75 cents pay phone surcharge for the call. If that number turns out to be unreachable from a pay phone (for just these reasons, no doubt), you probably didn't really want to call that number after all.
- Matt| 1 replyI know how to combat it. Start repealing "free trade" acts and nixing job outsourcing. Then doing this might become a tad more expensive, and even if it doesn't then at least we have domestic people to track who we can then bring charges against. There is no such thing as a no call list in India, that is the REAL loop hole.
- Sten replies to MattIf the call is made on behalf of a US company, that company, and their contractors, is bound by the no-call list. "Nixing job outsourcing" is a nifty battle cry, but it is a cry of idiocy. Unless you prevent US companies from doing business with non-US companies, you can't prevent them from having jobs done in the most cost-effective part of the world.
- djlodoseTheir is a way to stop the spammers from calling your phone but just like putting a lock on the door anyone who wants to get in can still do it. Its a 1 800 number that went out last year when news of our numbers were being given out by cell phone companies. It did work for me on my last cell phone.
I don't have the number that we need to call but if anyone can find it please let me know. Thank you - ErinYou cell phone company usually sells your number to their advertisors. I started getting these wierd text ads, and I called US cellular and told them I knew they were sellling my number and thta I would discontinue my account wiht them if the texts persisted after 30 days. Sure enough the next day all the wierd texts stopped on my phone and my boyfirends phone, which wasn't on the same plan, but he got the same texts until I complained.
- Mr. RNever give out your cellphone or home phone number. You will get calls from people you don't know. rcspammer@gmail.com
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