Nuisance Calls

It may only be a coincidence ( and I hope so) but
since porting my landline number to a VOIP service (A&A) the nuisance/scam call rate has increased from 1/2 per week to 2/3 per day.
Many from same caller but different Caller ID number everytime.
Any comments, ideas etc.
Has there just been a peak in scam calls ?

In reply to a post by rarrar:

It may only be a coincidence ( and I hope so) but
since porting my landline number to a VOIP service (A&A) the nuisance/scam call rate has increased from 1/2 per week to 2/3 per day.
Many from same caller but different Caller ID number everytime.
Any comments, ideas etc.
Has there just been a peak in scam calls ?

Not sure if the rate is worse than it was previously when I had phone service from Talktalk for the last 10 years. I suspect that a lot of these calls are just down to people trying different number ranges or retrying them. I had a peak of unwanted calls last year, so far with A&A I have seen a few more in previous weeks but they seem to be dying down again.

I don't have a good solution yet, we are TPS registered but it's about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

Can't say I find there are really more common since porting to A&A here.

Sometimes its one a week, sometimes they will call every day then it dies off again. Happens on my mobile too (but strangely to a lesser degree) but I leave that in silent mode so only numbers from my address book actually ring.

I do wish they had a blocklist but like you said its not going to help much when they are randomising the caller ID.

I'm not sure scam calls have become more prevalent to my number over the last 12 months since I moved it to A&A, rather that getting the email when a call arrives makes it more obvious? - if I get one per month, it's a bad month. Always from Derry (until I blocked all OLI calls from there...)

I ported our number from Plusnet (BT) to A&A about 18 months ago. I don't think there was a significant change in nuisance calls since the port.

I am using a Fritzbox and sometimes block numbers from nuisance calls (if I don't forget to do that after the call)

In reply to a post by rarrar:

nuisance/scam call rate has increased from 1/2 per week to 2/3 per day.

I feel like I'm missing out as I haven't received a nuisance call for at least 17 years across 3 different home phone numbers

I ported my number to Voip 8 years ago. I think the number of nuisance calls has reduced over this time. It is a long time since I had a boiler room scam call. Recently my Android mobile phone has started getting calls which it identifies as spam. I don't think the phone rings.

In reply to a post by essex_man:

I ported our number from Plusnet (BT) to A&A about 18 months ago. I don't think there was a significant change in nuisance calls since the port.

I am using a Fritzbox and sometimes block numbers from nuisance calls (if I don't forget to do that after the call)

I have the same setup, ported from Talktalk 18 months ago. I used to use Talktalk call safe so that callers would have to wait until call was accepted prior to that. This stopped all scam calls.
After migrating I was a bit concerned. Had 2 cold callers from same company in the first week after and told them second time that I was on TPS and to remove me. Since then none. I was using a gigaset, but about 6 months ago moved to Fritz and I use an answering machine in Fritz to greet unknown callers but not forward any message.

Okay
Thanks everyone
Must have just been unlucky, hopefully just a pulse of scam calls.
Was just the sudden increase in calls when I moved - even my spouse commented.
On the Plus side having the House phone answerable on both our Mobiles through SoftPhone is such a benefit.

In reply to a post by rarrar:

It may only be a coincidence ( and I hope so) but
since porting my landline number to a VOIP service (A&A) the nuisance/scam call rate has increased from 1/2 per week to 2/3 per day.
Many from same caller but different Caller ID number everytime.
Any comments, ideas etc.
Has there just been a peak in scam calls ?

Prior to moving the phone service to VOIP, (with Sipgate and also Voipify), we did have a lot of nuisance calls in on the old landline number. - (Registering the landline with the TPS was a waste of time).

When we changed to VOIP we did not port the old landline number and we took up the VOIP providers offer of free new VOIP numbers when we joined then.

The result has been that since we changed to VOIP, (with free new phone numbers), we have not had one nuisance call.

Perhaps, porting the old landline number can result in existing issues being transferred.

I thought that the many advantages of this wonderful new digitisation included a stop to these random bot-origin spam calls as soon as they arrived in the system? Silly me.

I guess you are being sarky but the digitisation of the PSTN system further away from the home happened years ago, and this is only about the final element - the local loop transitioning to voice over a data connection (comparison with mobile VOLTE).

