Ability to define number exceptions from barred Call Protect Categories

[Duggee]

Having discovered that BT in their wisdom have now lumped VIP number exception capabilities in with a complete alternative paid service this minimises the usefulness of BT Call Protect

I have had to stop all incoming International traffic due to scammer **bleep** who claim to be Amazon.

This now blocks incoming calls from friends in the US and I assume to get the ability to just define a few exceptions to the complete barred category in Call Protect means taking out a new paid service?.

So for any BT moderator that might read this - please pass on to your marketing colleagues that to enhance the claims of BT 'protecting our customers' interests'  it would be useful to just have up to say 10 number exceptions that you can define on BT Call Protect within a complete barred category.

The mechanism must already exist in the software anyway as Call Protect is comparing against a pre-defined blacklist.

Its not feasible to just keep adding specific numbers to an international blacklist as the list of scam numbers is endless.

[pompey1898]

Have you considerd a call barring phone, it is the ultimate to barring scam callers ?

[Duggee]

Well yes - I am aware you can buy call barring phones but when you have a perfectly good digital cordless phone setup why junk that and spend yet more money ?.

Personally I think service providers have an obligation to protect customers correctly from this growing nuisance.

The other problem on the increase is use of local mobile numbers to disguise international scammers.

It’s time that service providers applied some network management intelligence to block all that trend.

Personally I would like to see Ofcom introduce new requirements around these issues to prevent impact on customers in 2021 and beyond. 

The customer should not be having to invest yet more money to stop this when the service providers can easily do something about it  but instead seem to see it as an opportunity for new revenue generation for their business.

In summary, the issue I raised can be solved by BT very easily in the network but there seems to be false justification why the customer has to pay money to solve it ....... just because of this scam culture.

[pompey1898]

Hi @Duggee ,

As stated on this forum so many times "if worldwide providers had the ability to block spoofed numbers they would have done so already".

[Duggee]

Whilst it is recognised to be impossible at present to filter every scam call at network level before being presented to an end customer - hopefully we will eventually see improved inter mobile / fixed network intelligence to help improve this in the future?. eg Caller id authentication / Crypto certificate techniques/verification & validity  of originating line numbers/statistical behaviour of said originating numbers.

I came across a new set of signalling protocols called STIR - (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited ) /SHAKEN which seemed to have initial implementation in the US? but further scan reading showed early papers relevant to the UK - but probably years away as it relies on end to end SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) IP signalling. It basically signals 'Trust' securely around an originating Call Line Identity.

Interesting stuff but coming back to earth ...... going back to my initial post - the main point was a suggestion to tweak to the current Call Protect service to improve the flexibiilty to allow a limited 'white list' of exceptions within a completely barred call category -eg all international traffic. This is perfectly feasible surely ?.

Trashing a current landline device and spending money to fix this gap does not appeal.