[Secret Agent Man]

Change your number.

[Irish Eyes]

When you get an answer let me know.

[Blennos]

I don’t answer the phone unless I know who is calling.

[coaster123]

Set ring tones for people you want to hear from. Set ring silence for any other number.

My phone makes noise only when my wife calls. Other calls go unnoticed.

[SubVet72]

I’m getting the same type of calls as well. I just let the answering machine pick up. If its important they’ll leave a message.

[DannyTN]

Give them Schiff’s phone number and ask for them to call you back on it.

It won’t probably won’t reduce the number of calls you get, but it will make them more fun.

[Secret Agent Man]

Start trying to sell them something and ask for credit card numbers and socials and stuff like that. Don’t let up.

Or just pick up the phone and start laughing, and don’t stop. Or get a long tape of audience canned laughter and just let it play.

[glock rocks]

There’s a setting in iPhones to only let calls through that are in your contact list. That’s how I deal with it.

[PeteePie]

Download YouMail app. It’s free and the best scam-call-blocker out there. The app draws from a database of 750k known scam/robocall numbers and growing. Often my phone doesn’t even ring, YouMail just blocks them and sends them to oblivion, as far as having repeat calls.

[utax]

Waste as much of THEIR time as you can. Have some fun. String them along until they want a credit card number then put the phone down and walk away. I haven’t been getting many of those type calls lately.

[faithhopecharity]

make sure your number is on the national DO Not Call list.
and then
block each incoming number of offensive calls
and then
do not answer any more calls from numbers you don’t recognize

best i can do now, tho we have a friend who enjoys answering and giving the solicitors all kinds of crazy responses. personally, they are probably just people trying to earn $9 an hour to scrape by, so I don’t mess with them. I just ignore incoming calls from unrecognized numbers and don’t let it bother me or consume any of my time.

[alloysteel]

My response to these boiler room calls is to throw a fake tantrum, or feign Alzheimer’s, or express horror and despair that oh no, my life is OVER! Whatever shall I do! Why me, oh Lord, what did I do to deserve this fate! Please mister, please get me help!

Stay on the line as long as they don’t hang up and keep going off deeper and deeper.

The boiler room folks will put a “Do NOT Call” restriction on from their end.

[matthew fuller]

Short of changing your number, try this-
Answer no calls that omit their name. If all you see is a number plus a state’s name, or USA, they are probably not legit. I am reasonably certain that if the caller is a legitimate business or govt agency, their name should show up. If it doesn’t, they are likely blocking it.

[DouglasKC]

Quit answering the phone. They know if you answer whether or not you say anything that it’s a working number.

[Grampa Dave]

With my old comcast system, I could ‘call forward” numbers.

So when the same bad actor called twice, I set up my system to forward that number to the county AG phone scam, phone #.

So they would hear, “***** county phone fraud department, may I help you?

[I want the USA back]

There is no way. Changing your number will not help. They send a fraudulent number to be displayed in caller-id. Caller-id and the “do not call” list are now 100% useless. I got 2 calls that pretended to be from me, and several others that appeared to be legitimate businesses.

We can make it illegal to transmit a caller-id number that is not the number you are calling from, except with business with multiple lines, doctors calling from private numbers, and other instances where it makes sense to do so. And it would be impossible to police, plus the legislation would not be able to stop calls from outside of the USA.

Let’s try public execution for a year or so, and see if that cuts down on the calls.

[trisham]

I don’t answer the phone unless I know the name or number of the caller. We have caller ID.

[HangnJudge]

You answered a call, they know it is a good number...
Do not answer numbers you do not recognize
Kill you land line, and go all cell

[scrabblehack]

Are they actually trying to sell you prescription drugs without a prescription?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

You can't. Use Nomorobo AND try this...on your outgoing message record this sound Disconnected Phone Message - Stop Telemarketers! The first 12 seconds is enough. Just make sure you tell your friends and family about it and to tell them to hold the line for 12 seconds before leaving a message.

It has worked wonders for me. Robo calls by computers will hang up and live operators will too.