My landline phone rings about 20 - 25 times a day and it’s driving me nuts. I messed with
these scammers a few times just for fun and to waste their time but then stopped
answering the phone several months ago. I thought if I didn’t answer my number
might go onto a list of non-functioning phones and the calls would stop. But it hasn’t
worked and I’m still getting calls with some coming as early as 6:00 am.
I’m registered with National Do Not Call Registry but of course the scammers
are going to ignore that. Any suggestions from the 'Dope would be appreciated.
I think the one-word answer is “no,” but you might be able to make them less annoying by subscribing to Nomorobo or some service like that.
turn down/off the ringer so it doesn’t wake you
It’s difficult to block the spammers since they are calling from foreign countries over VOIP and they set their caller ID to whatever random number they feel like. You may want to set your phone to direct all calls to the answering machine without ringing. Spammers typically don’t leave a message. To make it more difficult for them to leave a message, make it take a while before they can leave a message. One way to do this is to set the ringer volume to zero so that it rings for the full cycle but you don’t hear it. Make your voicemail greeting a little verbose to use up more time. You may even want to put something in your message to indicate that due to spam, callers must leave a message if they want you to return their call. Anyone important will leave a message.
Why would anyone own a landline in 2026? Or ever expect to answer it?
Lousy cell phone reception at your house (this was our issue for many years, until AT&T finally upgraded their local signal). Not owning a cell phone. Pure preference. Inertia.
Regardless, to the OP: you’re exactly right, the Do Not Call Registry does nothing to stop those calls. It stops calls from legitimate U.S. businesses; the scammers are neither. And, even if you were able to block a number, it doesn’t help at all, because the scammers are simply spoofing the Caller ID system; the calls are not actually coming from those numbers. Their next call will “come” from a completely different number.
Same with my house. My cell reception was 1 bar and I had to be in a certain spot to get it to be that good. Even wifi calling had its issues. The sound would get twangy and calls would drop out. I kept my VOIP landline for a long time because that was a lot more stable than trying to use a cell phone.
My lease calls for a landline for the security gate (for all the good said gate does, since it’s nearly always broken by idiot neighbors who couldn’t care less about everyone else’s safety, just their convenience).
That’s wacky. The gate computer just dials your number. It doesn’t care if that’s a landline or mobile.
I’m not disputing the reality of your situation. Just that it’s stupid. I wonder if the clause went into the lease eons ago with intent to require a phone. Back when landline was the only kind. And hasn’t been thought about since.
One never knows. We’ll see what happens next lease renewal, since the complex recently changed ownership.
My landline comes bundled with my AT&T wifi service. Plus, as Kenobi notes, when I got it I lived on a country property that was down in a little hollow. It was impossible to get cell reception there – the contractors I had working at the house would have to use the land line because their cell phones didn’t work either. Now I’m in the suburbs, but the number is one that I’ve used for over 10 years and that most people call. I also find that the land line gives clearer sound than my cell phone, even though the cell now has a strong signal.
Reason #3: if you get any sort of “Life Line” fall alert device, it needs a land line to connect.
Get rid of your phone?
If you do have a landline that you don’t use much but don’t want to just cancel it, one option is to port it to an online service like Google Voice. Your number would be hosted by them for free. There is a small fee for the initial port ($20?). You could still make calls through your computer on the Google Voice website or with their app on your phone. If someone leaves a voicemail, they will email it to you. It’s a great way to keep your number active for the odd valid call that might come in.
One other advantage of GV is that they seem to be better at catching spam. I still get spam calls in the call log, but they are not as many as when I had my VOIP landline. In any case, I don’t care how many spam calls go to that number now. I don’t have the calls ringing through. They go to voicemail. If someone is actually calling for me, they’ll leave a voicemail and I’ll get it in my email.
In my situation I’m usually at my desk, working on my computer and have always had my land line here. No reason to change what works.
Besides that, I have a second phone downstairs. I have no inclination to carry my cell to wherever in the house I happen to be because, why?. I actually have very little use for my mobile unless I’ll be out of the house for the day or more.
I have a call blocker but as others have noted scammers can use any number. It is useful for blocking people like realtors and certain organizations that are continually after donations. Plus there’s a certain satisfaction to pressing the BLOCK button 
Used to get more scam calls when I had a business phone number out & available to the world.
Isn’t that the default?
/Millennial
I get around a dozen every day on my cell. It does say SUSPECTED SCAM CALLER, but if I ignore them they go to voice mail and pretty quickly clog up my inbox (I have a ‘Screen’ option on my phone that I have to manually click but it does run them off)
For a landline, I recommend PhoneTray Pro. This is a Windows-compatible caller ID and call management software designed to log incoming landline calls and block telemarketers or robocalls. I’ve been using this for years and it works great.
Unfortunately, it is no longer supported but is still available for download.
The downside of this software is that it runs only on Windows (not iOS) and the computer must have a modem compatible with Windows 11. Note that the US Robotics (internal/USB) modems are no longer compatible.
Also, the computer must be attached to the incoming line. The software uses Caller ID to work, and does work with VOIP.
The computer resides between the incoming phone line and whatever phones/answering machines that you have.
What is nice about this software is it will play automated messages to the offending call - one of which is the “Disconnected” sound that will usually tell robocall software/equipment to remove your number from their call list - resulting in fewer robocalls over time.
Because of the number of scammers that call me on a daily basis I have my phone set to send calls from anyone not in my contacts to voicemail. But the AI scammers leave me long voicemails which means I still get notifications. So I wrote a script for a very long voicemail greeting to weed them out. To further depersonalize it, I had Copilot read it aloud for me. It’s worked so far.
- Lousy cell phone reception, with many dropped calls.
- Emergency phone in several parts of the house for when one isn’t walking around with a cell phone in their hand.
- A throw-away number that’s ours but has the ringer off. Really reduces spam calls on the cell phones.
What I do is answer the phone, but keep absolutely quiet until they hang up. A coworker mention to me that this will trick the scammer into thinking they have a “live” number but it is connected to an unused extension. Then the scammer removes the number from the list because no person is attached to it.