Robocall Madness

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I turned off my phone ringer and now my calls silently go to voicemail. If anyone important wants to speak with me, they will leave a message. The rare times I answer the phone because I am waiting for an important call... but it turns out to be a robo call... after I say hello there is total silence so I hang up.
 
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If you want to sidestep any problems when some business asks for your phone number, and you're sure you don't want them to call you, then just give them your number with the last digit changed. They won't question it.
 
Lakedog said:
Usually have a few calls a week but with a different twist the last two days -- my own cell number shows as the caller. I never answer calls from unknown numbers (or my own number lately) but sometimes add them to my block call list.
Click to expand...



So what happens if you block your own number?
 
REWahoo said:
You stop getting calls from yourself. Really.
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I was at a football match last week with some friends, and one them received a call. He fished out his phone and the incoming call showed up as "Fred", which is his name. "I don't know anyone called Fred", he says. I told him that he must have it in his contacts otherwise it wouldn't show up as "Fred". He answered it and it was his wife saying, "Have you got my phone? I've been looking for about an hour but I could only see your phone."
 
GalaxyBoy said:
An unexpected benefit of my Apple Watch is that I can quickly tap the red button on my wrist when the phone rings with an unknown number and I don't have to get up and find the phone, or listen to it ring until it goes to VM.

I also set my phone to announce callers so if I'm in the next room I'll hear SIRI say "unknown caller," or "Wife." That way I immediately know if I can ignore it. (You all can decide which one of those is which.)
Click to expand...

The guy in the next plot over from us in the community garden has his ringtone set to a viciously barking dog when his wife calls. I'm guessing she doesn't know.
 
Gumby said:
The guy in the next plot over from us in the community garden has his ringtone set to a viciously barking dog when his wife calls. I'm guessing she doesn't know.
Click to expand...

Mine is set to Darth Vader breathing for my wife.
 
When at home and get a persistent telemarketer , I put them on hold with the most annoying music I have found
.

The robocalls will still call in the future , but it sure gets the one at hand off the line in less than 30 seconds.
 
Lakewood90712 said:
When at home and get a persistent telemarketer , I put them on hold with the most annoying music I have found
.



The robocalls will still call in the future , but it sure gets the one at hand off the line in less than 30 seconds.
Click to expand...


Haven’t had a landline in years, but I used to just drop the phone on the sofa, and go about my business. Eventually they’d figure out that no one was there. One other method involved a string of f-bombs... [emoji41]

My dad, when solicited for money, would start in with his “down on my luck, could you spare a dime” story. Worked like a charm!
 
incoming_calls.png



https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/incoming_calls.png


https://xkcd.com/2053/
 
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Walt34, I did that and was able to read the interesting WSJ article. Thank you.


CDRE, funny cartoon, thanks for posting. I can't say my own graph would match that, but it would be pretty darn close!
 
Recently we had a call (robocall?) that was from a live person. I had time on my hands so I listened to his opening gambit and then asked "Chuck" if he was familiar with the federal Do Not Call (DNC) list. Chuck was unfamiliar with it. I asked if he was familiar with the Texas DNC list. Chuck was unfamiliar with it also.

Since I signed up for both Fed and Texas DNC lists, I commenced to tell Chuck all about the law and how he was violating both FED and Texas laws and could be fined and jailed for violation of both. (Sure I made most of it up) I kept Chuck on the line about 10 minutes as I sipped my martini and DW chuckled in the background. DW said listening to me provided her with wonderful cocktail hour entertainment. I like to make DW happy.

No doubt Chuck, or one of his call center buddies will call back again and try to sell me on that security system.
 
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There is a solution to robocalls but everyone has to help and you have to go against conventional advice. SPREAD THE WORD.

Here's how:
1) You answer the call realizing that it is phone spam
2) punch through as per their instructions (usually 1. Sometimes requires two different numbers)
3) Set the phone down and wait for the MaBell alert before hanging up. Don't talk to them. You can play music if you like.

Here is why this works. At the caller end, they are making hundreds or thousands of calls. They never deal with the calls that hang up without punching through. As such, there is no cost to the caller but the above technique adds costs to them. Conventional advice it to hang up but that enables their system to work!

If EVERYONE punched through (and set the phone down) their inbound queue would have hundreds or thousands of waiting calls (with nobody on the other end). In order for them to work through the queue and get to the money producing calls , they have to cycle through all the calls in the queue. And that takes more time and more people and more expense and now you've made it less attractive for them to RoboCall.

If we are really lucky, it might even crash their dialer software :)
 
Scambaiting

There are people who have turned "scambaiting" into an art form. They contact the scammers and eat up hours of their time. Entire channels on the Youtubes are devoted to this. "Kitboga" in the persona of "Granny Edna" is my favourite. I'll have these videos playing as background rather than the radio. It is sad in a way how I know the scammers script for the IRS Scam better than the faltering English of most of the scammers!
"Granny Edna in action!
 
I've long since stopped answer calls from anyone who is not in my address book.

We've also left our landline on permanent mute.
 
The landline solution is a Sentry whitelist box.
Blacklist solutions are a waste of time.

I freely give out my landline number and never give my cellphone number.


When my home phone rings, it's just like the old days...we drop everything and grab the phone... it's usually the library saying a book is ready or an appointmentr reminder, and often just someone who wants to chat, but never a spam call.
 
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Dayum, I got 7 robocalls on my land line today, since 9:30 this morning it's just after 5 PM now). The first 5 all had similar phone numbers from Bayonne, NJ (not where I live), and were those Health Care Hotline scammers. The last 2 I didn't answer because I was trying to take my afternoon nap. I later saw they were from other numbers far away. None got blocked by Nomorobo, sadly, greatly lowering their already shaky success rate.
 
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