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Re:FCC plans to rein in “gateway” carriers that bring foreig... by gambiting on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @02:28AM (#28756110)
I just think this is uniquely American problem and for some reason American carriers are completely uninterested in dealing with it. Here in UK I get maybe....1 spam call every 3 months? If even that. And it's always the same robo-voice that you can recognize within 2 seconds and disconnect. I have absolutely no issues answering my phone.
Re:FCC plans to rein in “gateway” carriers that bring foreig... by Vespasian on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @04:31AM (#28756776)
Yeah same here in Germany.

Zero ever on my mobile phone (and I know the number has been leaked by at least one breach).

Maybe 1 per month on the landline of my parents and these days it's exclusively "Microsoft" trying to "fix" their computer (weirdly enough with an English speaking scammer).

Either Germans are not a valuable target for "legit" companies or some regulation is working it's magic behind the scene.

Re:FCC plans to rein in “gateway” carriers that bring foreig... by rightbyte on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @05:01AM (#28756946)
My feeling is that Americans are easier targets of fraud for technical and legal reasons.

E.g. 'stealing someones identity' is a thing. Where I live, SSN and driver licenses are public record (you can get a photo copy of anyones driver license), so they are unusable for fax scams. Having a system built on such items being 'secret' is probably a culprit.

Re:FCC plans to rein in “gateway” carriers that bring foreig... by nobody9999 on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @01:01PM (#28762154)
>Either Germans are not a valuable target for "legit" companies or some regulation is working it's magic behind the scene.

IIUC, telecoms in DE charge the originator of the call for call completion, while in the US, telecoms charge the originator and the recipient.

As such, US telecoms have a vested interest in completing scam/spam calls while that is not the case in DE.

I may be misunderstanding this, so if someone more knowledgeable could comment I'd appreciate it.

Re:FCC plans to rein in “gateway” carriers that bring foreig... by distances on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @08:15AM (#28758351)
I've been thinking that what probably helps too is the fact all German speaking countries are wealthy. Much harder to build a spam center with human callers.
Re:FCC plans to rein in “gateway” carriers that bring foreig... by Vespasian on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @09:16AM (#28758978)
Could be that.

On the other hand some (legitimate) support call centers are located in Eastern Europe so it's possible to find enough German speakers there (although not native ones).

Re:FCC plans to rein in “gateway” carriers that bring foreig... by krageon on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @07:38AM (#28758021)
If you were older (say, 80) you would get significantly more. As you approach 60, they will start to ramp up slowly to that amount. I don't know why, I presume they find this information somewhere.
Re:FCC plans to rein in “gateway” carriers that bring foreig... by ASalazarMX on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @12:02PM (#28761281)
After the lock down Mexico has seen an absurd increase of spam calls, and I suspect most of Latin America as well. More than the law, I blame the weak law enforcement.