Robocalls, WTF!

[flogger]

These types of calls have gotten out of hand, I get 8 or more a day for various credit card or insurance scams.

Not sure about the rest of you, but if I'm expecting a call from someone, the last thing I want is silence or some lowlife recording telling you about your credit card rating or some F-ing health care scam.

I have decided to lead these clowns on as long as possible and tie them up as long as I can. I have a job where I can take a few minuets off and give these scams fake numbers and dates, just to waste their precious time instead of scamming someone else. You can keep them on for minuets at a time!

Feedback?

[Irving]

I never answer phone calls from a number with the same prefix as mine. But that's about all I've done to prevent.
I have a job where I'm constantly having to call people I've never talked to before, so you can imagine that I leave a lot of voice mails and send a lot of emails. I'm always grateful when people actually answer though.

[def90]

I own my own business and at least once a day I get a call alerting me that my Google listing is incomplete or out of date. I also get calls telling me I qualify for a better credit rate on my existing cards.

[bradbn4]

Home/land line about 100 to 1 on crap calls to real...
Cell phone rate was worse, but the total # of calls was less.

I said *(&&(&@ and turned off the cell and the home phone for the last 4 months...got a new cell and gave that new phone number out to 3 people. So far the Spammers have not ID that # yet.

[Irving]

I own my own business and at least once a day I get a call alerting me that my Google listing is incomplete or out of date. I also get calls telling me I qualify for a better credit rate on my existing cards.

I have had that call a bunch of times. I stayed on the line once thinking it was Google. I went through the whole process and they wanted like $300 for the service. For a real business, that'd probably be worth it, but it is not for what I do. I keep getting that call still.

[Ramsker]

I never answer phone calls from a number with the same prefix as mine. But that's about all I've done to prevent.
I have a job where I'm constantly having to call people I've never talked to before, so you can imagine that I leave a lot of voice mails and send a lot of emails. I'm always grateful when people actually answer though.

This is my strategy . . . if it's the same prefix or some weird location as the source I just let it ring. No call from the same prefix has ever NOT been a scam or robocall. If it's important, they'll leave a message.

[Zundfolge]

I keep getting this guy's videos in my recommended feed (along with a couple of other similar channels).

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0u...wy5H6mw/videos

Its fun to watch him screw over the scammers.

[iego]

I have a device like this on my landline. It's one of only a few devices that will answer the phone, BEFORE it rings, challenge the caller to make sure it isn't a telemarketer, and then only once they press "0" to continue, will it ring your home phone. Best money I have ever spent. Zero Telemarketing calls get through and I have had my same landline phone number for 40 years. Disclaimer, I have a different unit than the one I have linked, but the unit I have is no longer available.

They are apparently sold out off their 3.1 version, but the 2.2 version is available on Amazon today for a very reasonable price for the peace and quiet it affords...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U1PPWDO..._t2_B019ERMS90

One caveat, you can only have one handset connected to the landline with this type of device. Other handsets would ring... which is what we DON'T want to happen. Or if you have wireless phones, you would connect the base unit to this device, etc.

-John

[Irving]

My neighbor has this thing where you have to press 1 to get through. What's to stop a telemarketer though? Any time I call a number and it immediately goes into a robot recording, I don't even bother to listen before I press 1 to get through.

[iego]

With telemarketing calls, robocalls, there is no person on the other end to know that they need to press 1, or 0. The robocall just knows that the phone has been picked up and it starts its recorded spiel. It has no idea that nobody is actually listening. And we don't care, because the phone didn't ring and we have no idea that the robocall is blathering away (many times a day.)

-John