I recently turned 72 and celebrated my birthday by receiving over 20 spam calls to my cell phone. I expect a few daily, since my number is out there as a Realtor and having another business, but this was over the top. Ever since, I’ve been receiving about twice as many as I did prior to my birthday.
Do they think because I had another birthday I’m more likely to fall for their AI cons and schemes?
It’s the time of the year for renewing or changing Medicare Supplement and Advantage plans. Open enrollment runs from mid-October to early December. They know you’re over 65; the fact that it’s your birthday is just a coincidence.
I am 2 years younger than you, and recently had a huge increase in the number of spam calls on my landline, up to an estimated 50 per day. Interestingly, the calls never come before 9:00 a.m or after 8:30 p.m., and rarely during weekends.
That’s because Federal law allows marketing phone calls only between the hours of 8 AM and 9 PM. However, some states place additional restrictions on telemarketing calling hours. Be thankful for small favors.
I started getting a dozen or so calls on my landline telephone. I now never pick up the telephone. I have a message that says I’m not there but they can leave a message. Most of the callers don’t leave a message. The remaining ones leave a message of a few seconds before hanging up.
For me (I’m 72) spam calls seem to show up in spurts. For a while, I was getting several a day from numbers where the area code and exchange were the same, but the last 4 digits varied among 5 or 6 repeats. They all went right to voice mail, and after a couple of weeks, they stopped.
More recently, calls have tapered down to maybe a couple a week, and my phone flags them as Suspected Spam. I’m wondering if I get pulled off lists because I don’t answer. FWIW, I have ring tones on my phone set up in 3 sets - one for friends and family on my contact list, one for businesses I deal with, including doctors and such, and the default, which always gets ignored. On the rare occasion that the default ring is legit, the caller leaves a message and I move the number to the correct ring. It’s worked well for me.
I’m 80 and get spam calls just like all of you. My cell phone often indicates “possible spam”. Those just get a flick of the reject button. As I’m a director of a local organization, I always answer the others. Sometimes in German or Spanish. As I only know a few phrases, those calls don’t last long.
If I answer at all, sometimes I hear s “bloop” sound as the call is switched to the available call center worker. I hang up at that point.
This is an interesting thread, if you haven’t read it:
Scam (Internet and Otherwise) Omnibus Thread
I’m 58 and I get 5-10 loan scam calls per day. It started about a year ago. I have my phone set to send unknown callers to voicemail, but unfortunately there’s no way to turn off voicemail. I have considered just leaving them until my voicemail is full, but I don’t know how many of them that will take - certainly more than the 50 or so that are still in there. In any event, I don’t think it’s age related - if your number is out there you’re going to get scam calls.