+71 is Scamland
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They may be working for a pittance, but they need not be committing a crime, some people lose $30,000 or more dollars in these SCAMS, if you did, would you feel so compliant.
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There’s a difference in outcome between scratching at a sore and treating the root cause of the underlying skin cancer.
It’s unlikely that any amount of scratching is going to effect a cure. I was suggesting if we intend to choose a target it needs to be those who are behind these criminal activities.
There is an alternative, which is to find ways to break the business model, aka ‘stopping the boats’. A part but not perfect solution is to find ways to better control outgoing funds at the border. Another might be to break the chain leading to the customer.
EG
A combination of both could be more effective than either. Reducing the frequency of access and success may reduce the workload to one where international policing becomes more practical as the volume reduces.
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I have an iPhone & have changed my settings so that numbers that are not in my contacts are “silenced”. That way the phone does not ring or disturb me & if genuine, the can leave a message 
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If you had a choice between making scam photos and leaving your family to starve, which would you choose? Morals are absolute only when we can afford them.
This is a really bad idea. Some scams involve transferring callers through to an expensive pay per minute service - generally off-shore and often based in Africa.
7 is the international calling code for Russia and a few other countries. Apparently 71 is “Not used (for special services)”.
You are right, it could be a modern day Mother Teresa on the phone just trying to scrape a few dollars up to open their new shelter for the homeless. We mustn’t make assumptions about the morals or circumstances of those who try to steal from us, they could be saints in disguise. At least I don’t employ profanity to hurt these tender little souls.
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Please, no! We don’t need any more fanatics who think others’ suffering is ‘a good thing’.
At least you got the country right. If your only asset is the ability to speak English, in a country that has a large proportion of its population earning less than USD1.90/day, then maybe you will use that single asset rather than starving. You might even justify it to yourself and to those who rely upon your earnings based upon the rape of your country by its colonisers.
Having made that decision they will have occupied the moral high ground and so I should feel ashamed to stoop to pointing out that they are thieves. Think how cruel it would be to attempt to do something more substantial against such poor waifs like prosecute them. More and more a few unkind words looks like the lesser of two weevils. And it has the benefit that they can polish up their karma by turning the other cheek - a win-win for sure.
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Having watched the report on TV about the scammers, someone or some people are using misery on both sides of the Ocean to bring obscenely large amounts of money into their pockets. Regardless of the little person ringing us, the offence is theft and possibly more (consider the individual hurt it does here and the real risk of suicide). Their society chooses to create this rank poverty as does ours.
Blame is both sides, I just go to the old saying two wrongs don’t make a right. Poverty in India is a World problem, so is poverty in any Country including our own. We need to recognise the faults of previous years, not repeat them but learn from them to create a better outcome. We perhaps could fix this with concerted effort but that requires a level of agreement that I can’t see happening.
Would we still have scammers if they had a reasonable income from honest work, sure because there are greedy immoral people who don’t care about others and seek only their own gratification. Just like we get spam emails from Nigeria, USA and so on that seek to steal our details (our identity), our money, we can only rely on that they will continue to exist and the best we can do is educate ourselves so we are wary of the traps.
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Telstra can block all overseas calls or just specific regions eg Asia or Africa. They did this for my father on his landline, it would be worth a call to them to see if they can also do it for mobiles.
The easiest way of avoiding them is to have a answering machine, which l use and every time so far l’ve had a “SCAM CALL” they have never left a message, where as if it’s a “GENUINE CALL” they will usually leave a message. I only use the PIECING WHISTLE, when l feel like annoying them for my amusement.
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The phone companies should be required by the government to do more to stop these criminals. For example, if you or I want a phone we have to apply and give details. There is no way I could get the phone company to give me a phone number that disappears when someone phones it back!!! Yet these scam numbers do just that. If you try to dial them back so you can trace them you get a message telling you that number has been disconnected. As I said, there is no way Tesltra or Optus would let you or me set up that type of number.
I cannot believe that it would not be possible for our phone companies, in cooperation with the Federal Government, to trace these calls back to their point of origin or at least stop them.
