I’m sure it’s not just a particular location - but I wonder if you look up the number on every spam call with an unfamiliar area code you receive. I don’t - I recognize the 7( soon to be 8) area codes in my city , some surrounding area codes and a few area codes where friends and relatives live. Aside from those, I wouldn’t know if an area code dsplayed on my caller id was unassigned or not ( except for N11).
I’ve been spending weeks at a time at my parents’ house in Connecticut this year. They frequently get scam calls in which no one is on the line for the first few seconds. My mother will usually give them no more than a couple of seconds before hanging up on them. I noticed that the pattern on these calls is the same; the caller ID just lists the city or town and a phone number. And when there is a voice on one of these calls, it’s a prerecorded message rather than a real person. (I tell them that I don’t deal with robots and hang up.) One of the scams says something like, “Hi, this is Helen. You asked me to call you back to discuss [whatever].” That, of course, is bullshit.
Well, it won’t work for most of us who get a couple of these calls a day from random spam callers. But this woman gets much more than that, and some of it includes people snickering. That doesn’t sound like spam, even targeted spam. It sounds like bored pre-teens. And they are calling from the same handful of numbers every time.
So blocking numbers won’t prevent the spam. But it’s likely to cut down on this woman’s junk phone calls. Because I’m willing to bet a fraction of them are actually harassment and not spam.
Many automated dialers will wait for voice detection before delivering the message or transferring the call to a human. Some of the older / dumber call blockers take advantage of that by playing a special tone that makes it sound like a fax machine or similar, thereby tricking the spammer into hanging up and trying the next number. I don’t know if that ancient technique is still used today.
The whole situation is a constant arms race between spammers’ robots and spam blockers’ robots.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
Add my vote to the numerous posts saying to use an answering machine or voicemail to screen calls. With a little luck the volume might decrease over time.
You didn’t say how comfortable your mother is with technology, so that will impact whether or not to use software or a new phone in addition.
YES. When I get those silent voicemail messages I usually delete them. Occasionally I call the supposed number (for amusement). I always get a message that the number does not exist.
For several months I would get calls with the displayed number as my primary care physician. When I answered the operator (with a moderate accent) would say my physician (they knew his name, my insurance, and my address) wants me to do something that did not apply to my health. I asked to speak to him and they said he wasn’t available. I said I would call him back later. Eventually I deleted his office from my phone book so any call from that number went to voicemail. The scammers never left a message. After a while I added it back.
One way to get fewer of those silent voicemails is to have a longer greeting. My guess is that the spammers assume someone speaking a short time is a live person while someone speaking a long time is an answering machine or automated system. If your message is a shortish length, it might sometimes be mistaken as a live person.
I seldom get messages purporting to be from my exchange, but of course most come from my area code - and the one next to me. So blocking is pretty futile.
Come to think of it, it’s our area code + first digit that’s blocked rather than the specific exchange.
From May 2023:
Hardly any spam calls get through now but they primarily seem to be about Medicare supplements, especially this time of year. My SO likes to mess with 'em.
I used to mess with the scam people from “Microsoft” until they scammed my MIL and we had to trash her computer and get her a new credit card.
Now i asked them if their mother knows they cheat old people for a living, and they usually curse me out and hang up. That’s if i happen to answer the phone at all.
^^^This
If the OP’s mother can’t discern whether it’s safe to talk to someone on the phone, then there may be other intervention that needs to happen.
It’s taken me years to convince my elderly parents that most calls that come in these days are spam, and that, even if the Caller ID says it’s a local call, if they don’t recognize the number or the caller, it probably is not someone legitimate.
I’ve partially gotten through to them: they now do understand that a lot of the calls are garbage. But, it’s hard to break 70+ years of habit; they’ve spent their whole lives thinking, “if the phone rings, you need to answer it.” So, even if they look at the Caller ID, and now are thinking, “yup, that’s probably a spam call,” they still answer the phone anyway, “just in case.”
Are you on the Do Not Call list? I am, and I never get Medicare Advantage calls, despite being in the right demographic. (Paper mail I get plenty of.) They are legitimate companies who seem to pay attention to the list.
The scammers, not so much.
Ahem, I’m well over 70 and have no problem screening calls and not answering. Except when I felt like messing with them. Then they stopped even responding when I said something, as mentioned above, so it wasn’t worth it.
Of course I used to work for the phone company.
Good for you. My dad is 92, my mom is 85; they simply can’t not answer the phone, even if they now understand that it’s spam.
Maybe I should have said, “it’s hard for them to break 70+ years of habit.”
We are, AFAIK, but those who spoof numbers don’t care.
Exactly. The Do Not Call Registry works well for taking your phone number off of the lists for legitimate companies in the U.S. It does nothing to block spammers who are (a) spoofing the origin number of the call, (b) are almost undoubtedly based offshore, and (c) are likely not engaged in legitimate businesses anyway.
True. But if it gets the legit Medicare Advantage sales outfits to leave me alone, that’s huge for 2 months a year. 
I know that some businesses use old-fashioned “answering services” where some other person (not usually an employee of the business) will screen phone calls, take messages, and pass on the important ones.
(The quality of those have typically been terrible, in my experience as a caller)
But I wonder if there are some available to help pre-screen calls to the elderly?
My mother is a sweet woman who understands these calls serve no positive purpose. I suspect she occasionally answers them. She cannot really understand why someone would make prank or questionable calls because it would never occur to her to do that. What do they get out of it?
My mother was a sweet old lady in her failing years. And she sometimes answered spam phone calls because she was bored and lonely. She didn’t get abusive calls, though.
I have this theory..ok. I’m not good with theoretical thinking.
But somewhere in me there’s the belief if you’ve ever answered these calls your goose is cooked, so to speak. You’re now on some giant list of live bodies who actually answer their phones.
Nothing will fix it except changing your number and changing a lifetime habit of answering ringing phones.