Increase in SPAM calls

[Nickihaluka]

50 overseas call a day on mine and my daughters phone HELP. Since Saturday my daughters phone and mine have been receiving hundreds of calls we have silenced them so we don't hear them but it's becoming rediculous my husband can't reach my phone and my daughter is in school with these constant calls.  Any help would be greatly appreciated. Is my phone hacked or are these scams I block them one by one but they keep calling from a different number.  Albania, Congo, Central Africa, North Macedonia,Montenegro, Guatemala, El salvador are the countries and once blocked they call from another phone number it's like they know I am on my phone and that I am blocking them.

*** Edited Labels and Title ***

[Filet123]

Hi nick
I’m getting the same as you
Done the same as you
I’ve chatted with a Rogers tech and all I got from him was to do what we’ve already did
Don’t know where to go from here

[RogersAndy]

Hey @Nickihaluka and @Filet123!

These types of calls are indeed very annoying and I can appreciate wanting to do as much as you can to ensure that they stop. We do apologize for the inconvenience and would clarify that telecom regulations do not allow Rogers to block calls that have a legitimate calling format. Under new telecom rules, Rogers will be allowed to block certain non-dialable and malformed incoming calls i.e. 00000, 111-111-111. These new rules came into effect early November I believe.

If you have not done so you can add your number to the national do not call list, though it's important to note that this would only impact incoming calls from Canada.

Thank you for your understanding and your patience.

@RogersAndy

[-G-]

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@RogersAndy wrote:

We do apologize for the inconvenience and would clarify that telecom regulations do not allow Rogers to block calls that have a legitimate calling format. Under new telecom rules, Rogers will be allowed to block certain non-dialable and malformed incoming calls i.e. 00000, 111-111-111. These new rules came into effect early November I believe.

If you have not done so you can add your number to the national do not call list, though it's important to note that this would only impact incoming calls from Canada.

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To the best of my knowledge, there's nothing that prevents blocking nuisance robocalls at the network level.  In fact, https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2018/2018-484.htm lists various strategies that were discussed for blocking these calls.    Regrettably, the carriers also expressed their underwhelming elthusiasm for any action that would be required of them to fix this problem.

Also, even though the CRTC has mandated blocking calls from invalid phone numbers, as soon as you block numbers that are obvious spoofs, the robocallers will counter this by using what looks like a valid number instead as a way of getting around the block.  

As for the National Do Not Call List, I tried that a few years ago and the problem actually became much worse.  Sure, legitimate companies will stop calling you.  However, I also saw an increase in the number of calls soliciting newspaper subscriptions, and the number of illegal nuisance calls went through the roof.  The DNCL was simply used as a vetted list of phone numbers by unscrupulous organizations.  I also made the mistake of adding my cell phone, which never got spam calls until it got added to the DNCL.  So... the number of calls went up and (even worse) the only people that  called me are organizations that I would never want to do business with.

As documented in 2018-484  ,  what we really need are a number of technical solutions, and they need to be implemented by the carriers at the network level.

Part of the overall solution is widespread implementation of caller ID authentication (e.g. SHAKEN/STIR) and other technical measures to prevent caller ID spoofing.

Another technical measure is to detect robocall patterns at the network level and allow the end-customer to opt into having those calls blocked.  Such a thing was hard to do with legacy TDM switches but is now totally feasible with today's technology.

[garyphillips68]

6 calls this morning stating service Canada has issued a Arrest Warrant.
I thought you guys had developed a filter for this.

[RogersMaude · Accepted solution]

Good day @garyphillips68,

Welcome to the Rogers Community! Thanks for raising awareness on social engineering schemes. Rogers has the safety of its subscriber as a main priority. However, vishing (short for “voice phishing”) still occurs. This happens when scammers attempt to obtain funds or gather your personal or financial information over the phone.

Do NOT provide personal information if the caller sounds suspicious. If possible, record the phone number that appeared on your call display, then report the incident to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre:

• Online: http://www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca/reportincident-signalerincident/index-eng.htm
• By phone: 1 888 495-8501

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre has a lot of information on known scams. Review their website to protect yourself from potential fraud. Thanks for remaining careful!

RogersMaude

[Yyzguy2]

2+months ago spam started and mobile now useless

I have a Samsung galaxy and about 10 weeks ago I started receiving up to 30+ spam call a day, 7*24. I never answer, I block the numbers but they still go to voice mail. I just deleted 17 voicemails.
Help??.

