Community Chat

[corita]

       I have a very common last name for this area. I
used to get many wrong number/bad debt plus spam calls a day.  But I just started using a phone with 'call block' and I am loving it!  Wish I had bought one years ago.

      I don't pick up the phone for any number I do not know. My phone answer is - "leave a message. if you don't, I will assume you don't want to talk to anyone and your number will be blocked".  No message, I immediately block.  Rarely get a message from any spam caller and even then, I block.

      I recognize phone numbers of friends/family/

doctors.  And of course, they do leave a message.

[this is my nic]

@Scorpio1971 

We had our landline number spoofed also.  Imagine my shock when our phone rang and the caller ID was my name and phone number!  I called our state A. G.'s Consumer Protection office.  They just said that our number was spoofed and there wasn't anything we could do other than getting a new number.  We kept our spoofed number. 

[kivah]

I get 4 to 6 SCAM calls a day because I'm home - and I can't repeat what I tell them!!!! One guy with a foreign accent told me that I'm NASTY!!!!!!!!!!!

[Desertdi]

I answered one from "Bank of America" because I have an account........and it was a telemarketer selling back and knee braces.................    

[NicksmomESQ]

   I’ve been getting that call for years along with a slew of others. I no longer answer my phone unless I recognize the caller on caller I D. I let all those calls on my landline & cell phone go to voicemail.Then I delete them all.

  Remember the good old days when your phone rang & you could actually answer it?

[Brisky]

I just hit block on my phone. This is my only answer. If I have and unknown caller my phone has ,in big letters, SCAM. ☺

[froggy]

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@Catty2 wrote:

I've had calls about my Microsoft license expiring withing 24 hours if I don't speak with a "tech person".  I just hang up as soon as the recording starts.  My caller ID died (needs new batteries) so I can't see who is calling before I pick up the phone.   

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Caller ID is useless for these calls. Almost all the scam calls we get use "spoofed" numbers with either a personal or business name showing up on the ID. They look like legit calls on the ID.

[Sylanne]

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@kivah wrote:

I get 4 to 6 SCAM calls a day because I'm home - and I can't repeat what I tell them!!!! One guy with a foreign accent told me that I'm NASTY!!!!!!!!!!!

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I blow a police whistle in their ear.  Hope they go deaf.

[Spurt]

@hckynut  @Nightowlz 

As tempting as it is to pick up the phone and talk to the scammers and "yank on their chain" and give them a taste of their own medicine .....picking up the phone and talking to them, or pressing a number to supposedly "opt out" just tells the scammers your number is a live number and then it gets passed on to other scammers....so you get more scam calls.

[Spurt]

Tips from a consumer site: Curiosity Cons

Knowing that you are likely to ignore unrecognized or private numbers on caller ID, today’s crooks use software that allows them to display fake numbers that are hard to resist. Here are some variations.

• The neighbor ploy Your area code and prefix are displayed, so the call appears to be from a neighbor or nearby business. “Fewer people are comfortable blocking local numbers, increasing scammers’ success rates,” notes Jonathan Nelson of Hiya. And the fake number makes it hard for law enforcement to track.
• The “Hey, there’s a call from my own phone number” scam It’s hard to resist answering a call from your own number, which scammers can simulate. And they are able to get around any call blocking that you’ve set up.
• The one-ring rip-off Criminals sometimes program auto-dialers to make repeated calls to you, each disconnecting after just one ring. They know this might spur you into calling back the displayed number to complain. There’s double trouble if you call area codes such as 268, 664 and 876. These are for Caribbean countries and other places that have high per-minute phone charges. One scam involves getting you to call one of those numbers, then getting you to hold through transfers that rack up your bill until a scammer gets on the line and starts a fraudulent pitch. 

Autodialers also allow scammers to make hundreds of phone calls simultaneously. In addition to gaining personal and financial information, scammers are often looking for something

as simple as getting you to pick up the phone.

"In some cases, that alone can get you on additional lists or attract more phone calls. They'll see, OK (they) picked up, therefore we know that phone is a good number and we can add it to our list of live phone numbers," Hendrickson says. "Then they sell those lists to other scammers, believe it or not."

In other cases, automated calls will ask you to press a number to opt out or respond to a prompt. Hendrickson says to avoid doing that, which also indicates you are responsive.