I’m neither elderly nor Canadian (American, 55), and I, too, get dozens of spam calls per day. Like the OP, the numbers are almost always spoofed to a local area code, and 80 percent of the time there is no one on the other end.
AT&T sells landline phones with a ‘Smart Call Block’ feature. It allows incoming calls that are in your directory or allowed call lists to ring through. There are various options for dealing with all other calls, e.g., Press 1 and announce your name – the recorded name is then announced on your phone and you can decide to answer or ignore the call.
When they were idiot teenagers (in the era before Caller ID, cell phones, and widespread answering machines), my sister and one of her friends enjoyed making prank phone calls. They’d pick a number to call (always local) based on what the four-digit suffix could spell out, and if they got someone who actually reacted to their silly jokes and weirdness, they’d remember that number, and call that poor person again and again, ramping up the harassment.
We have a Panasonic phone which can block numbers, including entire area codes. Anyone calling from a blocked number gets a message that the number is not accepting calls.
3 calls already today. I swear I’d support a drone strike on their facilities.
We have a landline as backup because our cellphones don’t always have a good signal in the house, and it gives us three handsets for emergencies. Nobody at all has our landline number, so the ringers are off.
We have visual voicemail on our cellphones, making it easy to see a message immediately and respond.
We don’t answer any number we don’t recognize. You can record an outgoing message that says “I only respond to callers who give their names.” Easy enough to look up someone claiming to be the dentist and phone the dentist directly from a printed provider list.
My relative had dementia, so the rule posted on the handset was “Only pick up if the caller ID says susan, susan’s lovely wife, or son-in-law’s name.” She’d forget, but was scammed much less than had she been picking up every call from the pleasant man at “Microsoft.” As her dementia increased, we just said, “Only pick up if the ID says it’s one of us, and one of us will check your voicemail for you every few days” (by this point, we were already having her put all her mail in a basket and sorting it for her, too).
That’s the least effective solution. These scam callers don’t use a special list of phone numbers, but generate one from all the possible numerical combinations. Every number is equally a victim.
She needs to stop answering the phone unless it is someone on her contact list. If it is a SPAM call, a voicemail is rarely left because it is usually a machine initiating the call. If there is a message, she has an opportunity to listen to it without direct contact with them. She can then decide whether or not a response is warranted.
And are using technology to “spoof” the Caller ID information. So, even if the Caller ID says the call is coming from 312-555-1234, that is not the actual number on the other end; blocking that number won’t prevent that same scammer from calling again.
To anyone in this thread who suggests blocking a specific number or area code: It won’t work! These scam/spam callers generate fake caller-ID numbers as their supposed number. Since the TRUE number never matches the ACTUAL number, any blocking that relies on the CID number is doomed to fail.
True, scam callers usually use a generated list specific to the recipient’s area code, but if you block the entire area code, think of the numbers that you DO want to answer. Do you not have any local friends or relatives in the same area?
This problem will not be solved until some technology arrives that matches the REAL CID to the phone call, and can act accordingly. Legislation will not solve it, since most scam callers are immune to laws of another country.
Another option to consider is a VOIP provider that has some basic built-in spam blocking. You can transfer the existing number over (if you must) and then add a little device to the phone line that sits between the wall outlet and your regular phone.
One such service from a quick search is Ooma Premier Plan – Home Phone Add‑Ons Canada, and there are others.
They will automatically block suspected spam and bad numbers reported by others. You can also make it so that calls go to voicemail and your mom can listen before picking up.
This basic spam blocking isn’t anywhere near as powerful as what cell phones offer (especially the AI call screening), but it’s better than nothing.
Another downside is that this sort of VOIP service will go down if your internet or power go out, so she won’t have a backup way to call anyone.
Probably simpler to just get an answering machine and silence the ringer and train her not to pick up unless it’s someone she knows.
For situations where you only want specific numbers to ring through, you can get a whitelist blocker. It’s a physical device that sits between your phone and the wall. You program the list of of known numbers and only those numbers will ring through.
There are similar whitelist apps for cell phones. Numbers not in your contacts can be blocked or sent to voicemail.
I have a cell and a landline, and the same spam comes on both. So, no.
We probably get 15 calls a day on the landline. We have caller ID, and most supposedly come from our area code - but of course don’t. We never pick up. Nomorobo (which works great) gets lots of them, most hang up without leaving a message, and only 2 or 3 do leave messages.
I have a Verizon Android phone, and it is good at identifying calls as potential spam. I just hang up, and only a few even get to voice mail. The voice on the phone is a bot - when I pick up once or twice a month I start talking and the bot ignores me. There is a press 1 for more information, 2 to be removed from the list (hah!) at the end. They are all “we have your loan paperwork ready, we just need more info” calls.
I agree with those who have said that the best solution for the OP’s mom it to get an answering machine and never answer. If there are some people on the other end causing problems they will soon get bored talking to a machine. I’m also not sure that your average kid can spoof numbers as effectively as the spamming companies, who work in cahoots with telcom providers who don’t follow the new rules about ensuring that the actual number and provided number match.
If this were true why aren’t the people here getting a huge number of scam calls a day like the victim mentioned by the OP? This is what you would expect from your suggested method. Instead I think it is likely she is on some kind of sucker’s list because she fell for some type of scam at one time.
You apparently missed this from the OP:
We have that as well but some spoofed numbers still manage to get through; blocking our area code + exchange really helped.
No, we don’t know anyone who would be calling us from the same combination. If we did, chances are they’d also have at least one of our cell numbers and could try there.
These aren’t mutually exclusive, FWIW. She could easily be the victim of random dialing AND targeted spam campaigns AND bored teenagers AND foreign scammers — all at the same time. The longer she’s had that number, and the more previous calls she’s answered (or been defrauded by), the higher the chance that she’s on multiple different lists.
Contact lists routinely get shared and sold both between “legitimate” businesses that sell and buy personal information, and also on the dark web to whoever is willing to pay.
In 20 years of monitoring and logging, I have not observed that. Perhaps that phenomena is unique to a specific location.
After noticing the varied responses here, and observing the changes over the last 20 years, it is possible that we are all experiencing the “blind men and the elephant” (is there a better name?) situation, where each party is observing a different part of the elephant; each assuming that what they observe is representative of the whole.
[Moderating]
Since this is a request for advice, it’s probably better suited for IMHO. Moving.