[VoiceOps] ANIs flagged as telemarketer/spammer/scammer

[Carlos Alvarez]

I no longer work with telemarketing call centers at all for various
reasons.  But I do work with a few who do different kinds of calling.  One
in particular is especially challenged by these things, and I've talked to
Alex about building systems to rotate CLID for them regularly.  They do
market research.  For example, they will call people on behalf of the local
electric company to see how they can improve.  Or do followup calls for a
major national medical group after appointments to assure satisfaction.  If
you own one of the two major phone brands, they may contact you about
product improvements, overall satisfaction, and the like.  Anyway, totally
legit, not sales.

But they MUST reach a person directly.  It's not statistically valid
research if you call them back, or if you call them on your own.  It's a
lengthy explanation, but basically if they leave a VM and wait for a call
back, the people who choose to call are the most biased.  They are most
likely to have either praise or an axe to grind.  They will be someone who
has something to say.  They also need a balanced view from people who
wouldn't care enough to reach out.

The exact numbers are proprietary, but during a recent experiment on
rotating CLID, we found that production of valid calls went up by just over
triple against the number that had been marked spam/scam.  That's no
exaggeration at all.

Oh, this week I needed help with an Apple issue.  Their call went straight
to VM.  Turns out TrueCaller has Apple's main national number marked as
scam/spam.  What the hell people?

I have been saying that these filtering apps will at some point have marked
so many numbers that they will stop being useful.  When Apple, who does
zero telemarketing, gets marked like that, it's already here.  I've also
received "new" blocks that were already marked in some way.


On Fri, Aug 31, 2018 at 6:24 AM Ivan Kovacevic <
ivan.kovacevic at startelecom.ca> wrote:

> One thing that hasn't happened yet - and it should - is that networks, app
> providers and individual users are held responsible for labels they put
> (or help put) on numbers. Let's remember at least some of the
> telemarketing is conducted by legitimate organizations with valid (and
> legal) existing business relationships. Labeling a legitimate number as
> scam is detrimental to business and I am surprised there hasn't been a
> flurry of cease and desist letters to force carriers to stop doing it or
> at least introduce a validation/vetting mechanism.
>
> If someone posted a Yelp review saying they found rat feet in their
> hamburger, and this wasn't true, Yelp would have to remove this review and
> the restaurant would have legitimate grounds to go after the poster. The
> caller ID "screening" space is still a bit of Wild West... But as Glen
> pointed out, that could be just due to overall drop in interest and
> efficacy of legitimate telemarketing.
>
> Ivan Kovacevic
> www.startelecom.ca
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: VoiceOps <voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org> On Behalf Of Alex Balashov
> Sent: August 30, 2018 11:37 PM
> To: voiceops at voiceops.org
> Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] ANIs flagged as telemarketer/spammer/scammer
>
> I agree with you, but, not running a call centre or a sales or marketing
> operation myself, I am not qualified to assess the business ROI of calling
> people.
>
> It clearly works well though or they wouldn't do it. From what I can see,
> there is widespread agreement that it only works 1) if you get to the lead
> first and 2) if you actually get a warm body on the phone.
>
> Leaving voicemails is seen to be a pointless waste of time from a
> conversion  point of view, or in the case of lead gen where multiple
> providers buy the lead info (e.g. say you go to some site that quotes out
> auto insurance policy info and put in your contact details), coming in
> second or worse is also seen to be a pointless waste of time.
>
> On August 30, 2018 10:05:17 PM EDT, Glen Gerhard <glen at cognexus.net>
> wrote:
> >_______________________________________________
> >VoiceOps mailing list
> >VoiceOps at voiceops.org
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>
> --
> Sent from mobile. Kindly excuse brevity and errors.
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