NTF Dialing on BobRTC - Situation the same

Scams Robo Calls
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Just a quick update before the close of the year…

As most of you noticed, dialing non-toll-free numbers has been intermittently working on BobRTC for the past few weeks. Our partners are still working on network agreements to carry these calls. Presently the few routes that are available are too expensive; I paid out of my own pocket to carry a few days of calls for roughly $200 but that was fairly limited.

Contrary to popular belief the fees and charges hidden behind "unlimited" plans actually vary greatly depending on what area of the USA/CAN is being dialed, even if most of the numbers are simply forwarded back to a scammer in India.

I expect the situation to continue for several more weeks. I am sure you probably know that not having tolled calls go through means IRS/SSA is much harder to work. It is still possible to call those numbers from Google Hangouts or TextNow but of course you'll run into scammers who will block you.

Again, this does not hamper our ability to connect through toll-free calls. If you're not familiar with the US/CAN numbering plan, look on the dial card on BobRTC. Toll-free cards will have a green "toll-free" pill on the card.

You will still continue to accrue XP and calling tokens as normal, and that will continue to build up even if we might not be able to deliver tolled calls; you'll be able to use them later.

While this is greatly disappointing; we are focusing our efforts again on BobRTC features and we have also taken down the account validation process that was frustrating so many of you and have moved it to the spot on BobRTC that needs two-factor authentication which is the phone number submission form. We will continue to require 2FA in order to submit a phone number to BobRTC but do not need it to use the site or make calls.

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@kenzo#123204 Thank you.

Luckily for NTF numbers, many of us have fireRTC, TextFree, Hangout, NextNow, burner phones and a few others.

We should continue to wast scammers’ time using any means.


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UPDATE:

The simple good news:
Looks like NTF might be coming back within a few weeks as a new agreement deal is going to be signed soon. Once there is an agreement and a setup date and some test calls made, it won't be long before our tolled calls can be routed and they will work again.

The more technically complicated bad news:

Rates have not been discussed yet and whatever comes out of that might require changes to call token earnings ratios and we may have (for the sake of preventing running out of funds) of canceling unused tokens before a certain date.

I know that feels crummy and unfair, but the disruption from our partner is also facing cash being lost that was tied up in the carrier routing the NTF calls. That means tokens that you have earned while we were using the carrier who left us that went to offset paying for their fees is money that was already deposited; so when the call tokens are consumed on BobRTC those are new losses that we don't have money to offset with on the new carrier.

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Also while I am discussing some of the innards of BobRTC and how calls get delivered, let’s talk about BobRTC and how it comes to money and what actually happens.

As you know, you can only dial a tolled number on BobRTC by putting some effort in calling toll-free numbers. It's not really a secret why there is this call token ratio----the telephone calls that you make to toll-free numbers offsets the toll charges that are paid to connect USA/CAN and overseas calls. And that happens through money, of course.

HOWEVER, this is money that never passes the hands of any founding member of BobRTC. Not a single developer, not any of the moderators, none of the staff on Scammer.info---nobody ever actually touches cash or has access to a bank balance. These offsets are done automatically by contract.

Further: Nobody working on BobRTC "gets paid". We have a really tiny donation kitty on SubscribeStar and the audio playing site has about 50 bucks in it from AdSense. When tolled calls are working on a normal week on BobRTC there's upwards of $400 a week in tolled calls that are made. That is a LOT of dialing. That cost is offset by calling scammers operating on Toll Free.

This is by design. We didn't dare start working on building BobRTC until we were sure that we had a way to operate the system that didn't rely on a community that is relatively small (honestly, there's Facebook groups about salads that are multiple times the size of the whole scambaiting community). We setup a formula that would ensure that this happens, and that is enforced with call tokens.

Scammers are paying the core costs of BobRTC and by dialing scammers on toll-free, you are keeping BobRTC alive and kicking.

By dialing on BobRTC you're not putting money in anybody's pocket of a dev or a mod you don't particularly like. Again, this is also by design.

