It's amazing how we've allowed a lack of regulation to completely destroy a fundamental form of modern communication. You basically can't call a stranger and expect them to answer the phone, everyone is screening all their calls because more than half are scams!
......you answer your phone? I literally only answer the phone for my spouse unless I am specifically expecting a call. everyone else can leave a message.
“Hello this is the law enforcement agency that does not exist in your county and we are about to arrest you for tax violations” hangs up
“Hello company you have have never used before is chasing a bill” hangs up
“Hello delivery company not operating in your country has a package for you” hangs up
“Hello road toll company that does not exist in your country has outstanding toll” hangs up
“Hello as a user of a service you have never used we just want to ask“ hangs up
Nah. I’ll keep letting these clowns go to voicemail.
“Years later on his death bed, Lemmylefty discovers he had a distant cousin with no other family connections who’s lawyers had been desperately trying to reach out to inform him that he was the sole recipient of his will … but you can only get access if you pay the legal fees to be paid in $5k of iTunes gift cards.”
Why would you answer it? If it's important, they'll leave a message. I'm not going to pick it up and risk having to deal with a scammer or something like that.
I work in hospice and travel to patient's homes all day, but my scheduling is done over the phone from a work provided cell phone.
So either I have families/caregivers who never answer the phone and half don't have voicemail set up or the voicemail is full. On the other hand, I have people that answer every call and now and become targets at a vulnerable time. Scammers fucking suck.
If I don't know who it is then I'm not answering shit. I don't even bother looking up the numbers anymore because they all come from spoofed caller IDs now, and if you answer you'll get 1000 more scam calls immediately because now they know you're dumb enough to pick up
They're getting ballsy these days too. I'm required to answer the phone at work because it's a business line, but as a result we get an absolute ton of spam or empty lines. I've had them spoof the local hospital's phone number several times. I got a call from the motherfuckin' USDA the other day (allegedly), like the government agency. Empty line. Once I got a call on my cell phone from my own phone number, that was interesting.
When the scammers spoof numbers they usually just get a block of random numbers that are local to where they are calling, then they just try them one at a time. They pick numbers that look local because people are more likely to answer.
They never actually bother verifying whose number they're using though, so it frequently results in them calling from the persons own number who they are trying to scam, local businesses, and even local government numbers.
I work for the phone company and I've frequently gotten calls from people telling me someone just called them from their own number lol
I got a call from my area that woke me up in the morning. I've got doctors and shit so I answer it.
No sound.
Me, hello?
No sounds. Then like someone trying to move the phone.
Me, Who is this?
Gruff annoyed voice: Who is this?
Me, fuck you who are you?
Annoyed voice: uh... This is the city police fund raiser ...
Probably as she lives on coronation street, so she’s seen a lot of crazy stuff. Murders, rapes bombs etc. It’s not as safe popping into Rita’s shop for the newspaper and baked beans as it once was.
This is one of the reasons I got a pixel. To be able to get a bot to answer,of they are real they get recorded and it gets transcribed. So I can tell if I wanna pick up or not. I would legit pay for this feature on an app
It only works on pixel phones. Basically a Google boy answers for you and makes them questions. You read the questions and decide if you wanna pick up.
Does this work somewhere? In Canada, spam calls are always my country code (which is shared with the US). Area code means little these days, too. Spammers will just spoof numbers.
Well it is a decent first level of defense. I usually get foreign country codes. But obviously don't trust local numbers either. Let them introduce themselves (don't introduce yourself) and ask if you can call them back in a minute. In the minute, check if the number is really who they claim to be. Then call the number if it matches and you are interested in the conversation.
Google has a screen call function. It reads a script and gives the caller a chance to respond all visible on screen so I can choose to answer actual humans.
It has been useful as the actual government called me and it wasn't a scam.
I have never really liked talking on the phone, even before the advent of cell phones. The fact that it seems to be fading more and more as a common communication tool is something I am honestly pretty happy about. Sure it means I have like 4 messaging apps on my phone, but I don't really mind. Even work is all text via Teams.
It has probably been at least a year since I have made/received an actual audio call on my phone.
With the growth of the internet… do we even need phone numbers anymore ? I mean my phone number exists just for spam. I’m mostly just paying for my cellular connection to access the internet and not because I need to have a phone number.