Spam Phone Calls

[Gabriel]

Rather than the Silent feature on your phone use the Do Not Disturb setting. Can be programmed to allow family and work calls to ring through but not ring for the spammers while you are sleeping.

Here's the Apple version, I am sure other platforms have a similar feature.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204321

Interesting. Thank you.

my problem for about the last year has been the NRA. ive asked nicely and ive been mean. but they will not stop. it went from a call each day to 3-4 calls from different numbers every day. even on weekends.

I let my membership lapse for a long time for this reason. I rejoined with a Life of Duty membership and have not had the daily mail or phone call issues with it for some reason.

 

[littletommy]

I don't think I've ever had a call from the NRA, and have been a member for years. We got rid of our landline several years ago, and I never got a call from them on that, either. I have all my friends and family names programmed into my phone, so if it's a number that pops up, I know it's a BS call.

The owner of the company I work for was telling me a while back that it's amazing how many calls the company receives each day from scammers and unwanted sales pitches. He said he estimated that at least 3 hours a day are wasted by our office people answering unwanted calls.

 

[Gabriel]

The owner of the company I work for was telling me a while back that it's amazing how many calls the company receives each day from scammers and unwanted sales pitches. He said he estimated that at least 3 hours a day are wasted by our office people answering unwanted calls.

A good friend of mine owns a decent size business and says the same thing. He told me he gets calls all the time from people wanting to sell the business things like a large amount of light bulbs (or whatever) for outrageous prices. If you say anything other than "no" right away, they will bill the company.

 

[dudley0]

A good friend of mine owns a decent size business and says the same thing. He told me he gets calls all the time from people wanting to sell the business things like a large amount of light bulbs (or whatever) for outrageous prices. If you say anything other than "no" right away, they will bill the company.

I was walking around the back rooms of the plant I worked at and found cases of hand cleaner and degreaser. No clue where it came from and I was the purchasing agent. Finally tracked it down to a supervisor that happened to answer a cold call one cay and got scammed. They kept sending the stuff and he kept authorizing the charges.

New plant manager comes on board and starts asking me why I am buying all this crap at such inflated prices. I didn't want to pass the buck, but I had to.

Thousands of dollars spent on stuff that we didn't need or use. When the plant closed I did get some of it... but I don't have much need anymore for five gallon pails of degreaser.

The supervisor was a bit ashamed of the scam but didn't want to fess up so he kept authorizing the purchases.

Cold calls and scammers... gotta love 'em.

Now on my cell I get automated calls about my college debt... even though I do not have any.

 

[K_W]

I kept one of them but fake Microsoft tech support scammers on the phone for 10 minutes while sitting in the parking lot of Kroger with no computer in front of me.

 

[looney2ns]

The FCC and the some of the big tech players are supposedly working on a solution to this. My solution is, if your number isn't in my contact list, thus your name/company doesn't come up, I dont' answer it ever. I also use the block feature on my cell as described above.

 

[dudley0]

The FCC and the some of the big tech players are supposedly working on a solution to this. My solution is, if your number isn't in my contact list, thus your name/company doesn't come up, I dont' answer it ever. I also use the block feature on my cell as described above.

I would love to be able to do this, but I use my cell for biz calls and I get people from out of my area calling all the time for legit reasons.

Decided long ago that if my kids could only find a job as a cold call spammer like that I would open the house and pantry for them until new employment could be found.

 

[paintman]

I had no clue my phone had an auto reject list. this thread made my day!!!

 

[AngryRooster]

Most androids can do this. There are a couple of ways to do it.



Either block the caller by number.

Save the number and assign it a blank ring tone. Or you can save them to a 'spam group' and assign the entire group a blank ringtone. Add new calls to the group as needed. This works well for those that have to keep their phones open for work.

Don't save it and set you phone to reject all calls that aren't in your address book. You can usually bypass this last option and make the phone ring by calling back a second time within 3 minutes of the first call. It's like a fail safe for emergencies in case family has to get in touch with you from a different number.