When we started BobRTC we were aware that of a population of 20,000 people there's like 1,000 different scambaiting Discord communities and groups, and half of them hate or have a beef with one or more other groups. We made sure when we started this that BobRTC services a community this fragmented but also stays separated from the Discord fiefdoms so that we can offer the service to all. I think we have succeeded there. Even the scambaiters who hate particular individuals on our staff still use our database. That is a positive thing and helps scambaiting.

I have seen plenty of rumor and innuendo floating around about this topic and I'm sure those rumors will continue to fester on their own. Either way, you can either believe a scambaiting Youtuber who sprinkles fake repetitive content and has never worked on the BobRTC project, or you can listen to any of those who actually work on BobRTC and pick whichever is your truth.

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On going deeper on the topic of money and the future:

Scambaiting sites like this one and BobRTC routinely get threats from lawyers representing scammers. Lawyers are paid by their clients and if they're paid well enough, can move on from their threats and take provocative action (go back and find posts about MPS on this site for an example of that).

BobRTC's phone number screening is progressively more draconian because we're above the level of a teenage prankster. We are dedicated to returning the unwanted telecom traffic that scammers and wonton flagrant abusers of the telecom system are inflicting on victims.

This is a community of people who have mentally snapped after receiving enough of these calls on their personal phones (at least for those of us living in the countries that scammers and TCPA-violators target). This covers not just scammers but also real companies like GoHealth which are flagrantly violating the law, ignoring the FCC/OfCom's rules, and are facing multiple federal lawsuits for abusive automated robocalling.

We are not here to go after every kind of scam, we are (mostly) only targeting people and groups who are abusing the telecom system and/or committing outright fraud that heavily relies on coercion of vulnerable people like the indigent and the elderly on the telecom network. So that ranges from the Refund scammer who relies on illegal robodialing to the popup scammer who doesn't, to the healthcare enrollment scammer who is perfectly aware of what the TCPA is and the Truth in Caller ID act is, but does not care and interrupts millions of peoples lives for illegal telesales anyway.

It's really that simple to understand. We're not here to call a McDonald's out of existence because a batch of fries was too salty. We're not here to prank randos. The phone numbers that we accumulate and prune were deposited on BobRTC because they're doing one of two things: outright committing fraud, or they're robocalling the fuck out of people and do not have any legal grounds to do so.

By us sticking to this principle in how we run our service, I am confident that there is no civil or criminal jury that would ever be unsympathetic to our cause. The global nightmare of abusive automated dialing is so severe that no lawyer representing a scammer could ever persuade a box of 12 that his client is the more nobler one.

Certainly not when every member of that jury plus the judge has had their cell phone ringing with spoofed numbers incessantly on end and nearly 100% of them indirectly know of a relative or friend who's fallen susceptible to a telephone scam.

Even though we're sitting on a perch of higher moral authority, I'm sad to say that at some point we'll have to be expanding BobRTC to play the same SEO games that scammers do and built up digital advertising money so that we have a larger legal reserve pool. That will no-doubt lead to more rumor and innuendo that the people on this project are "profiting" off of scambait calls. I don't know what to say to that, other than to demand those accusing us of it offer proof of it. We will at least make sure that whatever ad-whoring that we need to do in order to raise reserve cash does not get in the way of using BobRTC to make calls. Can't make everyone happy, but hopefully we can still make the majority of everyone pleased.

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@kenzo#123403 Thank you for clarifying. Appreciate.

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Regardless of where the money goes I am proud to have subscribed to BobRTC via SubscribeStar - buy yourselves a beer for all I care.

I personally don't care to worry about the who's, why's and when's of which community founders and members wish to have their ego's rubbed for the deeds they may or may not do and furthermore the underlying politics of why any individual does this thing we do.

What I do know is that I for one truly hope Scammer.info, TLS Discord and most certainly BobRTC are here for a long long time to come because the entertainment value it has given me has been priceless.

Truth be told, there are times when i may feel slightly in the doldrums about that which we call life but all I need to do is make a call or two to take the piss out of some numpty scammer and the spirit soars once more.

Wish you didn't need to post all these explanations for any whiners - I'm sure the time taken in composing these statements could be much better spent.

Keep up the good work!