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Verizon Communications Spam The Internet United States

Verizon's Anti-Robocall Service Will be Automatically Enabled on Android Phones (cnet.com) 33

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
Verizon on Tuesday said it'll begin automatically enrolling eligible Android phones in its free Call Filter service. The company said it's making the move after the Federal Communications Commission in June voted to give wireless carriers greater power to "aggressively block" unwanted robocalls. From a report: "We know our customers are sick and tired of the endless onslaught of robocalls," Ronan Dunne, Verizon executive vice president, said in a release. "Our team is committed to developing and enhancing the tools that will help bring relief to our customers. This is another major step in that process." The free version of Call Filter will block robocalls, sending them automatically to voicemail, and put a warning label on potential spam calls. Verizon said auto-enrollment will begin Tuesday for postpaid customers with eligible devices. Prepaid Android customers and iPhone users can enroll in the free service by downloading the Call Filter app. Verizon started offering a free version of its spam- and robocall-blocking tools to customers in March. The wireless carrier also offers a paid version called Call Filter Plus, which costs $2.99 a month per line. The paid service offers additional tools like the ability to identify unknown callers by name and a spam number lookup feature.
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Verizon's Anti-Robocall Service Will be Automatically Enabled on Android Phones More

Verizon's Anti-Robocall Service Will be Automatically Enabled on Android Phones

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  • Slamming is alive and well (Score:5, Informative)

    by Y2K is bogus ( 7647 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @12:08PM (#59129918)

    What they aren't telling you is that Verizon is slamming new device sales with Call Filter Plus. While I'm sure they have "protected" themselves with legalese and buried it in contracts that you can't actually read, the reality is that they are automatically adding Call Filter Plus to lines when a new device is purchased.

    I just bought a new LG phone after using my old phone for a long time, then I noticed the per-line price was higher than before because they added Call Filter Plus for $3 per month. I was able to use one of the Verizon "chat me" reps to remove the charge, but it still pisses me off that they slammed me with a new service!

    • Generally once you sign a contract with any of these guys you get slammed nightly, without lube. I notice that this feature is not available to those who haven't signed a contract. This sets up a two-tier system that looks to be very beneficial to the phone company.

      Personally, I don't envy my friends with $100/mo phone bills. I don't know what they've been told to trick them into paying 5x what I do, for the same thing. But if the phone company were to tell me "Upgrade to the $100/mo plan or you'll get 5 s

      • Generally once you sign a contract with any of these guys you get slammed nightly, without lube. I notice that this feature is not available to those who haven't signed a contract. This sets up a two-tier system that looks to be very beneficial to the phone company.

        Of course, but nothing can top the phone companies' brilliant act years ago of selling caller ID and also selling the service of blocking caller ID....

      • My phone bill is $185 per month...for 9 lines...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

      That's not what happened in my case. I got a new Android with Verizon a month ago. It did come with what they called a "free trial" of Call Filter Plus, but it was optional. I think I kept it on for a day and then decided to turn it off just to make sure it expired. It downgraded from there to some basic call filtering. No extra charges on my bill.

      Maybe there's a gotcha if you don't turn it off manually, and it's easy to roll up from the free trial to the paid version? I have very little trust for Verizon,

    • This is part of why I like cheap MVNOs. My cell data needs are very limited. I pay $10 a month for 500MB of data and I think 200 minutes of talk. I've never come close to hitting either of those, I've never been hit with any overages or extra bullshit, and there's no contract involved, I can use whatever phone I can buy up front (I'm using a $150 Nokia 2.2 right now). You can find a giant list of every MVNO available at this Reddit post [reddit.com] along with all their different plans and what features they do or don't

    • What they also aren't telling you is that contacting people without their consent, by way of their cell phone, is illegal [fcc.gov]. And when it's done, you can file a complaint [fcc.gov] against the offending company.

  • I tried to install the call filter app on my Samsung S8 when the app became "available." It can't be installed (at least in a straight forward way) unless the phone was purchased directly from Verizon. I bought mine at Amazon. Pretty annoying!

    • Hmmm, I bought an S5 (I know, I know) off of Amazon and was able to install the "Call Protect" without any trouble.

      I use the free version and it works pretty well- my scam/spam calls have gone from about 3 or 4 a week down to maybe 3 or 4 a month. When I get one, I report and block it.

  • .... that are being routed into their network from outside? How does Verizon posess any ability to know where the call originally came from?

    All Verizon would really know for sure, in that case, was the exchange that the call was routed from, but that hardly identifies the specific originating number... how do you practically block robocalls without also making it impossible to accept any incoming long distance calls, for example?

    • All Verizon would really know for sure, in that case, was the exchange that the call was routed from, but that hardly identifies the specific originating number.

