I've written in the past about the annoyances of owning landlines and their tendency to be called by telemarketers who interrupt my work day. Mostly because of inertia, and despite what I threatened last year, we still haven't canceled our landline. Telemarketers still call from time to time, almost always spoofing another number. Recently they've been spoofing local numbers in the community.
It reached a new low earlier today: the spoofed number they presented to us was our own. The caller ID of the inbound call said JIM PAUWELS 708-123-4567, which is the number (well, not really) of our own landline phone - the very phone that was ringing on my desk. That has happened 4-5 times this morning. Deciding that even someone as lazy as me couldn't put up with that silliness, I called our service provider, which is our cable provider. The customer service rep offered to put a robocall blocker on our number, at no extra charge, which he assured me would block inbound robocalls. I was left wondering why, if it's so cheap and simple, I had to call to request that service. He also informed me that, regarding that fact that my own identity and number are spoofed, I should call the FCC and file a complaint, and gave me a toll-free number for that purpose.
So I called the FCC. And here is the point: it was a very pleasant experience. I figured out how to navigate their call flow system to get to an agent. The agent picked up almost immediately. She was courteous and knowledgeable. She answered all my questions. At no point did I get the feeling that I was harassing her with my dopy questions, or that she was overworked and underpaid. She candidly admitted that not much was likely to come of my complaint, but that the FCC receives thousands of such complaints every week and investigates all of them. She also assured me that, if anything concrete or positive came from their investigation, they would call me.
I have low expectations that the spoofing will be stopped. But at least I had the pleasure of interacting with a professional employee who is serving her fellow Americans, and who does her job very well. It made me feel that the government is on my side.
Jim, we've been having the same experience, of being called by our own number. We're getting so we don't even pick up on our landline, unless caller ID says it's someone we know. We're getting closer and closer to the point of dropping the landline. The thing that stops us is that it's the number that quite a few family members have, and we would need to notify everyone to call us on our cell phones. Also, if one of our kids calls, both of us can be in on it by picking up the extension. I suppose there is a way to have conference calls on cell phones, but we haven't figured that out yet.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you do about church calls? We list both our land line and my husband's cell phone in the parish bulletin. If anyone calls us from the parish it's usually on the land line. If we dropped it we would need to put a notice out.
Our pastor recently announced that some people were getting texts from him about some kind of fund raising effort. Of course it was a scam attempt. He said that he never texts, and that something like that would be carried out in a public way, from the pulpit. Hopefully no one was suckered in.
This is not just a landline problem. We get four or five robocalls on our landline each day but also three or four on our cell to which only 13 people in the whole world know the number. I sometimes call back on the cell just for the experience of hearing the number that called me is "out of service" or "not assigned."
ReplyDeleteNow, if the phone company knows how long I talk to Coventry, England, on my landline, how come it doesn't notice people calling from numbers that are out of service?
I get them more on my cellphone than on our landline. If I don't recognize the number, I don't pick up the call.
DeleteThank goodness for caller ID.
I picked up my Vonage landline because it showed my cousin's name and number. It wasn't. I got an angry voicemail from someone I never called telling me to stop calling. There really are transgressions that deserve the death penaly.
DeleteI can set my cell to ignore calls from my contacts. It will still capture the phone number and caller, if known.
DeleteWe are ready to go landline-less. I had an average of six to eight calls a day from companies selling Medicare advantage plans. I never picked up because the folks at the Social Security office were so great. We will be underinsured until our savings is gone, but still better, cheaper than Obamacare. If we exhaust our savings before we die, we can dodder on down and get Medicare assistance and food stamps!
*ignore calls NOT from my contacts
DeleteHuh. A Republican funds a decent bureaucrat. Imagine people in the gubmint with an actual.work ethic!
ReplyDeleteApropos of nothing, Toni Morrison has died. She converted to Catholicism at age 12, taking the name "Anthony" after the saint, hence "Toni." (Why don't we get confirmation names in RCIA?)
I think her work is often seen through the "black writer" filter, but reading her through the Catholic lens can also be quite fruitful.
funds = finds
DeleteYou can get Confirmation names in RCIA. My husband took Francis. My mom took Ann (of course that was pre RCIA days, but she was a convert).
DeleteIt's always interesting to see what names the kids take. It's usually 8th grade here. One girl this year took Marie Amandine. Kind of pretty, had to look it up.
"Funds" also isn't wrong!
DeleteI asked, and the Church Ladies said it wasn't done. The Boy also didn't get a Confirmation name in junior high, either. Bad catechetics. Throw out the saints and you throw out 2000 years of Christian example. It's a crime.
DeleteChurch ladies don't always know everything. It surprises me that your son didn't get a chance to choose a saint name. It's built into the ceremony now. The deacon or priest assisting the bishop reads him the name. The bishop then says the name as he makes the sign of the cross on the person's forehead, and then says, "Be sealed wth the gift of the Holy Spirit."
DeleteCome to think of it, it was that way when I was confirmed as a kid, but it was said in Latin.
I signed up with NOMOROBO and it has cut out nearly all the nuisance calls. Sadly it is not allowed to block calls from legitimate charities or political sources, but even so, the number of calls dropped dramatically.
ReplyDeleteIs NOMOROBO a paid subscription?
DeleteI wonder if NOMOROBO is the service that my service provider put on my line?
DeleteKatherine - per the Google machine: "Nomorobo Mobile Cost. After a 2 week FREE trial, the subscription costs $1.99/month or $19.99/year per device."
DeleteI get NOMOROBO as a service through Spectrum, which provides internet and phone service. (My phone is a landline; I still can’t answer a call on my cellphone so I don’t use it!)
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