Yes, though undoubtedly there are different escalation processes for different situations. But what they clearly do NOT do – and this was the basis of my comment in the other thread about using common sense to assess laughably implausible threats – is threaten to arrest you on the spot for alleged tax dues that you’re hearing about for the first time – unless, that is, you send them Amazon gift cards! Nor does anyone outside of 19th century Dickensian England get “arrested” for purely civil matters like debt.
On a slightly tangential note, when I signed up for cable TV a long, long time ago, they got my first initial wrong. I didn’t care and never did anything about it. I’ve long since cut the cord but I still have the same account for broadband internet. Over the years I’ve received a great deal of junk mail, coincidentally with that same wrong initial. It’s like a tracer that proves the bastards have been selling their customer lists. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re also selling phone number lists to telemarketers and scammers, especially since they’re also now a landline service provider. There seems to be something about the culture of cable companies, both here and in the US, that combines supremely crappy customer service with the ethics of a nocturnal rodent.
There’s a problem moving to allowing only “Whitelist” calls for some of us who may need to be available to people we don’t actually know who still have a legitimate reason to call us.
Now that I’m trying to freelance again I need to allow potential customers to reach me.
Wow.
Since my area code now requires 10 digit dialing that basically means blacklisting 80% of the people who have legitimate reason to call me. And that’s non-customers. Sure, I could then go back and whitelist a few dozen numbers, but why am I having to work so hard because someone else is abusing the phone system?
And what if a medical office needs to call me but the number their staff uses for that purpose isn’t the same as their main office? What if my boss needs to call me and is using her personal phone instead of the work phone? What if someone has lost their phone/changed their number but still needs to get ahold of me?
EVERY business around here is getting deluged with spam and robocalls - and they CAN NOT blacklist everyone, nor is it practical to whitelist every possible customer in their service area. But screw business owners, right?
I’m beginning to wish the same fate on spammers/robocallers as I do on hackers and identity thieves.
Some (many?) phone companies have a service that acts like an automated switchboard operator for incoming calls. The most basic will play a recording along the lines of “please press 8 to confirm you’re not a spammer” or if it’s more sophisticated and customizable then maybe you can record your own greeting like “thank you for calling ___ business, please press 3 to connect to our receptionist”. I’m not sure if this is restricted to only business accounts or if it’s available for consumer phone service too. In my area this is a couple extra dollars a month, but it seems worth it if your number has gotten on the spammers’ lists. It’ll definitely block most if not all robocallers and allow any legit person through, but it will also block automated calls for things like doctor’s appointment confirmations, prescription notifications, or anything along those lines too.