
Americans got 26.3B robocalls last year, up 46 percent from 2017 - byproxy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/01/29/report-americans-got-billion-robocalls-last-year-up-percent/
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zaroth
This is just ushering in the end of voice calling entirely. Not too much
longer now.

Alternatively, one day Apple will add a service to prevent this in a simple
way, turn it on by default, and overnight the entire industry will be dead.

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gk1
> and overnight the entire industry will be dead.

And nothing of value will be lost. Unfortunately the perpetrators will find a
new channel.

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MR4D
But fortunately for Apple users, it won’t be iMessage. :)

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nsporillo
The kicker is the robocallers now use phone numbers which match the first six
of your own number (area code and first 3 digits). When I was in the process
of interviewing with a company and therefore waiting for phone calls, this was
incredibly frustrating.

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Faaak
European here: our (mobile) phone numbers are "random". Are yours too or are
they matched to a subscription area ?

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ezrast
Typically when you sign up for a mobile line in the US the carrier will assign
you a number whose area code (first three digits) is "correct" for your
address. But it's not strict, and you can keep that number anywhere you move
after that.

I got my first cell phone when I was living in central Missouri, so my area
code is 573 even though I no longer have any ties to that area. Identifying
this type of robocall is very easy for me.

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koverda
T-Mobile has automatic spam block, it's reduced the number of spam calls for
me drastically. Super easy to turn on, just dial #662#

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byproxy
Only for those on a post-paid plan. I'm on a pre-paid plan that they'll have
to pry out of my cold, dead fingers ($30/month, unlimited data+text) which
doesn't receive it, unfortunately.

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ngokevin
I'm also on the T-Mobile $30 plan from some Walmart promotion from years back!

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byproxy
Well, after posting that comment I decided to check out their current
offerings which led me to discover Mint Mobile. It's an all-around better
deal, provided you don't mind paying for a year up-front. I think I just may
switch next month!

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nasmorn
The fact that this is a non existent thing in Austria where I live means it
could be solved by legislation and enforcement. If I had to guess the telcos
have somehow gotten themselves off the hook here even though they probably
profit a lot

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megaman8
Why don't we just institute a national call tax of 1/2 cent per call? It would
be negligible for any legitimate call, but it would totally break the business
model for robocalls which require millions of calls to get through. I assume
an extremely small percentage of people actually buy stuff from robocalls. am
i missing something?

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zamadatix
Maybe, it really depends on exactly how tight that robocalling margin is.

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analyst74
I don't know if it's available to all Android users, but the automatic spam
detection and manual call screening has been extremely effective at reducing
the amount of robocalls I answer.

edit: pixel 2

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byproxy
What model do you have? I don't believe I have that feature on my XZ1C.

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larntz
I have it on my Pixel 2. It seems to help a lot.

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harper59
Well, I think it increased more than 50% since last year. I get 5-10 calls
each and every week from unknown numbers. All of their VMs are robocalls!
Well, I block the numbers immediately. I think the authority should do
something about them. I have also read a nice article at
[https://www.whycall.me/news/consumer-wins-
massive-229500-rob...](https://www.whycall.me/news/consumer-wins-
massive-229500-robocall-lawsuit-against-time-warner-cable/). People might find
this useful.

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heyjudy
[https://nomorobo.com](https://nomorobo.com) and
[https://donotcall.gov](https://donotcall.gov)

nomorobo was crowdfunded and works well on old-school voip lines where it 1
rings on spam calls.

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hart_russell
Why does the existing phone system allow for robo-generated numbers?

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plushpuffin
Because large corporations sometimes substitute their internal numbers with a
more public number when dialing out so that if you call back you connect to
the appropriate incoming call center. And also because this caller ID system
is super old and therefore has no real authenticity checks.

