I’ve been pretty successful at reducing spam calls by simply reporting the calls to the USA’s donotcall registry LINK HERE and also pretending to be a robot trying to take up as much of the scammer’s time as possible.
Of course the BEST defence is to have a company find and remove your number from online as much as possible, but that’s trickier for businesses.
since STIR/SHAKEN rolled out, the scam and robocalls here have really dropped off. only a few per week now… even to the phone numbers that are published (intentionally) online.
of the ones that get through, nearly all of them are coming through new voip points-of-presence popping-up in small towns all over our very rural part of the country.
I’ll answer almost every call I can, but not say anything. I’ve learned that they wait for an answer before starting their shpeel, so if I answer and remain quiet, they hang up thinking I’m another bot. Then I block the number to be safe.
Okay. 1. My father goes by his middle name. Let’s pretend his name is Christopher James Smith. He introduces himself as Jim. For my entire life, it’s been easy to screen calls for him because “Hello, may I speak to…Christopher Smith please?” That’s spam. “Hey is Jim there?” That’s someone who knows him.
The dumbass answer the phone “Hello, this is Jim?”
i do that too. if it’s from a number i’m gonna answer (but don’t recognize), i do. and then watch the call timer on the phone and don’t say anything until after three seconds. legit callers are always still there, the computers–never are.
if a call rings through that the phone company has tagged in caller id as probably bogus. i just answer and hang-up right away. they don’t call back.
I’ve been pretty successful at reducing spam calls by simply reporting the calls to the USA’s donotcall registry LINK HERE and also pretending to be a robot trying to take up as much of the scammer’s time as possible.
Of course the BEST defence is to have a company find and remove your number from online as much as possible, but that’s trickier for businesses.
since STIR/SHAKEN rolled out, the scam and robocalls here have really dropped off. only a few per week now… even to the phone numbers that are published (intentionally) online.
of the ones that get through, nearly all of them are coming through new voip points-of-presence popping-up in small towns all over our very rural part of the country.
I’m still getting about 5-10 per day. They’re all spoofed numbers with different area codes and the same or similar AI recorded voice lines.
I’ll answer almost every call I can, but not say anything. I’ve learned that they wait for an answer before starting their shpeel, so if I answer and remain quiet, they hang up thinking I’m another bot. Then I block the number to be safe.
You gotta at least start with your most white-person “hello” possible. If its a human they might just assume silence means the call was dropped.
Ugh, my dumbass boomer father.
Okay. 1. My father goes by his middle name. Let’s pretend his name is Christopher James Smith. He introduces himself as Jim. For my entire life, it’s been easy to screen calls for him because “Hello, may I speak to…Christopher Smith please?” That’s spam. “Hey is Jim there?” That’s someone who knows him.
i do that too. if it’s from a number i’m gonna answer (but don’t recognize), i do. and then watch the call timer on the phone and don’t say anything until after three seconds. legit callers are always still there, the computers–never are.
if a call rings through that the phone company has tagged in caller id as probably bogus. i just answer and hang-up right away. they don’t call back.