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Nuisance Phone Calls

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AF62
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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311152

Postby AF62 » May 22nd, 2020, 5:48 pm

mc2fool wrote:
AF62 wrote:
mc2fool wrote:So, basically, there shouldn't be any "fake" numbers. Unfortunately the kicker though is that "this guidance is not legally binding" (2.12). :(

Astonishing the crooks who are trying to con people into installing spyware or sell them dodgy 'investments' don't stick to the rules!

And even if it was legally binding, I really can't see Ofcom going half way round the world to try to fine these crooks.

Don't be silly, the rules aren't on the crooks, they're on the telecoms companies. :roll:


OK, I can't see Ofcom going half way round the world to try to fine a telecom company in a the back of beyond who is probably being bribed by the crooks making the calls.

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311159

Postby mc2fool » May 22nd, 2020, 6:12 pm

AF62 wrote:
mc2fool wrote:
AF62 wrote:Astonishing the crooks who are trying to con people into installing spyware or sell them dodgy 'investments' don't stick to the rules!

And even if it was legally binding, I really can't see Ofcom going half way round the world to try to fine these crooks.

Don't be silly, the rules aren't on the crooks, they're on the telecoms companies. :roll:

OK, I can't see Ofcom going half way round the world to try to fine a telecom company in a the back of beyond who is probably being bribed by the crooks making the calls.

Ofcom regulates UK telecom companies. The rules are on UK telecom companies. It is your UK telecom company that sends the "caller ID" to your phone, which Ofcom rules say should be "a valid, diallable number which uniquely identifies the caller", and if the rules were legally binding Ofcom would fine the UK telecom company if it wasn't.

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311167

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 22nd, 2020, 6:28 pm

mc2fool wrote:
AF62 wrote:
mc2fool wrote:Don't be silly, the rules aren't on the crooks, they're on the telecoms companies. :roll:

OK, I can't see Ofcom going half way round the world to try to fine a telecom company in a the back of beyond who is probably being bribed by the crooks making the calls.

Ofcom regulates UK telecom companies. The rules are on UK telecom companies. It is your UK telecom company that sends the "caller ID" to your phone, which Ofcom rules say should be "a valid, diallable number which uniquely identifies the caller", and if the rules were legally binding Ofcom would fine the UK telecom company if it wasn't.

Although - BT in my case - 'deliver' the call, they cannot be responsible for whoever generates a spoof Caller ID or provides no Caller ID whether the calls originate in the UK or not.

RC

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311175

Postby mc2fool » May 22nd, 2020, 6:42 pm

ReformedCharacter wrote:
mc2fool wrote:
AF62 wrote:OK, I can't see Ofcom going half way round the world to try to fine a telecom company in a the back of beyond who is probably being bribed by the crooks making the calls.

Ofcom regulates UK telecom companies. The rules are on UK telecom companies. It is your UK telecom company that sends the "caller ID" to your phone, which Ofcom rules say should be "a valid, diallable number which uniquely identifies the caller", and if the rules were legally binding Ofcom would fine the UK telecom company if it wasn't.

Although - BT in my case - 'deliver' the call, they cannot be responsible for whoever generates a spoof Caller ID or provides no Caller ID whether the calls originate in the UK or not.

No, they're not responsible for whoever generates a spoof caller ID, but they are responsible for delivering one to your phone. That's what the Ofcom guidelines say, give them a read (a mere 18 pages of it, a lot repetitive). Of course, as I say, they're "responsible" in a non-legally binding manner...

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311190

Postby AF62 » May 22nd, 2020, 7:15 pm

mc2fool wrote:
AF62 wrote:
mc2fool wrote:Don't be silly, the rules aren't on the crooks, they're on the telecoms companies. :roll:

OK, I can't see Ofcom going half way round the world to try to fine a telecom company in a the back of beyond who is probably being bribed by the crooks making the calls.

