If somebody called me and a show was on, I would miss it if I took time for a poll. No streaming or DVR back then.
These days, an unknown number is almost certainly someone trying to sell me something. Or perhaps they want to speak to me about my car’s warranty. If the caller feels as though they need to hide who they are then I figure I don’t need to talk to them. At the very least they can leave a voicemail.
A voicemail? I haven’t gotten an actual phone call-based voicemail in at least a decade. I didn’t know they still existed.
Sure, an unknown number is probably spam, but hanging up on people is literally the easiest thing in the world, not to mention emotionally satisfying. And there’s always the chance that the call is something business related, or a delivery guy who wants me to let him in the building, or maybe my wife or son lost their phone and borrowed a strangers’. The probability it could be something important is greater than zero, so I have a responsibility to answer.
The negative is that by answering, you confirm the number is active and an actual person is available.
If you’re going to do this at all, don’t speak at first and hang up immediately if/when you realize it’s a spammer. That leaves the possibility open they flag it as not an active number to keep calling. And maybe figure out how to text so deliveries and family and such can still contact you.
Even so, I don’t answer an unknown number. If it’s important, the caller can leave a voice mail.
Employees not leaving me a voicemail when they call is one of my pet peeves. Especially when they call me back and ask, “Why didn’t you call me back?” I can’t tell them it’s because they didn’t leave a fucking voicemail, so I just assumed whatever it is they wanted wasn’t important. If someone is calling me from an unknown number and they don’t leave a voicemail then the call wasn’t important. At least it wasn’t important to me. If it’s a legitimate call they’ll leave a voicemail.
At this point in time, at least 95% of my communications is via WhatsApp. People whom I know mostly call when it’s urgent and I’m not answering my messages. I honestly don’t know if my iPhone can even receive voicemails, or how to access them if someone left me one.
When was the last time you encountered an inactive cellphone? People keep the same number their entire lives. There’s no way to avoid being contacted. And really, it’s more work for them than it is for me - if they call me again, I’ll just hang up again. I find it amusing.
It’s not that the phone is inactive, its that the owner is willing to answer. That’s more valuable than a number that never answers, so you will get more spam calls, even if you hang up.
As above, it’s not that the number is inactive, it’s that there is no active listener on the other end. If all you do is pick up but you do not say anything, that’s still better - there’s a chance whatever bot is monitoring might not take you for a live human being.
There are these things called computers these days. I guarantee it is not more work for them than it is for you, even if all you do is hang up immediately.
It’s not going to accomplish what you think, but if it amuses you to continue to receive calls, go nuts.
While I have used WhatsApp it is not used commonly on a daily basis by most people in the US. My use has mostly been limited to when I am traveling out of the country or communicating with someone not in the US.
And most of the people I deal with under the age of 30 NEVER answer their phones. Texting is much more likely to get a quick response. Again, that may be mostly in the US.
Plus there’s the factor I have: You are asking me to give you something of value to you. What are you giving me that I value in return?
You can call it mercenary if you like. I call it late-stage capitalism. More simply, the Rule of Acquisition 74, Knowledge equals profit.
I went to a mall today. It was a ghost town of empty stores and few shoppers. And yet Spencer’s continues to thrive. It is a mystery.
Heheh, I am definitely a person who often doesn’t answer his phone even if you’re in my address book. If I don’t feel like talking, I don’t feel like talking, and you know how to text me. The only time I’m certain to answer my phone is when it’s from the on-call service or my wife is calling. Just about everyone else can leave a message if it’s important. If the message is just “call me back” without a reason to call back, I’m probably not going to return the call. For all I know, they just wanted to bullshit about something. If nothing else, it sure seems unimportant.
Then one night I tried to call several of my Indian co-workers in a sort of emergency for work. No one picked up, and no one had voicemail at all. I later found out from my boss that voicemail was almost unheard of in India. My other US based co-workers knew this and just used WhatsApp to contact them in an emergency. Well, I don’t have a Meta account of any shape form or fashion, and don’t really intend to get one at this late date. The only solution was to pester one of my US co-workers to tell them to contact them over WhatsApp for me and get them chatting or talking with me over the company system in that rare situation.
