XKCD: It's more than a comic

There is a feature in my phone app that screens for likely scam calls. It doesnt get them all, but it gets enough. The nice thing is that I dont pick up, so I think Ive avoided appearing on most of the lists.

Almost all of my calls are wrong numbers or scammers. My reminders are all email or text, and my family and friends text or use other platforms.

If I don't recognize the number, I don't answer. I might answer if it's a number from an area code I recognize that isn't mine, because I don't live in the same state as I did when I got that number, but if it's a local number, it might be important.

On the other hand, I've denied calls from Washington state numbers that have turned out to be the Amazon delivery driver trying to contact me.

Edited by TParadox on Oct 1st 2018 at 9:41:12 AM

As a rule, I don't answer numbers I don't recognise. I have all my friends an family numbers in my phone memory, and I consider that legit calls will simply leave a voicemail.
The only exceptions are when I'm waiting for a call from a number I don't know, such as a delivery. Last time it happened I answered two telemarketers, who have kept phoning for a week after that.

I don't think I've ever received a political call, though. Most of these simply want to sell me something. When I answer, I sometimes ask how they got my number and hear them squirm. Back in college, I also once answered deadpan that I did not have the phone (the lady was not amused).

I'm curious, though, what is the deal with this lady and the malfunctioning headset?

Is this a thing in the US? If I get a call, it is either from someone I know, or someone who has legitimate business with me. I don't think I ever got a scam call on my cell phone.

It seems to be largely a US thing, yes. No idea why.

I get the odd scam call (generally of the “you’ve recently been in an accident” type) but they’re so rare that they’re vastly outnumbered by the calls from numbers I don’t recognise that are from work, from places I’m interviewing, from food delivery drivers or even someone I know using a different phone.

If I had to estimate a number I’d say I get such scam calls maybe once every few months, it’s hardly worth changing my phone answering habits over.

The "nice lady" robocalls, for me, usually go as follows:

"[my name]?" <waits a second> "Oh, it's so great to hear a friendly voice for once. That last call was awful." <goes into pitch>

I haven't gotten the one with the headset that often, so I don't remember the exact script.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 2nd 2018 at 7:15:22 AM

I can't say for certain, but I suspect it's a combination of appeal to capitalism / libertarianism (the market will sort out the malefactors, except that it's profitable, so it doesn't) and our early adoption and refusal to aggressively scrap old systems (the United States is big, and some of the small towns still have copper wire. It would be incredibly expensive to rip all of the old systems out, phasing out the old systems without replacing them with new ones is effectively giving a middle finger to the poorer and more agrarian communities, and there are still vested interests in the old systems).

Thus, we have a patchwork network with a lot of vulnerabilities and security holes, and few people willing to invest in regulating it further.

Phone scams (to landlines) are not uncommon here, maybe once every couple of months. Fell for one when I was in high school, was just about to leave my house to where I'd been told my mom was incapacitated in an accident when she arrived home, to my massive confusion. Since then, taking the piss out of scammers is a bit of a local hobby.

There's also a couple of kids that got hold of my phone number and try prank calling every once in a while, I never bothered blocking them since they kinda suck at it.

I got prank called once. They did the one where they ask if your refrigerator is running, and I considered playing along, but they'd woken me from a nap, so I said, "no, it's quite stationary". The kids exploded in laughter and hung up.

No one I don't know has any reason to call me, so I set my phone to "do not disturb" with an exception for anyone on my contact list. Now I don't even see when an unknown number calls me, which was getting to be multiple times a day.

Edited by Clarste on Oct 3rd 2018 at 1:45:25 AM

Given the number of people or organisations that have good reason to have my number but for me to not have theirs on record, I don't think I'd be able to work that solution.

Data Pipeline

I'm quite familiar with this sort of problem based on my work. I guess that's why the comic is less "laugh out loud" hilarious and more of a downer.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 3rd 2018 at 1:34:21 PM

Indeed. It also echoes some previous strips he did about how some people "code" by slapping together a bunch of different scripts until they get a (somewhat) working product.

"Once every couple of months" sounds very much like "uncommon" to me.

As for me, scam calls are a daily occurrence. I think my favorite is this one, where "IRS" (not "the IRS", I stress, just "IRS") is filing a lawsuit against: "you". (Reminder that the IRS, as with most government agencies, would snail mail you first if they're doing anything.)

If you ever get those calls the real IRS actually wants you to report it to them and forward them the phone number you got called from by the way.

Pretty sure there's a section on their site for it.

Well, well past the point where I'd have access to that information, I'm afraid, but good advice nevertheless.

Yeah, impersonating a Federal agency is a pretty serious crime.

You can email them via Scam@IRS.gov

Bluetooth

"Josiah Bluetooth"

You need a really fancy peripheral to get multiple pairings, and my smart watch and phone sometimes can't see each other when they come back in range and already paired, but otherwise it's pretty simple for me. It's not even much more trouble to re-pair a peripheral than it is to unplug headphones from one device and plug them into the other, and certainly worth not having to deal with having the wire between them.

Oh, and I couldn't get my counterfeit PS 4 controller to work with my PC, but it was a driver issue, not a pairing problem.

Edited by TParadox on Oct 5th 2018 at 2:10:43 PM

Honestly, I've had fewer problems with Bluetooth per se than with CarPlay on my 2012 Hyundai Sonata, which isn't fully compatible with my iPhone 7 and keeps glitching, such as forcing it to always play and resetting my playlist settings. I can't pause it!

Bluetooth actually works pretty well for me, other than some stutter issues when I'm playing music from my phone in my car, but I suspect that's more a hardware problem with the car than something inherent to Bluetooth, since it pairs with my smartwatch and my wireless buds just fine.