Ofcom regulates UK telecom companies. The rules are on UK telecom companies. It is your UK telecom company that sends the "caller ID" to your phone, which Ofcom rules say should be "a valid, diallable number which uniquely identifies the caller", and if the rules were legally binding Ofcom would fine the UK telecom company if it wasn't.


And quite how is the UK telcom company supposed to check that?

The crooks in the back of beyond are making calls through a company that either doesn't give a damn about the rules or doesn't have the ability to check or just takes a bribe. Any question from the UK telecom company to them is going to be met with, at best, a shrug. And if you think there is a technological solution - really?

What is the UK telecom company supposed to do? Refuse to connect any calls from that country on the possibility they have a spoofed caller ID?

Well that is going to go down well when sick granny in that country wants to call family.

So given that the UK telcom company can't prevent the calls, then all it could do would be to pay your legally enforceable fines.

And if you think the UK telecom company is going to take a hit to its profits, then dream on. The fines will just get added to your bill.

So now because of the legally enforceable fines, then you would still receive the calls from the crooks, but you would paying for those calls!

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311195

Postby swill453 » May 22nd, 2020, 7:33 pm

AF62 wrote:What is the UK telecom company supposed to do? Refuse to connect any calls from that country on the possibility they have a spoofed caller ID?

Well the UK telecom company knows the call is coming from abroad, and the UK telecom company is delivering a Caller Id to the end user that makes it appear the call is domestic.

Can't be that hard for the UK telecom company not to do this.

Scott.

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311196

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 22nd, 2020, 7:38 pm

swill453 wrote:
AF62 wrote:What is the UK telecom company supposed to do? Refuse to connect any calls from that country on the possibility they have a spoofed caller ID?

Well the UK telecom company knows the call is coming from abroad, and the UK telecom company is delivering a Caller Id to the end user that makes it appear the call is domestic.

Can't be that hard for the UK telecom company not to do this.

Scott.

With IT telephony there is no 'abroad', at least not in the same way as an international POTS.

RC

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311197

Postby swill453 » May 22nd, 2020, 7:40 pm

ReformedCharacter wrote:
swill453 wrote:
AF62 wrote:What is the UK telecom company supposed to do? Refuse to connect any calls from that country on the possibility they have a spoofed caller ID?

Well the UK telecom company knows the call is coming from abroad, and the UK telecom company is delivering a Caller Id to the end user that makes it appear the call is domestic.

Can't be that hard for the UK telecom company not to do this.

Scott.

With IT telephony there is no 'abroad', at least not in the same way as an international POTS.

I assume you mean IP. At the end of the day it's the UK telecom company delivering the Caller Id to its end user, the responsibility should be on it to verify it. Or in the absence of verification, not deliver it.

(In all my comments, I'm assuming POTS at the subscriber end).

Scott.

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311198

Postby Bouleversee » May 22nd, 2020, 7:41 pm

Isn't the only answer to this, Doris asks innocently, to secure an international agreement that only calls from registered numbers in whichever country from which the calls emanate will work and made up numbers won't? You should only be able to make a call from the registered number the line is connected to. Surely it must be possible to exclude made up numbers if the will is there. I understand that if one inserts a certain number (can't remember what it is) before a call it is possible to make calls in the UK without disclosing the number they are coming from. That is asking for trouble, isn't it? I don't see why even GP surgeries should be anonymous. However did we manage to get people to the moon and what hope is there of beating Covid 19 if we can't sort this out? What exactly does Action Fraud do?

I wonder why these spoof calls dried up when lockdown started.
Last edited by Bouleversee on May 22nd, 2020, 7:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311199

Postby mc2fool » May 22nd, 2020, 7:42 pm

AF62 wrote:
mc2fool wrote:
AF62 wrote:OK, I can't see Ofcom going half way round the world to try to fine a telecom company in a the back of beyond who is probably being bribed by the crooks making the calls.

Ofcom regulates UK telecom companies. The rules are on UK telecom companies. It is your UK telecom company that sends the "caller ID" to your phone, which Ofcom rules say should be "a valid, diallable number which uniquely identifies the caller", and if the rules were legally binding Ofcom would fine the UK telecom company if it wasn't.


