First off, cental, thanks for your posts on AllDeaf. I want to bring some information to light in what you have posted:
1) It is not the company's fault. Time and time again, the FCC has ordered them NOT to block based on call content. I, as a deaf person who has served on a relay advisory board, can completely understand why the companies should NOT be allowed to monitor our calls and decide when "it's a fraud call." I have been given examples by my state's relay manager that could be decided as fraud calls but ultimately were real calls by real people doing real business.
Suppose a call starts off like this:
Relay caller: i want ordr 100 lights form u, hav cc, how mny u hav in stokc q gaga
Should the relay operator decide it's a fraud call then? Or should he wait until he sees "Nigeria" somewhere? Or wait until the credit card comes through and do a credit check and see if it's been reported stolen?
Relay Operators are not and should NEVER be in a position to decide. That was the agreement of the meeting.
2) Now, if companies could reliably block IP addresses or locations, THEY SHOULD.
But, they CAN'T do this reliably. Why? I was told that the internet makes this virtually impossible. Big ISPs like AOL have the same IP addresses pop up again and again and if they block those addresses, ALL AOL people cannot make relay calls. Is that okay?
I was told that the FCC has determined they will pay for:
SOME fraud calls while still having ALL real relay users go through, rather than
Block ALL fraud calls AND block SOME real relay users from accessing relay.
PowerWCRulez: Are you an expert on computer networking? I used to do that for a living. There is no such thing as an "IP Detector" that works in the real world.
Not all IPs have a country designator.
Not all IPs are unique. Some are shared, i.e., AOL has a limited number for all their subscribers. Same with NetZero, Earthlink, etc. ALL ISPs in the world have this limitation.
The same AOL IP address can be used from Nigeria or from the U.S. I could be a Nigerian who stole an AOL account and use that to call relay to do fraud. Block that IP? You block all AOL subscribers from calling relay.