 

[mom45]

Im getting more and more of them also.

If I'm not to busy I'll answer them.
Had one last week that wanted me to look at a website they made for my business. She started giving me the address and
I asked her to spell it. I them spelled it wrong and different 4-5 times. She finally asked if I was messing with her, I asked here why I would mess with someone wasting my time? She hung up.

Are you listed on Angie's list? They or a customer sold, traded, loaned, rented or what ever they want to call it, their list. My personal cell phone number was listed on there and my son started getting calls for the business. I had already told them to take it off but they never did. I called and made it very clear that number wasn't listed for my business anyplace but with them. They took the number off and my son stopped getting the calls.

I had this type of call when we had our business. I told them I was not interested, but I then received a colored piece of paper with a link to my new web site. It wasn't even in an envelope. Just a flyer with a blurb about my new website and that I had 30 days to cancel and a phone number. Of course, if you called the number, it was either busy or nobody answered so it was impossible to "cancel" the site that I had not approved. There was a large fee on my next phone bill. It took me about two hours of fighting with the phone company and finally being transferred to someone who played a recording of me authorizing the site....which was a dubbed recording of my answers to questions other than the ones asked on this recording that they provided to the phone company. It was ridiculous. Moral of the story...call your phone provided and tell them to BLOCK third party billing as it is much easier to block it than to try to deal with this crap.

I've gotten several from some home security company, even after asking to be put on their do not call list. The strange thing is that they're always from different numbers. From what I've been told, they can get by with this because do not call lists are for specific numbers and not companies. (I have no verification on this, but it does make sense). I just keep telling them I have a GSD and a 12 gauge. They usually hang up...

I've also been told twice that I'm being sued by the IRS. Anyone else getting that one??

I get the home security ones. I tell them I carry a .45 and don't need them. I also highly recommend that if they do door to door sales, they take my address off of their list because my dog hates strangers.

We've had the IRS ones too.

I don't answer the phone unless I recognize the number. If it is someone actually calling me, they can leave a message and I'll call them back.

 

[CraigAPS]

I get the home security ones. I tell them I carry a .45 and don't need them. I also highly recommend that if they do door to door sales, they take my address off of their list because my dog hates strangers.

I might actually prefer a door to door situation. My dog has that distinctive GSD bark. Even though she has yet to meet a person she doesn't like, her bark alone makes most people think twice about sticking around very long! Unless they know her, then they rub her belly!

 

[oldpink]

I took one of those spoofed caller ID calls from a guy with a strong southwest Asian accent who earnestly told me that he was "from Windows" to help me with a problem with my internet connection itself being infected with a virus.
Yeah, right...
I was off that day and had nothing to do, plus I'm a Linux user, so I played dumb for over 45 minutes, acting cooperative by feigning surprise that the CLSID (generic identifier that all Windows computers have that he used as a ruse to fool those less well versed that he was genuine) matched what he told me it was, the error log, etc.
I figured that the longer I kept this clown on the phone, the longer I was keeping him from swindling some elderly lady out of her Social Security check.
When he finally got to the point when he tried to talk me into logging into a website that would grant him remote access, I finally gave up the game with him, laughing at him by telling him that I'm a Linux user, and that I knew exactly what his game was (lock out computer, then demand a ton of money to unlock it), then told him in no uncertain terms and as profanely as possible exactly what I thought of him for what he was doing.
The second time, about a year later, another one called and started his spiel.
This time, I wasn't nearly as patient, so I skipped the whole thing by telling him that I knew what he was up to, then proceeded to spend the next eight minutes straight turning the phone lines a deep blue.
My wife laughed her ass off once she realized what was going on.

 

[BuddieReigns]

One time the IRS scam people called me. About midnight that night I realized that must be the dude's actual phone maybe, so I left him like 80 (seriously) voicemails while drunk. The next morning when I called back he answered, realized it was me, cursed me, hung up, and blocked my number. Then I started the same thing with my girlfriend's phone until he blocked that.