And quite how is the UK telcom company supposed to check that?

I was just pointing out Ofcom's regulatory scope and their guidelines on the matter. If you believe that Ofcom is specifying impossible guidelines then maybe you'd like to let them know, there's no point in trying to argue with me about them.

Once again, they're at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/116670/cli-guidance.pdf

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311200

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 22nd, 2020, 7:45 pm

swill453 wrote:
ReformedCharacter wrote:
swill453 wrote:Well the UK telecom company knows the call is coming from abroad, and the UK telecom company is delivering a Caller Id to the end user that makes it appear the call is domestic.

Can't be that hard for the UK telecom company not to do this.

Scott.

With IT telephony there is no 'abroad', at least not in the same way as an international POTS.

I assume you mean IP. At the end of the day it's the UK telecom company delivering the Caller Id to its end user, the responsibility should be on it to verify it. Or in the absence of verification, not deliver it.

Scott.

Yes, I meant 'IP'. I think you are asking for something that would impossible to do. How do you think that would be achieved? Let's suppose that I'm a call centre scammer in Mumbai and I set up my Caller ID as the local branch of the Bank of Baroda. How is TalkTalk or BT going to verify that the call came from the BoB instead of the scam centre? Phone them? :)

RC

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311201

Postby swill453 » May 22nd, 2020, 7:59 pm

ReformedCharacter wrote:Yes, I meant 'IP'. I think you are asking for something that would impossible to do. How do you think that would be achieved? Let's suppose that I'm a call centre scammer in Mumbai and I set up my Caller ID as the local branch of the Bank of Baroda. How is TalkTalk or BT going to verify that the call came from the BoB instead of the scam centre? Phone them? :)

I refer you to my earlier response
Strikes me the system could have been designed to get round these issues. But it wasn't.

If whatever package of information that gets to BT (or whoever) with the call contains a verified piece of information that identifies the originator (or even the originating country) then they can make an informed decision as to whether to deliver the Caller Id.

Scott.

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311204

Postby mc2fool » May 22nd, 2020, 8:14 pm

ReformedCharacter wrote:I think you are asking for something that would impossible to do. How do you think that would be achieved? Let's suppose that I'm a call centre scammer in Mumbai and I set up my Caller ID as the local branch of the Bank of Baroda. How is TalkTalk or BT going to verify that the call came from the BoB instead of the scam centre? Phone them? :)

Check the signature on it with the BoB's 2048-bit RSA public key. ;)

We're not talking immutable laws of physics here, solutions are clearly possible, although may be commercially difficult (expensive).

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311206

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 22nd, 2020, 8:21 pm

mc2fool wrote:
ReformedCharacter wrote:I think you are asking for something that would impossible to do. How do you think that would be achieved? Let's suppose that I'm a call centre scammer in Mumbai and I set up my Caller ID as the local branch of the Bank of Baroda. How is TalkTalk or BT going to verify that the call came from the BoB instead of the scam centre? Phone them? :)

Check the signature on it with the BoB's 2048-bit RSA public key. ;)

We're not talking immutable laws of physics here, solutions are clearly possible, although may be commercially difficult (expensive).

Yes, that would work I presume, but we don't even manage that with email and that is rather an easier problem. And of course we expect to be able to call 'anyone' even in Timbuktu and vice-versa. Unfeasible would be a better description than impossible but the result is the same, it isn't going to happen in the forseeable.

RC

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311209

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 22nd, 2020, 8:29 pm

swill453 wrote:
ReformedCharacter wrote:Yes, I meant 'IP'. I think you are asking for something that would impossible to do. How do you think that would be achieved? Let's suppose that I'm a call centre scammer in Mumbai and I set up my Caller ID as the local branch of the Bank of Baroda. How is TalkTalk or BT going to verify that the call came from the BoB instead of the scam centre? Phone them? :)

I refer you to my earlier response
Strikes me the system could have been designed to get round these issues. But it wasn't.

