We used to get about $1k/month worth of those charges because people would spend literally hours in the IVR. Dozens at a time. We straightened that out and then all of the junk calls went away.
-- Mike Hammett ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Hohhof" <[email protected]> To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, August 29, 2025 11:35:55 AM Subject: [AFMUG] traffic pumping schemes I seem to remember news from states including Utah awhile back where small local LECs were striking revenue sharing agreements with operators of sex chat lines and the like to pump traffic that the LEC would charge a big long distance company for completing. The more traffic they pumped to these numbers, the more they profited. I don’t remember the details, and I think whether it was illegal or contrary to FCC rules was in dispute. So I have a VoIP customer who started getting ridiculous bills for their toll free number. (We provide their local service but a third party Lingo redirects their 800 number.) The customer thinks it was connected to a rise in off hours max length voicemails, although I question if the math works out to the huge amounts they were being billed by Lingo. We reduced the max voicemail length from 15 minutes to 5, and they think whoever was leaving the long messages gave up. Does this make any sense? Why would they target a toll free number specifically? And I thought they made money for terminating the call, not originating it. And would they actually notice that VMs are now being cut off earlier and stop calling? This customer also had 2 or 3 toll free number on their bill that are not theirs. For example 800-557-4273. I called this number and it’s a recorded message with a scam for a $100 gift card or something like that in return for a $1.99 credit card purchase, that’s apparently a known scam going back many years. These TF calls are NOT going to this customer’s local DID. Could that be a traffic pumping scheme, could the mystery TF number be redirecting to local DIDs with the calls terminated by a small rural LEC? I could be barking up the wrong tree and this has nothing to do with traffic pumping, maybe Lingo is just overcharging them. But nobody seems to be able to explain why they started getting these max length overnight VMs of just background noise. I did tell them that a TF number, especially since that’s what they have on their website and Facebook page, is like a blank check, you will pay by the minute for anyone who wants to call your number. -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
