[VoiceOps] ANIs flagged as telemarketer/spammer/scammer

[Alex Balashov]

PS. 

Yes, I am aware that SHAKEN and STIR are the industry's proposed
solutions to these problems. 

But ... wake me up when that's actually a thing. And given how
complicated it is and how many problematic moving parts are involved, I
am not certain it's ever going to be a thing.

In the meantime, how should one deal with this issue _now_?

On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 06:27:19PM -0400, Alex Balashov wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> So, of course, it is a known problem in the legitimate side of the lead
> engagement call centre, survey, etc. business that ANIs get flagged as
> "telemarketer" pretty quickly and start showing up that way on people's
> phones. 
> 
> Your normative viewpoint on that may vary depending on what you think of
> lead gen calls, but regardless, a reasonable person would differentiate
> between:
> 
> (1) Legitimate outbound dialing operations that are following up with
> leads who provided their phone number and agreed to be called (at least,
> as a matter of clicking "accept" on _something_), or for some other
> legitimate mass-dialing purpose, and who actually own the DID inventory
> from which they present local-market ANIs and can in fact be reached on
> those numbers;
> 
> (2) Illegal spammers who use fake ANIs and call people who did not in
> any way consent to being called by them.
> 
> I am trying to learn a bit more about how this is done and what a
> legitimate, above-board business can do about it.
> 
> Ignoring the factor of third-party call-screening apps (which most
> people with a mobile don't use), where is this generally implemented? As
> I understand it, T-Mobile do it on the network level. I have T-Mobile
> myself, and probably 2/3rds of unfamiliar numbers, including quite
> legitimate ones, show up as "Scam Likely" — I know that's come up on the
> list before. AT&T displays "Telemarketer"; do they do it that way too,
> or do they use a Google Android feature for that which they enable as
> part of their carrier defaults for carrier-issued phones? What about
> other carriers and Android? 
> 
> As far as I know, Apple don't do anything like this. Do people with
> iPhones just not receive this "service"? How does that work?
> 
> Asking where the central, or the most influential authority lies and who
> provides it goes to the heart of the real question, which is: what can a
> legitimate business do if their number has been blacklisted this way? As
> I understand it, the maintainers of these lists, along with the criteria
> for getting on them, are elusive and inscrutable, and there's really no
> recourse and no appeals process. I furthermore understand that this has
> led to the widespread approach of rotating ANIs, but that's a losing
> battle; they get flagged too. I imagine it won't be long before the
> criteria for "Scam Likely" are just "number appears to call lots of
> numbers in this rate centre and otherwise hasn't been around very long".
> 
> But this is all just conjecture on my part; I really don't know much
> about how my carrier, anyone's carrier, or some BigCo that's behind my
> mobile OS decides that a call is a "telemarketer" or "scam" call. If
> anyone can shed some light on how this really works and what, if
> anything can be done about it, I would be most appreciative.
> 
> -- 
> Alex Balashov | Principal | Evariste Systems LLC
> 
> Tel: +1-706-510-6800 / +1-800-250-5920 (toll-free) 
> Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.csrpswitch.com/
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-- 
Alex Balashov | Principal | Evariste Systems LLC

Tel: +1-706-510-6800 / +1-800-250-5920 (toll-free) 
Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.csrpswitch.com/