Went from zero camera tracking to 37 spam calls a day in 2 weeks

I bought a cheap wifi security cam off Amazon for my front porch. Hooked it up to my home network and thought nothing of it. Within a week my phone started blowing up with spam calls about extended car warranties and solar panels. By week two it was 37 calls a day, all from numbers I didn't recognize. I unplugged that camera and the calls dropped back to maybe 3 a week. Has anyone else seen something like this happen after adding a new smart device to their house?

3 comments

3 Comments

mark_ward15d ago

...and that's not even the worst part. My buddy got one of those smart thermostats. Started getting texts about furnace repairs. Then the calls about home warranties. Then someone actually showed up at his door pretending to inspect his HVAC. Said the camera company sold his data to a marketing firm that specializes in targeting people with new smart devices. That's how they got your number. They know you just bought something that connects to your network. It's a whole system now. Call blockers don't even work half the time because they rotate numbers every few days.

wade25015d ago

That whole system is just nasty man. So your buddy never even gave them permission to sell that data? It was buried in the fine print or just automatically assumed? Did he ever try to get the camera company to explain how that info got shared?

drew_hart415d ago

oh totally, my neighbor had the same thing happen but with a smart fridge. he started getting calls about "fresh food delivery services" and "smart kitchen upgrades" like every hour. within a month he was getting texts from people claiming they knew what brand of milk he bought. he finally just unplugged the whole thing and went back to a dumb fridge.