This week, a news site posted an editorial piece about spam - the writer said he’d received 43 spam calls in a week, and broke them down (medical devices, car warranty, credit card interest reduction, etc) And all I could think was that 43 in a week didn’t seem so bad. Yesterday, I got 22. Today, so far, 5 before noon. Most of the comments reported that 43 in a week was nothing.
So - what’s the solution? The Do Not Call list is pretty useless. A few people said they had something called NoMoRoBo that wasn’t very effective. And then there are the spoofed calls that come in from local “real people” numbers. So annoying.
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I feel your pain. I though congress was going to do something about this with telecommunications companies.
But hey…congress has more pressing needs ATM.
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Can’t count the number of spam calls I get. Lately two types show up on my voice mail:
Many in Chinese,
Others, from western states, claiming to be from Social Security Administration. Did some research on these calls & will post a link in a bit.
Here is the type of call many are getting and what to do should you get one.
What would it matter? Even if the House did pass something it would sit on the " grim reaper’s" desk and go nowhere.
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Well find out…
best way to avoid it is to not give your phone number to every Tom Dick and Harry out there. Stop signing up for every loyalty program ect. Those phone lists are sold. I used a 4 dollar app and rarely get spam calls.
I don’t think phone lists are sold.
They use auto dialers that walk through blocks of thousands of numbers. There is no need to buy lists.
I have a landline and there is no way to stop them- I don’t care what any politician waving some bill says.
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Yeah - an hour ago, I got an automated call from my congressman. (He’s been making the rounds lately.) The call invited me to some kind of group phone call forum tomorrow, At dinner time. And if I didn’t want to be on whatever call list he used (didn’t know I was) I could press 9 and get on his Do Not Call List.
I do not have a land line and yes they can get them that way. But you are incorrect companies do sell their phone lists.
We get, on the average, 15 calls per day on our land line. The numbers showing up on caller ID are from numbers in our area code and prefix, (even had one spam call that used the phone number of our volunteer fire department n it read out as such), and they are the credit card interest rate recordings as well as the automated voice saying they are from the IRS n that our SS# has been used for suspicious activity in south texas .
We dont sign up for anything, dont give out our phone number, n have had the same number for 20+ years. Now we get them on our cell phones for car warranty crap. Its terribly annoying…I dont answer the home phone much, let the machine get it. If there is a person actually calling they leave a message.
As Bill said if you have a land line they can get that easy enough. The worst are politicians. Your cell phone is different. Did you buy a car and use that phone on the paperwork? People believe they don’t give out their phone number but they can do it unintentionally or they can get it from a friend. Example maybe you haven’t done this but your friend might have. You get an app on your phone, they ask for permission to see your contacts and photos. A lot of people automatically say yes. They now have all those numbers. A big one is buying stuff on line, or even those stores that ask for your phone number. Not saying you did any of that but it is how they get them.
I do get that damn ss# one a lot and they use a lot of different numbers, hard to block them all.
I use an app called Mr Number, I find it very effective at screening calls and telling you before hand if it is spam. Unfortunately it is not free like it used to be.
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Sure there is.
All the phone companies have to do is compare the phone number being sent in the caller ID to the actual number it’s coming from. If it’s different, Don’t let the call go through.
That and don’t think for moment communication companies they know the numbers being used and shut them down right at the source.
The Caller ID is sent between the first and second ring of the call. When this happens the call has already been put through at this point.
If the call originates from out of the country, the US phone company may not even know the calling number.
Call killed on second right. They know the number it originated from. Three strikes and all calls from that number blocked.
If they see it originating from out of country, but trying to spoof a us number, immediatly block the number. Three strikes, calls from that number not allowed to come into the United States.
I get zero spam calls. I have caller ID and if the caller is unidentifiable or unknown to me I don’t answer. If the call is legitimate they can leave a message on the recorder … spam calls never leave a message.
If the call is answered on the 1st ring, the SPAM call made it through.
The method you describe, does not stop SPAM calls. Only some of them.
The “three strikes and out” would be of very limited value. SPAM boiler rooms buy blocks of thousands of numbers. Kill one and they will roll over to another one.
Blocking a number doesn’t work, because the callers can make your phone think its coming from a different number. (My cell phone will block numbers from ringing my phone, but if they hang on, it will send them to my voice mail. 
)
My understanding (poor) is that phone companies can prevent this at their end, but for $ome rea$on they resist legislation requiring them to remove the capability of a caller to appear as a number different that the actual number.
My other thought is how much does a company make from robo-calls or spam calls? Is the profit from one transaction that great that it will pay for the 100s of call that get hung up on? Apparently it is.
@janer I have the perfect solution for you if you use an android. It is called Calls Blacklist . The nice thing about it is it works!
What it does is any number that is not in your Contacts goes directly to voice mail. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. So everyone else whose phone number you have in your contacts rings through as normal. Everyone else goes to voice mail to leave a message.
I do work with the public and while at work I may get phone calls not in my contacts. for those few hours I turn it off with a simple button press. As soon as I leave that job, the app goes on again. At least now when my phone rings and I have to stop what I am doing to answer it, I know it is someone that I know.
It really is a great app.
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