My husband has a cheapo flip-phone that has no ability to block telephone numbers. Every day for well over a week now he has been getting texts from the same number trying to sell medical insurance. It’s one thing to not answer a phone, it’s another to get texts which come through no matter what. Some people have to pay for their texts, fortunately we are on a plan where we don’t, but we still have to delete them. A minor but very annoying annoyance. I would like to do something unpleasant to whomever is sending these texts, which I assume will now continue forever until he gets a different phone.
The first part is not true.
The second part it, however.
There are robocall blockers, they kinda work.
However, unless you have done business with them, never ever push 9 or whatever " to be taken off our list" or whatever. That indeed just means a real person is there.
Do not answer the phone. No, not even to screw with them.
Yes, good ideas.
I had a robocall once and the spoofed number was my own phone number. I was tempted to answer just to see what I was calling about.
Next time, put yourself on hold and see how long it takes for yourself to figure out you’re not coming back.
I do, every time. For me, it’s entertainment. I only get 3-5 calls a month. I wonder why others seem to get so many a day.
What am I doing wrong? 
I really like this answer.
I really like this answer
They will add you to more list and you will get more calls.
That hasn’t happened over the past couple of years. Right now, the only scam calls I get are the Marriott/Hilton travel scams. I haven’t had the fun ones in a long time.
I get scam calls almost every day that have US numbers that are clearly fake. It is often in my area code and exchange to make me think it’s someone in my area. Last week the caller ID said “Bank of America” and when I picked it up it was a robocall that told me that I had bought three iPads on my Amazon account and to stay on the line if I didn’t order them. I stayed on the line and the guy was obviously in a boiler room in India. I asked him why Amazon was calling me from a Bank of America phone number and he told me to go fuck my sister.
An unusual Amazon suggestion…
I’ve always felt that was one of Jeff’s subtexts.
The Robokiller service uses answer bots.
You can listen to one of them here:
Or here if you scroll down enough:
They have a You-Tube channel:
I don’t know if it still exists, but a long time ago I read about an app that allowed you to play those three tones the phone company plays before the “The number you have dialed is not in service” message. That was supposed to cause the robocaller bot to mark your number as not in service.
“app that allowed you to play those three tones the phone company plays before the “The number you have dialed is not in service” message.”
That’s a feature used on “PhoneTray Pro” - a Windows program that works with your installed modem and a landline. I’ve been using this for years and it works great.
I think it was actually the TeleZapper I was thinking of, a hardware device you connected to your landline. But I would expect by now someone must have created an app that does the same thing.
They’ll eventually need to find a new way to spoof. Our landline is through Comcast/Xfinity, which has started verifying that the number displayed is legit.
They’ve noticed we’re ignoring the phony numbers now. Today I have received calls from, SCTSDL CITY GOV (at 6:30am), UNKNOWN MAME, WIRELESS CALLER, UNKNOWN NAME, and CALIBRUS. I googled the last one and it is a real company in Phoenix, but they’re an inbound call service mainly for physicians so far as I can make out.
I’ve accepted a couple and there’s been three seconds of silence then a hangup. Maybe the equipment is waiting for me to say something.
I’ve gotten Wireless Caller and Unknown Name for years. Actually when my daughter calls from her cell, it says wireless caller and gives her number, so the spoofed number might be one the phone system knows is wireless.
If I do answer a suspicious one I don’t say anything, since if it is a person they’ll start talking, while a machine will think it got a bad number or something. Has worked well.