Seem to be getting a rash of calls from unknown numbers recently. Sending them directly to voicemail, but they’re not leaving messages. It’s getting excessive. At least bill collector is leaving a message. I’m on the Do Not Call registry. Any thoughts on why I’m getting them? I didn’t sign up for anything that required my number in the past several months.
Spam from scamsters. They have computers dial a zillion numbers. If you pick up, it knows the number is valid and you get more calls. I’ve been getting them not only on my new smartphone (new number, too), but on my landline. When the machine picked up the landline and I heard someone on the other end, I picked up the phone. She was a ‘process server’ who wanted to know if I’d be home that evening, as they need to deliver court papers. I told her she’s pulling a scam, and she said, ‘No, I’m not!’ I told her we’ll see if anyone comes to my door. No one ever did.
If we don’t recognize a number, we don’t pick up the phone. If my smartphone is handy, I’ll press the ‘decline’ button. If I don’t get to it in time, I press ‘reject’ on the call log.
It works something like this, the computer dials your number automatically, when it hears a human voice, it switches you automatically to a telemarketer, who then has your info and tries to sell you or collect a bill and so forth.
If no human voice, voice mail or no answer, the telemarketer never need be bothered and you go on the repeat call list, till someone answers and tells them to buzz off.
Same here.
Of course, back in the old days (Pre-Ood), I screened everything through my answering machine. Everyone knew that I never answered the phone, leave a message, and if I hear you leaving one, I’ll pick up the phone.
This may have been meaningful at one time, but it doesn’t seem to be a deterrent now.
However, I does give me a good opening line when I answer and a person is on the other end, “So, my number is on the do-not-call list, and you called it anyway. That means you broke the law. That means you are a criminal. Do your parents know you are a criminal?”…click
Check with your phone company. There may be a way of blocking such calls. I have Charter for my phone and they have a setting for blocking unknown numbers (but a few slip through). They also allow me to block 12 numbers. I wish it was more like 120 as I get a lot of spam calls especially from politicians (who wrote themselves out of the DNC law).
I bought a call blocker from Amazon (about $70) and it’s helped. You can key in numbers to block, or just hit a big red button (fun!) to block a number during the call.
I get spam calls rarely. I’m not sure why I don’t get that many, I’ve had the same cell # for 21 years. I never gave it out on things like online forms until about 5 years ago when I dropped my landline. Still not many spam calls. When I do get them, I add them to the reject list on my phone. Once in a while I’ll get maybe three in a month, Google them and make sure they’re not a legit call (like when UPS International was trying to contact me about a lost package), add them to the reject list, and then no more for 6 months or more.
It is election season. Campaigns and non-profits are exempt from the Do Not Call Registry.
My phone has been blowing up with local politicians and their campaigns.
I get them on my cell phone. I just push “decline” and forget about it. It’s mildly annoying when it happens multiple times a day but it’s really nothing at the end of the day. Figuring out how to block these numbers would cause me more stress than pressing a button on my phone every so often. I’m just lazy, I guess.
Over here in the UK callers get around our registry by calling from abroad.
I was getting a lot of calls from a particular unknown number which never left a message. I never heard the phone ring when these calls came in - they just appeared as ‘missed calls’.
I rang the number back once, just to see what they’d say. I got their answering machine saying they’d call me back, with no option to leave a message for them. I figured they were spammers/scammers and blocked the number.
I’ve got mine set up so it blocks calls where they hide the number. It’s cut down considerably.
On my cell, I have a Contact named ‘Wrong Number’. Every junk call gets added to that contact. If they call a second time (and they do), easy to ignore.
Unknown caller is a small percentage of the spam calls we get. They more often spoof numbers and names. We used to get ones from “Toll Free” which our phone number announcer pronounced as Joel Free.
The Windows Company spammers just called from Directory Assistance.
The truecaller app (android, I don’t know about iPhone) helps. It sort of crowdsouces the problem. If you get a spam call, you push a button and it blocks that number, plus adds it to truecaller’s list of spam numbers, so it will also block it on other people’s phones. It blocks a few a day for me, the phone never even rings.
We get voice mail spam / wait for agent etc,. etc. and it’s gets left without our cell phones ever ringing… WTF ???
We do not get those kind on the land line… ( small private family owned local phone company. )
Cell phones on AT&T
How do they leave a voice mail without the phone ringing first???
Android LG-g4 & Samsung Note One…
My land lines (Uverse) are set to block “unknown” and “blocked” Caller ID, so that alone stops a lot of crap. Both of my lines are also filtered by Nomorobo, which also kills a bunch of spam calls.
In the US, the callers are often calling from abroad as well. Since caller ID is so easy to spoof it doesn’t really much matter, unfortunately.
And, our DNC registry isn’t anything that prevents calls from getting through, just something that in theory could be used to prosecute telemarketers if enough people complain about them.
Since the calls are all spoofed, and the very rare “real” call that gets by is usually a small local business, I don’t even bother reporting any more.
Verizon used to have something called anonymous call rejection - where any such call had to announce their name to a machine before it would even ring through to the house. I have to assume they had a declining customer base, or (more likely) decided that somehow it was more profitable to let the scammers ring through.
Nomorobo is our friend these days, though I don’t know if it works for completely blocked calls.
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On my cell, I have a Contact named ‘Wrong Number’. Every junk call gets added to that contact. If they call a second time (and they do), easy to ignore.
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My similar contact is “Telemarketers” which has about 40 numbers associated to it. It’s set to go directly to voicemail, so the phone doesn’t even ring.
For some reason none of them bother to leave messages.
Yeah this is election time , and people want your vote. I am getting a lot too , I just hang up on them b/c I hate hangup calls on my voicemail.