The biggest problem I have with nuisance callers is the number of robo-calls from my Medicare supplement carrier. I ignore those, but I have to clear the voice mail box periodically because they don't just call, they leave a robo-message.
I don’t give this much thought, because when I do think about it, it makes me hope for a total system crash.
The vast majority of telephone calls we receive (upwards of 90%) are spam.
The vast majority of mail we receive is unsolicited crap that goes directly into the garbage.
If you’ve ever managed an email system, you know the vast majority of messages are just spam. Last time I did, I think 95% of the incoming mail was rejected before the users ever got a chance to see it.
A good portion of the Internet is just distractions/misinformation/fluff made to induce clicks to show you advertising that you ignore.
Basically all of our communications infrastructure is a gigantic waste of time and resources, and it’s trending towards nothing but automated systems talking to other automated systems with nary an actual human involved in any of it, and little to any benefit to humans.
My caller id has started showing some as “potential spam”. If that can be done, they can be blocked. About half of them yesterday sounded foreign.
Stop answering the phone. It’s like feeding cats.
we go thru and block the #’s, it works for awhile.
Also i do p/u sometimes to blow a whistle or scream into the phone.
I block all calls not in my contact list. It does take them to voicemail so if it is important they can leave a message. I find that spam calls rarely leave a message. By looking at my call history after doing this for about a year that now I only get a couple spam calls a day when before it was 40 or 50.
I understand that if you pick up the phone that you are put in a database as a number that answers and this will increase the number of calls you get.
Did you mean $70? $700 sounds outrageously high. Did a telemarketer talk you into that, or it comes with a free BMW?
Ummm that would require all landlines to be upgraded, so they can send cookies. And the cellphones would need an upgrade though that’s much easier. And honestly it still wouldn’t work. Once you’re running a call center you have computers attached to your phone lines, calls come into the computer, the computer could do whatever, so long as they’re “reporting” a number they rent, they’ll verify.
Meanwhile the federal Do Not Call list actually does work pretty well. I get maybe 3 or 4 sales calls a week. Doesn’t stop the outright scammers, cause they don’t care about federal law, but the “legit” sleazebags do.
That must be a terrible inconvenience.
But first, I’d like to talk to you about your car’s warranty...
Why don’t you have “calls from contacts only” switched to on?
And you answer these crank calls too???
Of course you get lots of them, you’re asking for it.
I called our cell phone service provider and had them enable a scam call block. We haven’t had any scam calls since.
This has been a problem for at least 40 years, people started screening out sales calls with their answering machines.
Forty years means it is like junk mail, the business is good for everyone but you, and they don’t want to fix it.
My cell provider told me the way they get phone numbers is from people having entered their number for the purposes of purchasing something online. Lists of numbers get sold/passed around that way. If it’s optional, don’t enter a number. If not optional, enter a bogus number?
Somewhere I read or heard that if you press asterisk or pound three times (can’t recall which) during that pause before the caller starts to speak, it crashes their system and they have to reboot their whole system. Sweet revenge of a sort, if true.
Also, there is this https://www.technipages.com/get-removed-from-auto-dialer-lists
Was having this problem on my iPhone. (Apple haters go ahead and hate.)
I found I could program it so it would ring only if the incoming number was in my contacts list e.g. address book. With unknown numbers, no ring and sent straight to voicemail. Most spammers don’t leave a voicemail but a few do. But regardless, I don’t go running to the phone only to find it’s a spam call.
If a “real” call came in from an unknown number they can leave a voicemail which I check when I feel like it. Finding a “real” voicemail, I add the number to my contacts to enable them to ring for future calls. Then I call them back - at my convenience.
Other phones, don’t know, YMMV. But this “one simple trick” saved me from wanting to take a hammer to my phone.
You have landline phones with ringers turned on? whahahahaha
“…But apparently the phone companies don’t care what their account holders are being subjected to..”
Of course not!
It’s the same reason that the Post Office fills your mailbox with so much junk mail every day.
-It’s their #1 source of revenue; and THAT’S all that matters.
We joined the nomorobo program which filters out a lot of scammers, but some still get through. Our cable company has a feature that ,etc us see who is calling, and if we don’t recognize the name or number, we don’t answer it. If it is someone legit, they will leave a message o. The recoder.
If someone truly needs to speak with us, they will leave a message- otherwise we just figure it wasn’t all that important if they didn’t, leave a message
Those two,things have cut down on robo calls pretty dramatically. lout the only time we get tricked now is when we are expecting a call from say a hospital or health center or whatever, znd a scammer with similar area code calls.
The Indian spam I loved were the ones telling me my car warranty expired. Then after expressing my horror, I’d get to tell them my cars are a 67 Camaro, a 57 Bel Air and a 49 Chevy pickup. And that I was eager to renew my warranties.
They called over and over.
My phone number (‘you’ it says) has won the publishers clearing house 2.5 million dollar prize.
They left a call back number and everything.
Last year, I “cleverly” hired a very well known film & TV character actor to do a custom voice intro for me and my company. It’s funny and memorable, but it backfired because telemarketers call twice in a row just to hear it again or play it for their friends.