Cell Phone blown up with calls ?

[George Cantstandya]

I've had the same issue over the last year with one scam place.  They call me several times a day from spoofed numbers always leaving some voice mail about some health insurance scam.  I tried spam call blockers like nomorerobo but they still don't work so well since the scammers constantly change to different spoofed numbers. 

As mentioned above phone numbers may have been harvested from data breeches.  Also worth noting if someone who has your number saved in their contacts, installs some app and allows the app access to their contact list then those places can also harvest those numbers and of course sell them.  That's how I think the place mentioned above got my number.  Probably my mom or her husband installed some weird app related to facebook or similar and gave access to their contacts.  They are getting fairly old and are not very tech savvy.  The reason I suspect this is because I have been at their house and the same spam caller rings their phones within seconds of mine.  So somehow all three of us ended up on the same list.

Then of course there are the multitude of "people search" sites that harvest and sell personal information under the umbrella of information that is public record.  If you looked at some of these sites you would probably see your phone number is posted right there for everyone to see as well as your address, past addresses, previous phone numbers etc.  So these scam callers can easily use web crawlers to harvest phone numbers the same way spammers harvest a lot of email addresses.  That's one reason you should never post your email address on the Internet unless you like spam. Or the spammers just buy the data from any number of data brokers.

What I have started doing in the evening is setting my phone to do not disturb mode and have it set to only allow calls from those on my contact lists.  If a spammer calls it still goes straight to voice mail but at least the phone does not ring.  Then during the day since I may be expecting legitimate calls from those not on my contact list I turn do not disturb off.  This at least gives me the evenings, nights and early morning a bit of a break from obnoxious phone calls.

One thing you don't want to do if you get a spam call that has a recording and says press such and such number to be placed on their do not call list is press the number.  All that does is allow them to verify that the number has someone on the other end that actively answers and listens.   Instead just hang up. If you have not already, you should have your number registered with the national do not call registry.  So that line of press this number to be placed on their do not call list is pure b.s. because if the spammers were actually going to honor the do not call they would be abiding by laws already and not calling people registered.

From what I have read phone carriers are working on some technology that would stop calls from spoofed phone numbers. As for now though I think this is something that happens to most everyone these days.

What it comes down to is most everyone that has access is selling and trading people's contact info and data. If you look into most website's and company's privacy policies where you have to register with name, phone number, address, etc, many have some clause that states they may share the info with certain third parties, their affiliates and in some cases non-affiliates. Even your bank, credit card, insurance etc. usually have such a clause. Many these days allow you to opt out of sharing your information in some cases but you have to contact them to do so. Until you do, that information is getting sold to as many people as their policy allows. Then guess what, the people that buy use it and sell it and so forth and so on.

Here is just one example. This is from the privacy policy of one of my credit cards. One of the largest and most popular credit card companies in the US. I removed the name with paint just because. Note how it mentions under "Reasons we can share your personal information", and lists "nonaffiliates to market to you" and share is set you "yes". Then it tells you how to opt out or "limit sharing". So basically unless you knew about this, then took the steps to contact them and ask them not to, they have all the rights to share/sell your information to anyone they want.



If you look at the privacy policies of your bank, credit card, and insurance companies... those places you trust with your most personal information, you will probably find similar conditions and rules that allow them to share your information with third parties in one form or the other unless you contact them to opt out. But even then, probably not a guarantee.