So yeah, unless you’re someone I dearly miss or absolutely must talk to, I’m probably not answering the phone. I used to love saying “No one by that name lives here” and hanging up when people mispronounced my family name*. That got boring long, long ago. Hell, even as a child I’d ask my friends “Ok, is that all you wanted to talk about, because I want to go back to doing X” after our first exchange when they called me. My mom thought I was incredibly rude. I’m just not a fan of voice telecommunications.
All of that said, I kind of like answering and even giving surveys. I worked for a survey company for a bit while I was in college, and really liked the job. It was fun asking people about salty snacks when they picked up. Not even fibbing, it was a survey about salty snacks mostly focused on southern US states. It was called “Cracker Tracker”. I wonder how they are doing now with that campaign (I doubt it ever stopped).
*It’s a shibboleth: If you read it, you think you know how to pronounce it. If you hear it, you think you know how to spell it. You’re almost certainly wrong. If you’re right, you know me or someone from my extended family.
It’s an odd dichotomy. There are a several malls in town that are empty and even one or two that have been demolished. But a few are still very active.
Perhaps it’s because it’s connected to a bunch of office towers and in a fairly well to do area, there’s one near work that is doing ok.
Many of the office folks head there for lunch regularly and occasionally shop (helps that one of the end cap stores is a Target). And now that summer has hit, there are lots of parents/grandparents around with kids. I like to do a bit of mall walking on my lunch breaks as well, since there’s the A/C and all.
If I don’t recognize a caller, I wait 5 seconds, say “Hello?” Wait another 5 seconds, then hang up if I hear nothing.
Most spam calls are robodialers that register silence in the first few seconds as a failed connection and will not respond if I pause before saying anything. The other 5 second wait is to give a real person a chance to respond before I hang up.
I get so many legitimate calls from various businesses, medical providers, and other people I don’t recognize that it would be foolish for me to not answer unknown callers. And I get maybe one spam caller a month. I’m pretty protective of my number and my carrier has a pretty good spam screening service already, so it’s not a big problem like it once was years ago.
On my work phone it’s even more important to answer unknown callers, because as an IT support person I get lots of calls from unknown numbers who are customers. So it’s even more important that I answer. I still do the same 5 second, pause, 5 second screening.
I just answer my phone calls with
Over time, it cuts down on spam calls.
It cuts down on all calls, actually, now that I think about it.
Unless I’m expecting one, I let calls to my mobile from unknown numbers go to voice mail, which tells them that if they don’t leave a message I will block the number; if they don’t, I do.
My “land” line (an Ooma) has a short whitelist. Everything else gets an automated block message.
legit - I recently got WA but try not to use it much, but I keep up with peeps in Europe that way. I don’t let it give me notifications, for sure. Meta IS evil, after all.
this is smart
If the call is domestic, I pick it up. Some 10% of the time, it’s a legit call I don’t want to miss. The other 90%?
“Hi, ”
“Uh, yeah…? Do I know you?”
cue some back and forth, where the caller reveals themself to be a spam cold caller
“Just a second, hang on”
Mutes phone mic, puts phone down
After some one to three minutes, the caller closes the call. It gives me a petty satisfaction knowing that this wastes some one to three minutes they could’ve used cold calling someone else.
One of my favorite stories is from when we still had a landline: Someone calls and asks to speak to my wife, referring to her by her first name and presenting themself by only firstname (“hi, this is nn, can I speak to mm?”). It - of course - turns out it’s a cold caller. I spent the next five minutes lecturing the young woman about common courtesy when calling someone on business. Like, referring to the person by their last, NOT first name, presenting yourself with full name and affiliation, etc., etc., etc. before she finally hung up on me. Not particularlty productive, but quite satisfying.