Phone spam feels like it’s getting worse.
I and my wife have been receiving numerous calls from the local arm of ANZ Bank — a bank I am happy to identify by name because I’ve sought comment from them without reply for nearly a week now. Our mobile phone numbers were probably sold by another bank or possibly by the cellphone company.
Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase starts picking up SMS and phone spam on Hutch in India within a day of activating his SIM card, and finds that the company is three times as slow at removing his number from their spam lists:
Locals in the know send a text message to opt out, a process that, according to Hutch’s automated response takes at least three days to activate: “We respect your privacy. Please give us 72 hours to include your number on our Do Not Disturb list. Thank you” and an unspecified amount of time this to filter through to the companies that already have you on their disturb list.
I’m quite aggressive at fighting SMS and phone spam, but not always successful. One nightclub spammed me regularly until I got upset. Now they don’t. (Embarrassingly, it turned out to be owned by a friend of mine.) Now a lot of people here don’t answer their phone unless they recognize the number on the display.
Still, there’s nothing is quite as bad as this case of cellphone stalking in the U.S., where one family claim to feel harassed to the point of paralysis through their cellphone. A good clear-eyed view of the mess here.
In the UK there was a watchdog that would go after companies that sms spammed you. I complained and had at least two companies fined for sending me text messages. Then they stopped allowing me to complain when they asked if it was a business phone. Apparently you can spam a business account as much as you like purely because it is a business. A BIG loophole.