      There is more to phone calls than the caller ID data you get on your phone. There is also ANI [wikipedia.org]

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rlwinm ( 6158720 )
        ANI is trivially spoofed in most robo call centers. At least the Robocallers I get all seem to come from India. Thanks to YouTuber HoaxHotel I have a pretty good working of Hindi insults! YAY! Such fun to piss off these maderchodes.

        • ANI is trivially spoofed in most robo call centers.

          You're not seeing the ANI. You're seeing the caller ID information. The ANI is used for billing. The caller ID is supposed to tell the recipient who is calling. The two numbers are not always the same, and the bigger the customer the less likely they will be.

          T-Mobile is part of this group promising call blocking. Yes, the phone app can block calls based on number alone, but to get any info about the calling number so you can tell if it is one that should be blocked or belongs to someone you know, it's $4/m

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mark-t ( 151149 )

            Yes, ANI can be spoofed.

            It's perhaps not as trivial as it is to spoof CLID, but the biggest hurdle to overcome is more financial than technological. Someone with a few hundred thousand to drop on setting up their own ANI spoofing exchange could almost certainly do so.

            • But they'd get shut down fairly quick if the owning exchange (of the numbers) starts getting billed for their call terminations. Provided that it's a major carrier that has some sort of automated reconciliation against their own call records. Though a small carrier would see a big bill and quickly be able to find that they have no record of originating those calls.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by mark-t ( 151149 )

                Actually, all you'd end up seeing is the area code. ANI is already routinely dropped by some providers for operator assisted calls, but there is no technological reason why it could not be automated.

                It just takes a shitpile of money to do.

                • ANI is already routinely dropped by some providers for operator assisted calls

                  ANI is intentionally dropped from operator-assisted calls and billing handled on each side of the call separately. Part of that goes back to fraudulent uses of ANI. Really the only spoofing of ANI that I can see any proof of happening and no longer happens because the ANI data would have been typed in by a live operator.

                  ANI is required in order to bill a toll call period. I don't see how the terminating carrier is going to collect money for terminating the call if they don't have any origination data. I

  • I loathe robocalls, which quite significantly outnumber the number of legitimate calls I get. Sending them to voicemail, where I have to actively connect and manually delete each one using an annoyingly slow and clunky interface? Oh, please, no.

    I've started to get some "calls" that leave voicemail spam without ever ringing the phone, and they are far more irritating than plain old robocalls (which I can just let Google talk to on my Pixel).

    • One group whose name escapes me tried to claim that their voicemail spam "doesn't count" as a call. Not sure what came of that.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Why would such blocking run on the terminating device rather than in the network? This seems entirely like a scam to me and they are obviously just wanting another method to collect information that they ought not have access to.

    In other words it is all just shady shit designed to deceive the user into installing yet more spyware.

    Fuck off I say!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rlwinm ( 6158720 )
      From the looks of it this app was developed by a third party. Some company called "TNS" -- it's likely they don't know how to do that since it's a simple app. Otherwise, if they had any hooks into the SS7 network (which their website claims they do) would they be doing it on the device? Does the app take insane permissions?
  • Robocalls are simply the new version of spam. Spam worked for the longest time because email is a dirt cheap form of communication when compared with telephone service. With the advent of VoIP and the drastic reduction in cost of voice communication, it's now practical to use it. Combine the system with a predictive dialer that keeps trying numbers until a connection is made and you've got a system that is more effective at reaching audiences than firing spa and hoping to dodge ever more complex and intelli
  • That's useless. Most of my scam calls actually do leave voicemail. What a useless app. Also: My understanding is that it does a terrible job of determining what is a scam call vs. a legitimate call. If you maybe just use your phone to talk with friends and family: Not a big deal.

    But if you, like me, live off your phone for new sales (almost every caller I get is new to my phone) then I sure hope there would be a way to opt out of it as it can wreck many small businesses.

    Think about it. The local plumber

  • >"The free version of Call Filter will block robocalls, sending them automatically to voicemail"

    So, it is pretty much useless. You will still get an annoying notification that interrupts your life, and have to listen to and delete a F'ing voicemail about 50% of the time (because that is how often such calls leave voicemail, in my experience). How is this an improvement?

    If it blocked the calls COMPLETELY, that would be something. If it posed a type of CAPCHA to the caller to eliminate recordings and id

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rlwinm ( 6158720 )
      Google's Pixel phones actually do this! You can send a caller to a screening IVR that runs on your phone. And if they pass the phone will notify you. Far better than this shovelware from Verizon.

      • >"Google's Pixel phones actually do this! You can send a caller to a screening IVR that runs on your phone. And if they pass the phone will notify you."

        Right. Google gives its OWN apps more access that we are allowed to give non-Google apps. It underlines my frustration.

  • I think spam lookup tools have been exist on the web since years ago. Well, not all of them are perfect, but I personally find them very useful for our preventing tools. I also find an interesting article that talks about robocalls at https://www.whycall.me/news/co... [whycall.me]. People might find this useful, especially the ones that get many robocalls from legit businesses.

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