Now if only they'd take some sort of action against all the spam text messages I get. I swear I get a dozen texts a week from stringofnumbers@fakeemail.com telling me my amazon account has been suspended or a USPS package is on hold.
I get 5-10 a day honestly. I have to ban every one of them or they become accumulative with repeat calls because they keep calling and calling. They frequently then just move to another number and we do it again…
It’s obviously a handful of companies behaving very badly. Let’s me share some examples…
They say the same things from the same companies:
- “Hi this is Jamie with the RTC helpdesk I'm calling to let you know that substantial business tax incentives that are still available through the employee retention tax credit _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ can provide business funding up to $26,000 for each W-2 employee you had on staff during 2020 and 2021 if you qualify we do all of the work and submit your application …
- “Hi this is James calling from coastal debt resolved we help small business owners lower the payments or restructure any merchant cash advances that they've taken out and are having a difficult time getting them back we thought it was possible you might have one or more of these I want to see if we can offer our help my direct line is 877-412-0535 please give me a call at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your current situation thanks and have a great day…”
- “888-310-9170 I'm contacting you regarding a potential refund opportunity for your business related to the year 2020 and 2021 please be aware that this refund does not involve any taxes or loans and there is no need for repayment to proceed with the refund process we simply need to verify some details regarding your businesses employee account during those years if you believe this call was not meant for you or if you wish to opt out of any future communication please press nine when calling back thank you for your time and I'm eagerly awaiting the opportunity to speak with you best regards Eva…”
- “Hey this is Mark reaching back out again please give me a call back at 205-460-5936 so I did receive a notification today at your business is done and Bradstreet score was recently upgraded up to a 76 now this is a big deal because I put you in the top 10% of businesses in your industry and revenue range now because it is great score we're happy to see that your business has been preapproved for a business credit line up to $500,000 and the interest rate on these lines start his lowest 4.8% so they really don't cost very much at one of the best things about this offer is how fast we can get the money over to you if you were to say yes to this credit line we can have the funds over to you within just 24 hours please remember these offers don't last forever so please call me back directly at 205-460-5936 to make sure there's no confusion that's 205-460-5936 hope you have a really good day I have a blessed day and thank you…”
- “Hey it's Tiffany with capital group I'm just touching base regarding your business plans of corner am I still have immediate funding options up to $250,000 with limited to no documentation necessary so am I can be reached at 949-4645479 I'll give you that number again it's …
The capital group hits me up many times a week from many different sources.
I don’t even bother to answer calls. I just ask people to leave a message. It’s made my phone basically unusable.
They're talking about text messages. You can send a text message from an email address. For example "8675309@txt.att.net" would send a text message to Jenny if she were an AT&T subscriber.
I went through a massive campaign of explicit/sketchy/spam email-texts... Textra(SMS app) introduced an ignore feature that captured that thankfully after a few weeks of nonstop aggravation. My carrier would not disable that feature despite multiple requests(likely wouldn't know how either).
Yeah the first time it happened to me it was surprising and I looked it up. But now it's practically weekly. Most spam texts still come from regular numbers though. "hi /cars* compro/carros"
My city has a nonprofit called Code for Good [1] that is specifically focused on getting the tech & design community together to help other local nonprofits. I've volunteered with them countless times and the events are always super impactful. Maybe you've got something similar locally?
It also might be worth developing a program yourself if you're passionate enough about it. There are a few dev shops in my city that run their own charity projects every year where they invite nonprofits to submit proposals for the work they need done, and then the shop picks a few projects to work on for free. Those seem to be super popular as well.
I'm with you on the support being sub-par, but the whole vetting brands (A2P) thing has nothing to do with Twilio at all. It's entirely forced by an industry group called The Campaign Registry. I don't know the last time you tried to create a brand in Twilio but they support the entire process in their UI these days, but the nightmarish API you're talking about is entirely an invention of TCR, not Twilio.
> As you may have guessed from our strange spelling, UnHerd aims to do two things: to push back against the herd mentality with new and bold thinking, and to provide a platform for otherwise unheard ideas, people and places.
Ahh yes, definitely the mission statement of a reputable source.
UnHerd has a following among conspiracy theorists, but its journalism is pretty good! E.g. here's an interview with Sajid Javid (UK minister for health) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7yZZKlg-m8
They're not _that_ expensive (usually $500-$1k/mo) and I wouldn't really characterize the vetting as "thorough".
Don't get me wrong, carriers have been making strides to lower the amount of spam that's sent through the air (A2P requirements, toll-free number verification requirements, etc), but a determined scammer can still exploit SMS/MMS pretty easily.
I've provisioned several shortcodes. There's a 12-week approval process (every carrier has to independently review & approve) and if you get flagged/reported for spam they will come after you for it. IMO this makes it prohibitively difficult & time-consuming for a bad actor to use effectively.
I think the processes are getting better each day, but it was only a couple of years ago that you could share a shortcode. My main point is that even with all of the safeguards it's still a ridiculously easy system to exploit.
Most people will trust a toll-free number just as much as a shortcode, and since tons of legitimate companies use toll-free numbers for messaging it just blurs the line of what a "reputable" number looks like.
Even SendGrid, which is owned by Twilio, uses toll-free numbers for their 2FA messages instead of shortcodes.
It also makes it difficult and time-consuming for a good actor to use effectively.
As far as I could tell (although I retired in 2019, so might be out of date), you can't use one short code through multiple aggregators, so if you want the benefits of multiple routes, you've got to have multiple shortcodes or live with sending from regular phone numbers.
Lot of good points already, but one that I've learned the hard way is never take on a "family" business as a client. You know the type of company where one brother is the CEO, another brother is the marketing director, random husbands and wives work for the company, etc.
I've never had a relationship with a family business last beyond the scope of the initial project. Things always fall apart because of family infighting, or because every business decision ends up being way too personal/emotional for them. It's never worth the hassle, trust me.
45% of my clients are family businesses. That's a huge segment of the market to ignore (at your own peril). Family businesses can be great because they can be honest with each other, and move quickly. They can also be insane, but so can normal clients. I've worked with over a hundred family owned, multi-generational businesses.
The UK ( whence comes this article ) has a very competitive ISP marketplace, there are several dozen ISPs vying for my custom at my property using a variety of connection technology.
But most people in the UK sign-up to the Big Three ( BT Retail, Virgin, TalkTalk ) due to their intense advertising and bundle 'deals'. So those three consider themselves the market and compete with one another for that pool of customers. Naturally they make leaving difficult because they have spent so much on acquisition.
The other 20% of customers shop around based on individual requirements. I've been with my small, efficient ISP for 12 years and have no reason to change.
The UK ISP marketplace is not competitive. In most places you have no choice but to go with Virgin if you want half-decent speeds. The rest of the ISPs are just selling DSL which is crap compared to Virgin and there’s no easy way to tell how well it will perform in advance before signing up (it depends on the state of the wiring).
A residential proxy is listed as an "IP address provided by an Internet Service Provider", but I still don't really understand how they get access to them. ISPs have to be selling them access, right?