[RogersRob]

Good evening @Yyzguy2,

Welcome to Rogers Community! Getting spam calls can be very annoying and we most definitely understand why you want to do as much as you can to stop them. To help you deal with this inconvenience, we’ll be more than glad to review your options to better handle these calls.

Did you know that with the Hiya app for Android and iOS, you can benefit from call management options like auto-blocking and reverse phone lookup capabilities?

If you have not yet done so, register with the National Do Not Call List (DNCL). This will reduce the number of telemarketing calls you receive. You can do so, here.

To understand the causes of the issue it might be best to identify where these call originate from. While blocking them is ideal, seeing that the same numbers keep calling can raise some concerns. Did you ever listen to the voicemail messages to help determine who the caller was?

Looking forward to your reply!

RogersRob

[Yyzguy2]

The calls continue, usually 15 - 20 a day.  The come from lots of different numbers and I have blocked them all using my Samsung mobile sw however new numbers keep coming up and also even the blocked calls still go through to Rogers voice mail many times.  Most of the messages are giving authentication codes, some say press whatever key to be transferred, etc.

Some of the numbers;

18442029517

12107922656

12132048998

12056390253

61282115110

13602155911

120448176589

6391341313184

12156313429

etc.

[204rt]

When will Rogers allow us to block spam callers from the us and all over the world? 
I don’t always want my unknown caller feature off cause I have kids that may call from another number. 
min getting scam calls 2-8 per day that flood the voicemail with nothing. 3rd party apps are useless. Why can’t we just block international calls period?!

[RogersCorey]

Greetings @204rt!

Welcome to our Community!

I also think this would be a good idea. I do not receive any calls from overseas, so I wouldn't lose anything if I could just block them.

Please also keep in mind that blocking international calls isn't a silver bullet. There are ways to mask the location of your call to get around such blocks.

Regards,

RogersCorey

[Yyzguy2]

My Spam calls had almost stopped for the last 2 - 3 months, prior to that I was considering getting a new phone number as there were so many that I could never leave the ringer on, blocked hundreds of numbers, etc.  Then it went away...but there back... As of a couple of weeks ago starting to receive more and more spam calls everyday.  Very frustrating.  It's a real pain when I need the ringer on for important calls and spam, spam, spam...

[Yyzguy2]

When will the telcos do something serious about his problem.  They have the technology they just don't want to implement.  Trust me if someone wants to get a hold of me they will so I would rather you implement solutions even if it meant 1% of 'good' calls may not get through.  I'm reading some of the responses to government requests of the telcos and they are a joke, things like "we will educate our customers to identify these calls and advise not to answer"  Wow brilliant solution/comment.

[57]

There would have been a solution in place this fall had it not been for COVID-19. The schedule is now for next summer.

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Scam-Phishing-Fraud-Discussions/CRTC-steps-up-efforts-to-comba...

[ciarabelle]

since the past few months.. i have started getting 10-20 calls a day

i can ignore calls.. i can block #'s  - annoying but i can silence my phone.

but its ALL for naught -- since they are allowed to leave voicemails and 

I cannot stop rogers from bloody well insisting i get my stupid fake voice mails.  

(dead air for 45 sec -- or yay i'm going to prison (riiight))

I cannot stop rogers from notifying me CONSTANTLY of my abandoned voicemails (heaven forbid).

rogers -- please give us more control over voicemail... 

access to it online

access to turn off the Stupid repeat text notifier.  I KNOW that voicemail is spam.. i don't care to go listen to it and delete it

and my fav -- Don't save Dead air voicemail.. 45 sec of recorded silence is a complete waste of time to have to call in .. and delete.. repeatedly.. 20 x a day. (those dead air voicemails should be auto deleted b4 they are even saved).

[User1990485]

my solution to this is to leave my voicemail not set up at all/deactivated, because of the annoyance of what you mention.

[howaar2]

So my complaint today is two fold.

The first is that I find it very odd that a huge tech company would not have a contact email. I mean even I have one and I am not even employed so how your organization gets away with that is way beyond ridiculous, considering you are the main provider in this country and if I am not mistaken also in the USA as well.

Secondly, In the last five months alone I have been on the receiving end of probably well over 250 calls from people that I have never met or known in my life. My question then is what sort of compensation am I legally entitled too for something as invasive as that?

Please let me know. The sooner we can fix this, the better.

Thanks for your time.

- A. H.