Besides which if you happen to keep your number there is nothing obvious from the nuisance calling side to tell them anything has changed in how your service is delivered at your home.

If router vendors decided to build-in call screening functions given that they can already keep a call log and contact list that may still help in the long run.

Edited by prlzx (Thu 16-May-24 12:58:26)

In reply to a post by prlzx:

I guess you are being sarky

I read a few years ago that they can't implement better protection in the UK against SPAM calls until the PSTN is switched off and we are on the latest digital infrastructure, are you saying this is not the case?

I'm saying that it is a long time since voice has been carried as analog in the heart of the phone system, as I remember a discussion about what happens to dial-up modem (yes before ADSL) analog audio when it gets turned back into digitised audio inside the phone network and how that (and similarly fax) was treated to avoid degrading it further in multiple conversions.

Since most unwanted calls arriving at the home have been coming from robotic dalliers, call centres and other VoIP systems rather than a another random person sitting on an analog line, the fact that we still had telephony service delivered to the home as analog has no bearing on where those unwanted calls originated.

The poster seemed to be joking that the PSTN switch off at the home end would stop nuisance calls at source but they aren't really coming from that anyway, apart from (say) targeted harassment or stalking by someone who knows you
(more a social problem than technology).

Nuisance call these days usually means like spam or unsolicited sales/marketing or scam where you are happen to be the next number on a list who doesn't much care who you are, only if you are a potential mark.

No, the main in-principle benefit I see is if call screening and greylisting features become commonplace;
greylisting is a common technique in email systems as part of reducing spam espcially from someone from whom you have never accepted an email before and could find equivalent application in Voice.

We took out a new number from A&A when we went VOIP. We ran the old analog number in parallel until that was discontinued when we switched to FTTP. We proactively informed family, friends, GP, Hospital etc of the number change and had no problems.
Our scam calls which had been a nuisance disappeared completely and we haven’t had one since!

In reply to a post by Fido:

In reply to a post by rarrar:

It may only be a coincidence ( and I hope so) but
since porting my landline number to a VOIP service (A&A) the nuisance/scam call rate has increased from 1/2 per week to 2/3 per day.
Many from same caller but different Caller ID number everytime.
Any comments, ideas etc.
Has there just been a peak in scam calls ?

Prior to moving the phone service to VOIP, (with Sipgate and also Voipify), we did have a lot of nuisance calls in on the old landline number. - (Registering the landline with the TPS was a waste of time).

When we changed to VOIP we did not port the old landline number and we took up the VOIP providers offer of free new VOIP numbers when we joined then.

The result has been that since we changed to VOIP, (with free new phone numbers), we have not had one nuisance call.

Perhaps, porting the old landline number can result in existing issues being transferred.

a phone number is a phone number is the callers have the number they can dial it if its a new unknown to them number they cant absolutely nothing to do with VOIP.

how many times they dial it also depends on how much their computer selects that number for dialling it can select i more if the call is answered (even by automatic system) as the computer will know it hit an active line and put it in its try more often list (engaged tones have the same affect) This is all very random but a number is still just a number no matter which service the line is provided in PTSN or VOIP makes no difference

Digitalisation has nothing to do calls old PTSN lines use the same blocking technology as brand new voip lines (they are actually the same server racks just wired differently.)

only thing that affects it is if the caller doesnt have the number (it got changed)
or their auto dialler found a better set of people who answer their calls more reliably its just a computer trying to guess who is most likely to answer if people in your area code answer a lot it will attack that area more.

Are phone numbers not similar to email addresses.

If the number is not on a list used for nefarious purposes then it won't be rung.

I have 5 email addresses but only a couple are used to purchase items and services. The couple mentioned get many dodgy emails, but the others are used for family and friends and rarely do I get spam with those.

Your idea is sound but in my case it is wrong.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

If the number is not on a list used for nefarious purposes then it won't be rung.

I don't think that's entirely true. There are many different algorithms employed by auto-diallers. Some, as you imply, work from lists, but some simply call every number in a range - they select an area code and then call every number in sequence. They probably favour area codes with a dense population of working nunbers and, conversely, spend less time on area codes with a low proportion of working numbers.