Stopping Robo-Calls

[dceworks]

Admins feel free to move this thread as I didn't really know where it fit.
We have been seeing a massive increase in Robo-Calls coming through to our system in the last few months. Our operators are having trouble keeping up. In the past I would block these numbers in the PBX but I am afraid that we will start blocking legitimate numbers that customers could call in later from and we will not receive their calls. We are using FlowRoute for our trunk but I was wondering if anyone has any clever solutions to prevent these calls from breaking through without blocking future legitimate calls. I would assume using an auto receptionist would reduce the number of calls making it through to our operators but our ownership wants a human to answer during business hours. Any ideas are greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[SweetAction]

We built a CFD for a client that would look through a database for number decisions.
Inbound rule to the CFD
CFD checks DB
-Allowed
--Forward to real destination
-Allowed Learned
--Forward to real destination
-Unknown
--Forward to a DR (we have 9 setup and it picks a random one). The DR asks you to pick a specific number to proceed (all other numbers end the call).
---If the number picked is correct, add to the Allowed Learned DB table.
---If the number picked is incorrect, disconnect call with "sorry this call didn't pass anti-spam measures" message.
-Blocked
--Disconnect Call with out of service message

We sync phone numbers from the clients CRM to the Allowed Table.

Anytime a previously known number (via CRM or manually added) calls in they get to a real person. If it's a known spammer, they hopefully think the number is out of service. And if it's a new number to us, we sorta challenge it and if they pass, they never get asked again. But if they fail they can keep calling back and trying again.

It's far from perfect but it's the least intrusive way we could think of to do this - it only bothers verified spam numbers and 1 time for unknown numbers.

 

[dceworks]

We built a CFD for a client that would look through a database for number decisions.
Inbound rule to the CFD
CFD checks DB
-Allowed
--Forward to real destination
-Allowed Learned
--Forward to real destination
-Unknown
--Forward to a DR (we have 9 setup and it picks a random one). The DR asks you to pick a specific number to proceed (all other numbers end the call).
---If the number picked is correct, add to the Allowed Learned DB table.
---If the number picked is incorrect, disconnect call with "sorry this call didn't pass anti-spam measures" message.
-Blocked
--Disconnect Call with out of service message

We sync phone numbers from the clients CRM to the Allowed Table.

Anytime a previously known number (via CRM or manually added) calls in they get to a real person. If it's a known spammer, they hopefully think the number is out of service. And if it's a new number to us, we sorta challenge it and if they pass, they never get asked again. But if they fail they can keep calling back and trying again.

It's far from perfect but it's the least intrusive way we could think of to do this - it only bothers verified spam numbers and 1 time for unknown numbers.

Thanks for this info SweetAction. This sounds like a viable solution and I will have to think through it and pass it up the flagpole but gives us somewhere to start. Really appreciate your response.