I have been in phone hell for the past 8 months from non-stop marketing calls.
I am on Medicare for a disability and a thing that sucks (even more) about that is every year I have to get a new medical insurance policy. I went to a bad site by mistake and the robo-callers shared my info far and wide. The worst was an insurance company that I tracked down and then threatened to travel to Florida just to smash their calling machine with a hammer. They said a faker had stolen their good name and was ruining their business and I helped provide evidence to the Federal Trade Commission to support their case. But there were too many calls to catalog with the FTC. That only made the fakers mad at me and I got twice as many calls. They would call to leave voicemails claiming to be the legit insurance company or hang up if I answered. Also they had the robo-caller set-up so that every time they called, it was from a new number. Blocking calls was an exercise in futility.
The last straw was last week some dude calls to offer me a 5 year extended warranty on my car. "Are you so stupid that your job is trying to convince people that buying a 5 year warranty for a 14 year old car is a good idea? STOP WASTING MY TIME! click."
I changed my number. Now a whole new wave of robo-callers are hassling me. I registered on the DoNotCallList.gov. They are still calling me. I don't use my phone very much and get few incoming calls. Well, real ones anyway. If an unknown number shows up I assume it has something to do with my medical treatment, so I have to answer.
I am at my wits end. What can I do next? Tin cans and string?
No, Sprint (ghak) mobile. I hate Sprint . They have been trying to help but they can't do much. I am even starting to get phishing texts now. "Give us $121.37 to claim your inheritance." "We have a fabulous offer for you click here or text STOP to unsubscribe from future texts." Yeah, right you will unsubscribe me if I respond. LOL. I hate being rude, but marketing calls allow me to just hang up on people and not feel the least bit bad about it. The problem is now whenever I pick up the phone, I never speak until they speak first and I can figure out who it is.
I got the new # last Wednesday and signed up for DNC on Tuesday. Hopefully it will start working in a few days as you said. It didn't work on my old number, but that probably was because I entered my number into the wrong website. I have no idea how I made the mistake. I am usually pretty careful, but I was shopping at a lot of places and don't remember.
I know these types of scams are meant to target old or stupid people (I am neither). They waste a lot of time making these calls and I'm sure they get a lot of nasty responses. But by casting a wide net, even scooping up dregs pays off for them eventually.
I made a contact called scam numbers that senxs them directly to voicemail. And as the call i add them to that contact. My phone rings almost never any more. No i just gotta block my wifes calls lol j.k.
Good idea! I was making a 1 letter contact (I for insurance, P for phishing, etc.) and blocking each one. I forgot that a contact can have multiple numbers.
Extreme Call Blocker on the play store will automatically download spam lists off of the FCC and block them automatically, no call, no voicemail, and it'll delete spam texts.
I just leave my phone on silent 24/7 and never check my voicemail. My family hates it (they usually just text me anyway), but it seems to work pretty well. Just block the out of state calls after the fact.
I remember a story about a british man who registered his number as a paying number (I don't know what it is called), so when they call it charged per the minute, so he would just sit there and waste their time. Of course he had to register it properly as an income and pay taxes and so forth. Am on mobile so can't fetch the link easily.
At one point I got so mad I figured I am going to ties up their lines. So I sat there for an hour calling, not saying anything until they hung up and calling back, over and over. Then I remembered that robots are much more patient than I am and I was only wasting my time. They won. They had gotten to me and made me insane.
@KenPC Extreme Call Blocker installed. Thanks for the tip, but why does a paid app still have ads?
They discussed this on Security Now just a couple of days ago. Steve Gibson suggests a $30 setup that takes calls for you and only transmits when the person on the other end is actually a human. Automated callers will not get through.
Timestamped to 1:44:56 where it gets interesting, discussion actually starts at 1:38:15 and ends at 1:52:03
Even funnier is that number is my area code! I got to admit I felt a little freaked out by that. I better watch the episode. Somebody upstairs is trying to tell me something.
Hello Positron, I hope you are having great day, this is commissioner John Rambo from Arizona. We are currently investigating the phone scam ring, and we would like your help. Please state your full name, your driver license number, and address on it for the record as this call may be monitored for quality assurance.
Computers already know how to count. From that video from @anon37371794 they said all the robo-callers are doing is trying: Dial # 123-456-7890, from # 987-654-3210, no answer, next. Try # 123-456-7891, from # 987-654-3211, no answer, next. Try # 123-456-7892, from # 987-654-3212, I got a live one.
With a PC running at 4.5 GHz there is no way anyone can block every number and the problem is growing rapidly out of control across the entire US in recent months. Gee Whiz, what could have changed the FCC landscape so dramatically, so recently? At least I know it's not just me.
I only know one trick that works on actual live calls. Change your answering machine to a fax tone. That way, they think they are calling a fax line, and they will take you off their list.