I suspect, however, that the Government does not want to offend India, China and the other places that these numbers are based in.
Meanwhile millions of dollars are being stollen by heartless criminals and often from the elderly who trust the nasty individual on the other end of the phone who is claiming to be there to help them fix their NBN or computer or phone problem.
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You misunderstand. Nobody gave the scammers the numbers they use and so far no-one can stop them creating their own. The phone companies are not complicit they are victims too, scammers do not have phone accounts with them.
I suggest that you look up spoofing and VOIP or read this and other threads here that describe the problem in more detail.
You may believe what you want but so far there is no known solution to the broader problem only ways for the individual to ameliorate it.
That is an unwarranted assumption based on your misunderstanding.
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Very true. There have been some scammers caught in Australia - or this one (they are Australians) so the finger can’t be pointed at one country or another.
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You are correct that I do not understand the full technical detail behind these scam numbers.
However, if you are telling me that telephone companies have to follow many government regulations to run their businesses, yet somehow scammers can set up their own phone numbers and use them over the general internet, both VOIP and mobile, then I would say that the various governement and legal agencies need to get together and work out how to prevent this.
I have also read that some governments in some countries have colluded with the scamming centres in return for bribes, to allow them to continue operating.
You would need to change the various protocols used world-wide for communications.
In particular the caller ID and how it is used.
Many businesses set the CLID using PABX facilities to a common number. Staff make calls on any number of internal phones that to the receiver have the same number. If you call back you get the receptionist or an auto call system.
Want to ban them?
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They don’t set up their own numbers. What they do is change the caller ID data attached to the call. They can use any number. They can even use your number for spoofing. Telstra has useful information about spoofing which is worth reading.
Spoofing occurs as the worldwide phone system technologies didn’t consider spoofing when they were developed a long time ago. To would be possible to design out, such as using unique encrypted verification codes which the world wide phone system uses to vaidate authenticity of calls, but this would require significant changes and worldwide adoption.
Australia could go alone, but this would only stop local scammers for about 5 minutes until they routed calls through an overseas exchange. It would have no effect unless Australia blocked all international calls.
There are no easily solutions.
The community also contains discussion of robocallers and spoofing, and why it is difficult to eradicate.
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Unfortunately, they DO call again, but from a different phone number, The outfits seem to buy a list of numbers, and then cycle through them as they are each blocked by too many people.
Yep, they’ve wised up that many people learned to block or not answer unidentified calls.
I used to string them along if I had time, on the understanding that the phone call had to be paid for, and then block the number, but lost interest. I had some fun with each call for a while before blocking the number, but now just wish them luck on the next call, and go and block the number.
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They don’t buy numbers. They use calling technologies which changes the caller ID sent with the call. There are numerous reports online of genuine (real) household numbers, like yours and mine, being spoofed.
Calling Line Identification (CLI) overstamping and spoofing | ACMA.
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It seems they can block overseas calls showing UK numbers in UK so why not overseas calls with Aus numbers in Aus. Attached is from UK newspaper -
" Foreign fraudsters will be stopped from making hundreds of millions of scam phone calls under landmark plans to protect the British public.
Major phone networks have agreed to automatically block calls made from abroad if they show up as a UK number, the Telegraph has learned.
The unprecedented move comes after phone companies were criticised by the National Crime Agency for failing to tackle a huge rise in scam calls and texts over the past year.
Many of the scam calls are made by foreign gangs using technology to make it appear as if the call is coming from within the UK. Others trick their victims out of thousands of pounds by ‘spoofing’ genuine numbers belonging to British banks.
But after talks with Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, major networks have agreed to block nearly every call coming from abroad if it shows up with a UK Caller ID.
The only calls allowed through will be those made from roaming mobiles or from call centres proven to be legitimate.
Ofcom believes the move will prevent “hundreds of millions of scam calls” every year, according to a source close to the discussions.
Some major networks have already begun blocking the calls with the others expected to follow within months.
“We have identified that a large proportion of scam calls are made from abroad in this way,” the source told the Telegraph.
“This isn’t a silver bullet, but we believe that blocking this traffic will have a significant impact.”
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