theyre even doing it through sms more
Don’t participate in contests where you get a code, and you have to go to a site to verify that code and give your data. They’ll sell that phone number immediately to telemarketers.
Don’t sign up for things that need a phone number
Job application
Burner number
Then you have to always have your burner active in case a recruiters gets to call it, so you can never truly put it aside until you get a job
If I was magically in charge, I would make it so if you got an unwanted text or call you report it and the phone company has to pay you like $10.
They don’t deal with this problem because they only care about profit.
This is technically how it already works except for the government gets the $10 instead of us
There’s no enforcement on this though.
jtrek for prez
Or at least FCC chairman.
If I was in charge, all phones would be required to have a built-in taser. The recipient of a call should have a button they can press to tase the caller. This taser must be strong enough to seriously injure a human, like, burn ward you never hear out of that ear again strong enough, or strong enough to set any computer that phone is attached to on fire. Capital offense to remove or disable the taser from a phone.
That would solve the problem I think.
How are people getting so many spam calls? I’ve gotten maybe 2 in the last 5 years. Not that I want spam calls but people consistently reporting getting several a week, or even day, makes me concerned I’ve done something wrong. Like some government system I’m supposed to be signed up to but I’ve somehow missed
I got a lot of spam calls when I started signing up for “rewards programs” and eventually stopped signing up for them. I get 1-2 a week now.
If you start at a new job and get a phone number that happens to have been owned by someone that signed up to a lot of stuff then you will get them… I sometimes also get random phonecall from old ppl that goes “oh shit wrong person” or text messages wishing me a happy birthday, I feel bad for those ppl. In the beginning did I answer them but it was annoying after x amount.
Apparently did I get a old mans phone number who was very loved but very bad at communicating that he changed his phone number and also signed up for many things. So I only answer if it is with in my work hours otherwise do I just ignore the phone call completely.
I get them because I was jobless for six months. Now that a lot of job sites sell your data and some jobs are straight up fake to collect data, it is so hard to stay off a list.
I was talking about this with my partner. The meta now is to use a dedicated email and phone number when applying for jobs.
I don’t know how or why, but it’s 5-6 a day some days. Most get autofiltered so it doesn’t even ring but they still get to leave voicemails for some dumb reason. So I end up with an inbox full of clearly AI voice generated messages. Many of them are the exact same handful of recordings. It’s honestly frustrating as hell.
I can’t use voicemail anymore. My message says “You can leave a message if you want, but I’ll never listen to it. If you want to reach me, send a text at this number, or email me at XXX.” That gets rid of most of the bullshit, and I only have to deal with people who were motivated to go the extra step to reach me.
You and I do not sign up to shit that requires our phone numbers. Presumably because we do not enjoy getting fucking owned.
Some mobile networks have spam protection that’s enabled automatically.
You could also have a “clean” number, especially if you don’t use your phone number anywhere online, haven’t answered a spam call before, and nobody used it before you (or the previous user was a long time ago).
Spam callers can’t robodial literally every number, so they rely on lists of phone numbers that are known to be good/active, for example if they’ve answered a spam call before, if the number has been in a data leak, etc.
Call screening features are great. iPhones recently added a call screener that pre-answers the call to ask who is calling. I know at least Pixels have had it for a while.
Funny thing about that though is that it asks the caller to say their name but many of the spam caller just say my name, so now my iPhone says maybe: my name as the caller.
To me, that’s a flag that the caller isn’t worth my time. More often than not if they refuse to identify themselves, they’re not actually legit, so the mechanism still works.
Oh absolutely, it’s just funny seeing your own name pop up as the “caller”
Yeah sorry my reply came across like I was dismissing your comment. I agree with you completely lol
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.
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.
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.
- The dumbass answer the phone “Hello, this is Jim?”
This is the way.
From what I understand there seem to be some sort of lists that mention activity of any given number based on whether you answered a call so I literally never answer if I don’t know the number and now I rarely get a spam call. Like maybe 4-5 times in a year. My number is probably flagged as inactive or something on these lists.
Unfortunately, some of us have to. I need my (and my bosses) phone number on danger / caution tape so people can ask me why its there & if can they ignore it.
Ah, that explains those roving gangs of overseas scammers and their cross-country caution tape tourism excursions
Anecdotal, but several people I know who used to get loads of spam calls noticed a very significant and lasting decline in frequency after signing up for https://www.easyoptouts.com/. Seems like a good thing to do anyway, might be worth trying if you struggle with this.
