This was some fantastic investigating by Alex in this episode. Reply-All has done some really great journalism and reporting, including their episode on the fake tech support phone scam[0] and a more recent episode on the effect of the Backpage laws on sex work in general[1].<p>Tangential but related: I've been getting spam phone calls from local-to-my-number area codes (760, 619, and 858) at a rate of about 2-3 a day for more than a year now. It's funny because I don't live in San Diego anymore, so they're not actually local calls for me. VZW seems unwilling or unable to stop it. Robokiller, which promises incredible results catches 1-2 calls a week, but because the spammers are using SIP spoofing they never actually call from the same number, making it hard to compile a consistent and relevant blacklist.<p>Frankly, if I didn't have a chronic medical condition, and the specialist I see for it didn't require that I be able to receive phone calls to deal with scheduling, I would have insisted all of my regular contacts switch to FaceTime Audio, Signal, Telegram, etc and just disabled incoming telephone calls to my phone entirely.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance" rel="nofollow">https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/long-distance</a>
[1] <a href="https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/119-no-more-safe-harbor" rel="nofollow">https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/119-no-more-safe-harbo...</a>