Month: August 2024

They also demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the government.

I’m on the Do NOT CALL list. I’ve been on that list for literally years, possibly a decade or more at this point.

Yet I get this kind of thing at least once or twice a day. I’ve also noticed that I’m getting the x2 calls sometimes x3 calls because they’re trying to break through a do not disturb block on the phone.

DND on most phones will allow multiple rapid calls from the same number to ring through on the presumption that it’s an emergency of some kind.

Let’s see, why would someone turn on DND? Could it be they’re in class? How about work? Maybe in a meeting? How about at a funeral? Or in a job interview? Holding the hand of a dying loved one?

I get annoyed these moronic telemarketers or whatever they are, somehow think what they’ve got to say is so important that they need to override your need to not be disturbed.

Apparently however, their oh so important message is not worthy of leaving a voice mail.

This shit bugs the hell out of me. Just got another one while typing this blog.

There is one common element to all these numbers.

They’re owned by some cloud telecom company, Thus far the most prevalent is ONVOY, LLC and more recently someone called COMMIO LLC.

I don’t think these companies are operating under the same licenses as say AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or Frontier.

COMMIO is based in North Carolina

ONVOY is based in Minnesota.

I think they both just rent numbers to whoever, via VOIP so God only knows where the actual phone call is originating from.

Both companies can wash their hands of any breach of protocol or laws because they’re just making VOIP devices available to their clients and have no idea or indeed control over how those services are used.

There’s probably some loophole about the “Do Not Call” registry that only includes copper analog landlines from traditional telephone providers and completely omits anything that was transmitted digitally.

I don’t know for sure but that would make sense. How the hell could the buffoons in Congress begin to understand what they should and should not limit.

At least one of the companies was founded in 1992 the other in 2012. Both are associated with SPAM calls & Texts so frequently they’re included in letter from the Federal Trade Commission to 19 Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers warning them that “assisting and facilitating” illegal telemarketing.

Thus far though, it looks as if the FTC hasn’t been able to sink their legal teeth into these companies.

On the two companies web sites, it’s interesting that they say they’re concerned about privacy. Uh Huh. Their own!

Commio llc searches are very strange. The data either starts to come up and then is wiped from the screen, or you get “There’s nothing to report” But if you look for information about other VoIP providers being in trouble with the FTC suddenly you get all kinds of information about Commio themselves. 

Super weird, but I don’t want to take the time to dig into why searches like “Commio llc Spam” are so weird. If I was suspicious, I’d think something was being done to hide their association with telephone and SMS Spam.

And people wonder why I like being able to run Windows on my Mac. It was using the Edge browser on Windows 11 that allowed me to see that something strange was going on. DuckDuck Go just kept telling me there was nothing to see or there was an error. I didn’t have to load another browser or use Google, on my primary operating system. Why? I have a viable Windows OS that I could wipe out and reload from my NAS drive in less than 10 minutes. I wouldn’t even care! There’s nothing to lose and nothing important in that Windows OS.

Nonetheless it leads me back to the question of leaving my phone sending ALL Unknown callers to voicemail or buying a subscription to one of the applications that compare the incoming call against a database of known spammers allowing only the non-spam calls to get through.

I worry, I’m missing calls that I’d otherwise be interested in receiving.

Say calls from prospective employers? Although I’d expect legitimate prospective employers to leave a message and a call back number.

I suppose part of this is election crap. There’s been an uptick in calls lately. I could attribute those to political solicitation. After the election is won, lost, stolen, or delayed indefinitely, I’m pretty sure the calls will slow down again.