If whatever package of information that gets to BT (or whoever) with the call contains a verified piece of information that identifies the originator (or even the originating country) then they can make an informed decision as to whether to deliver the Caller Id.

Scott.

You would need near universal co-operation to achieve that and I'm happy to accept that in theory it is possible but in practice it is not possible and would be a massive undertaking to avoid the small percentage of calls that cannot be prevented with existing technology such as True Call etc. And it wouldn't pay for itself, of course.

RC

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311212

Postby Alaric » May 22nd, 2020, 8:41 pm

Bouleversee wrote:I wonder why these spoof calls dried up when lockdown started.


There was a lockdown in India as well.

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311254

Postby Mike4 » May 23rd, 2020, 12:47 am

Lanark wrote:I almost never get these calls, but when I do I try to string them along for as long as possible. Asking them random questions which bear no relationship to anything seems to work quite well: "how long is it?", "I dont know if tuesday is the best day?", "could you explain that again?"


My dear old departed Dad used to amuse himself by delving into the detail. "Sorry, could you repeat your name please? Let me write that down. Is that John with an 'h, or with no 'h''? And your company again? How do I spell that? Hang on, my pen has run out, I'll need to find another. Don't go away will you? This sounds most interesting, yes I DID have an accident that wasn't my fault. Now tell me all about how you knew.....

And so it would go on for an hour or so until they hung up on him.

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311378

Postby Infrasonic » May 23rd, 2020, 12:10 pm

ReformedCharacter wrote:
swill453 wrote:
ReformedCharacter wrote:Yes, I meant 'IP'. I think you are asking for something that would impossible to do. How do you think that would be achieved? Let's suppose that I'm a call centre scammer in Mumbai and I set up my Caller ID as the local branch of the Bank of Baroda. How is TalkTalk or BT going to verify that the call came from the BoB instead of the scam centre? Phone them? :)

I refer you to my earlier response
Strikes me the system could have been designed to get round these issues. But it wasn't.

If whatever package of information that gets to BT (or whoever) with the call contains a verified piece of information that identifies the originator (or even the originating country) then they can make an informed decision as to whether to deliver the Caller Id.

Scott.

You would need near universal co-operation to achieve that and I'm happy to accept that in theory it is possible but in practice it is not possible and would be a massive undertaking to avoid the small percentage of calls that cannot be prevented with existing technology such as True Call etc. And it wouldn't pay for itself, of course.

RC


I agree with you RC, in practise (as opposed to theory) it isn't going to happen anytime soon.

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#311419

Postby ReformedCharacter » May 23rd, 2020, 1:53 pm

mc2fool wrote:
ReformedCharacter wrote:I think you are asking for something that would impossible to do. How do you think that would be achieved? Let's suppose that I'm a call centre scammer in Mumbai and I set up my Caller ID as the local branch of the Bank of Baroda. How is TalkTalk or BT going to verify that the call came from the BoB instead of the scam centre? Phone them? :)

Check the signature on it with the BoB's 2048-bit RSA public key. ;)

We're not talking immutable laws of physics here, solutions are clearly possible, although may be commercially difficult (expensive).

Funny you should mention that :) About 25 years ago I assumed that PGP would become widely adopted for email and file security, I even set it up on the email client that I was using at the time - Pegasus Mail.

My OH has to correspond with various health and education people in the local authority and needs to use the secure systems that those departments use which are different proprietary systems and of course they're different and won't inter-operate :(

RC

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Re: Nuisance Phone Calls

#317909

Postby Alaric » June 12th, 2020, 2:06 pm

A new one to me at least.

An automated call purportedly from "your bank" asking you to press 1 to speak to someone regarding a transfer of a moderately sized sum overseas on your credit card. I don't know any more as I terminated the call and checked using 1471 on the remote chance it was genuine. Needless to say "The number dialled is unavailable".

I did have a call or message from a credit card company once on a similar issue. From memory they said which organisation they were and gave a phone number that could be verified independently.


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