Spam protection

[DrCeHa]

Hi,

so I've been using Fido now for roughly a year. I never listed my phone number anywhere public, only my work and some officials (hospital, ircc, cra) got the canadian phone number.

Yet, somehow from day 1 until now, I receive daily spam calls, spam messages and sometime even spam voicemails without my phone even ringing.

So I started to use the blocking feature of my phone quite a while ago, and yet.....it is not getting better. I can see the area codes, and sometimes even country codes shifting to different numbers when I start blocking every spam call.

This makes me really furious, because I don't understand how bad the country, but also the provider can deal with type of problem. And this is not just because I'm upset....I know it is possible to get rid of this problem once and for all.

I still have my german phone number from 2014. It was not just listed public for 3 years, it was literally advertised for this whole time on the company web site. Every new member of the company, every new client of the company got this phone number when reaching out to my work place. Several thousand!!! people on purpose. I even used it to register on web-sites, officials etc. Even here in canada before I got my canadian phone number....you get the idea, it is everywhere.

AND YET: from 2014 aaaaaall the way to 2023 (today)....I received exactly ONE spam call (around 2018). Nothing else. How.....how on earth is it possible that a phone provider in a country like germany...a country with one of the worst mobile phone services and coverages worldwide deals better with that than canada? I read about so many different spam call protection systems that are currently being in place here in canada, and yet none of them is working. In germany...I don't even know a single one by name, it's hard to find even any written article about that, yet it's working flawlessly.

Just to give you an idea, just my voice mail for the past 4 months contained every two week the following messages at least once:

• 60s silence
• A recording of a chinese woman talking about a dog I have to pick up at the vet....in chinese 
• Same as above, but the message record starts in the mittle of the sentence
• A recording of a female money collector who desperately want's to speek to "sath" and is asking for a recall
• A recording of an indian guy threatening me I need to pay my CRA debits
• A computer generated message that want's me to pay fees for a fedex package

And...in my opinion, Fido is failing increadible badly here....just the recorded messages are proof enough. They are exactly the same and always coming from different numbers and country codes.

Seriously.....as a phone provider.....you need to get this fixed. I did anything in my power to protect myself from spam, at this point it is up to Fido to get a proper spam protecting working.....

[Cawtau · Accepted solution]

Hello DrCeHa,

Welcome to the community!

  I think everyone is rather fed up about getting SPAM and SCAM calls. However, most of them tend to show from spoofed numbers. That's why the numbers keep changing. Unfortunately, there currently isn't much that any of the mobile providers can do to prevent them. Since the spammers/scammers use spoofed numbers, it is not possible to identify the true spammers' number. The numbers shown on caller ID do not belong to the spammers. They often belong to innocent, unsuspecting people. Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done to prevent numbers from being spoofed. Even the RCMP are not immune to being spoofed (see here and here). Reporting those phone numbers do not lead back to the spammers/scammers. Any filter would block innocent customers from accessing their services, not the spammers/scammers.

  I understand you have read about the measures put in place to combat these types of calls (ie Universal Call Block, STIR/SHAKEN etc). I also understand people expected STIR/SHAKEN to have brought those types of calls to an end. Unfortunately, it was never meant to block calls from spoofed number, it only identified them as Possible or Likely SPAM.

  In addition, there are other limitations to STIR/SHAKEN. For example, the calls need to be end-to-end internet-based (see here).

  I also understand you believe Germany somehow has better protections against these types of calls. It's true that Germany does not appear to be as afflicted as some other Countries (see here). However, is that because they have better protections or that they were simply not targeted by the spammers/scammers? As you note:

---

@DrCeHa wrote:

... a phone provider in a country like germany...a country with one of the worst mobile phone services and coverages worldwide...

---

  Perhaps they simply were not a target of spammers/scammers. It's worth noting, though, that the number of SPAM calls in Germany had increased almost ten-fold within a year.

  I also understand you never publically listed your number. However, they don't need to obtain your actual phone number. The spammers/scammers often make computer-assisted calls. As explained in another post, it's actually rather simple to target customers from a particular provider. All they need is to choose an area code and prefix for their chosen target and sequentially dial those numbers from 0000 to 9999.

  Unfortunately, it isn't possible to rid the problem once and for all. It is more or less a Worldwide issue -- with some Countries affected moreso than others.

  Some providers may have other measures in place to reduce robo-caller SPAM calls (ie Call Control). However, some people rely on legitimate automated call services (ie Pharmacies, Doctors' offices, Libraries, etc).

Hope this helps 😀

Cheers