Hi, I’ve been coming here since just after posting numbers was banned on the scambaiting subreddit, and while I visit the board (usually via a bookmark …/t/scam-number directly) several times a week and regularly watch a few different scambaiters on Twitch and YouTube, I somehow completely overlooked BobRTC until a couple days ago.
I am fairly certain I had seen it mentioned on here, but I just saw the name, and ignored it, continuing my searches for numbers to call. I figured maybe it was some tool for recording scambaiting calls, which I have no interest in, so I never looked into it.
I had clicked on at least one video in the past that was meant to be some kind of introduction to BobRTC made by a third party but, several minutes in, it had still neglected to mention basic stuff like the URL, or even state that BobRTC is a website that automates calling scam numbers... so I wound up clicking away without ever having my interest piqued, and still having no idea what BobRTC even was.
Then, just a few days back, I think I was watching SkeletonSyskey and he casually mentioned what BobRTC does, and I was suddenly very interested. It took quite a bit of searching to actually find the URL, as very few mentions of BobRTC actually give the URL (including some people's YouTube videos, designed expressly to promote it? which seems odd), and the actual site isn't near the top of the Google search for "BobRTC."
Anyway, I've been using it for just a few days now, and I am really enjoying it. It is a great tool and once you have a little bit of a feel for it, and farmed a bit of XP to unlock some basic features, I love that you can check a few numbers, figure out which are active, maybe find a good 5 or 6 scammers who are picking up and then, set it to call them all 50 times in a row with a single button push each, mute the site, and almost passively waste the scammers' time and resources.
Really enjoying this, it is a great tool, and fun to use.
Just wanted to give my experience as a new user. In case my feedback is in any way helpful.
If the devs are looking for any suggestions, all I can think of is it'd be useful if buttons for features that you don't have access to at the start still be shown in the interface, but they just be locked. I spent quite a bit of time searching for how to submit a number before i had farmed enough XP to unlock that feature, and I gave up, and then overlooked that it had unlocked for a couple days. By then I had figured out how the site worked... kind of memorized it's layout, minus that feature, and my eyes always went right to the number postings. Similarly, I overlooked the "Rapid Redial" function for quite some time after it had unlocked for me, I configured clicker macros to do that job right away, and it is easy to miss new things that unlock without any notification.
That said, an alternate suggestion could be to at least made some kind of notifications pop up when new features like the ability to add numbers, or rapid redial, etc are unlocked. Just anything to ensure new users don't overlook newly-unlocked features, I think would be very helpful.
You guys really did a great service creating this, thanks.
I even noticed yesterday or the day before, someone submitted the number of a junk debt buyer/collector. Because these guys have no actual leverage to collect from anybody, they rely on being annoying and tricking people into paying their old, charged-off debts, that they buy for less than pennies on the dollar. One of the things they have done a lot of recently is call people and try to get them to divulge their own SSN immediately, which makes the call feel like a straight-up scam to many.
Anyway, someone submitted this scammy, but non-scam number (I would assume innocently) and an admin removed & disabled the ability to call it within minutes. Very cool to see all the love and attention this project gets.
Our government could lobby India, and throw some insignificant amount of cash at them to finally create real incentive for them to shut down the scammers, and just solve the problem in a day... but, generations of power being handed down to those with no creative problem-solving ability, and thus no rightful claim on the power they wield, and of course they don't do this. Problems probably don't even appear on their radar until a corporate sponsor's lobbyist drops one on their desk, complete with the pre-written legislation to fix it... and none of the big corporations out there have any financial stake in whether or not 80-year-olds have their life savings stolen away from them.
It is great to see good people doing something real that can put an actual dent in this problem, and making it easier for others to get involved. Good job!