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How to Stop Robo Spam Calls? (1 Viewer)

Anarchy99

Footballguy
I am open for suggestions on how to stop getting the same robo spam phone call that I get 25 times a day. It's the same message over and over and over and over again stating that I have been preapproved for a loan. It's not as easy as blocking the phone number, as each time the call is from a completely different phone number from all different states. I was hoping that they would get tired of calling and stop . . . but it's getting worse, not better. Anyone else have to deal with something similar and how did you stop it?
 
Samesies. The one I get always just starts with "Hello....are you there?", I assume if it hears a voice respond it triggers something in their system. Even if it goes to voicemail it will leave that exact message.

It sucks because this is my business phone and I'm in hospitality so I get calls from numbers I don't recognize all the time, and have to pay attention to them. 80% of the time it's just spam.
 
Sorry for you Anarchy, started a thread on this issue a couple months ago and still have found nothing that helps. I signed up for the national registry, started my phones spam filter and at first reported all the numbers to the filter but still I get a dozen calls a day. It is maddening. What I do now is just have all unknown numbers go through my filter which makes the rings silent, that help the aggravation a little.
 
I keep getting ones about forgiving my student loans........but I have no student loans. I am not sure what's going on with that.
 
Samesies. The one I get always just starts with "Hello....are you there?", I assume if it hears a voice respond it triggers something in their system. Even if it goes to voicemail it will leave that exact message.

It sucks because this is my business phone and I'm in hospitality so I get calls from numbers I don't recognize all the time, and have to pay attention to them. 80% of the time it's just spam.
Careful with this one. I have heard rumors that they are looking for your voice to say "Yes" so they can use it for identity scams. Might be BS but I've heard it a few times.

As for me, I silence all unknown callers. From time to time one will break through and actually leave a voicemail, which I just delete (of course). If they're in my phonebook, it goes through. If it's a work call from an unknown number, they have the option of leaving a voicemail. And since I have an iPhone, it transcribes the voicemail for me so I don't really even need to listen to the voicemail. I can just delete it if it just has someone saying "hello???".

Spammers suck.
 
Samesies. The one I get always just starts with "Hello....are you there?", I assume if it hears a voice respond it triggers something in their system. Even if it goes to voicemail it will leave that exact message.

It sucks because this is my business phone and I'm in hospitality so I get calls from numbers I don't recognize all the time, and have to pay attention to them. 80% of the time it's just spam.
I am in the same boat. The calls all come in on my business phone. I generally don't have time to answer calls from unknown people / phone numbers, so I just let them go to VM now. Then I end up listening to them and deleting them . . . but it's just a giant waste of time. I tried talking to them and asked to opt out (or taken the opt out option by pressing whatever number they instructed to be removed). That just made it worse, as they know they have an active phone number to call.
 
I'm guessing Android does this too but iPhone allows you to silence all calls not from a number in your address book and they go to voice mail.

This may not work if you need to receive calls from people you don't know. But it works well for me.
 
The robocalls are probably coming from a cell farm in another country. Not under the jurisdiction of USA laws. The calls will not stop. Either get some app to help stop the flow of calls, or change your number.

I hate that is what we are reduced to doing. I refuse to give my phone number to practically anyone. Friends, family, my mechanic, my doctor, and that is about it. If someone says they 'need' my number to conduct business, I usually fake number them. I went in person to a large chain pizza place and ordered a pizza. They said they needed a phone number. I said I didn't want to give a phone number, and they told me they needed it for the system and cannot place the order without one. I gave them 555-1212.

Absolutely ridiculous.
 
Samesies. The one I get always just starts with "Hello....are you there?", I assume if it hears a voice respond it triggers something in their system. Even if it goes to voicemail it will leave that exact message.

It sucks because this is my business phone and I'm in hospitality so I get calls from numbers I don't recognize all the time, and have to pay attention to them. 80% of the time it's just spam.
Careful with this one. I have heard rumors that they are looking for your voice to say "Yes" so they can use it for identity scams. Might be BS but I've heard it a few times.

As for me, I silence all unknown callers. From time to time one will break through and actually leave a voicemail, which I just delete (of course). If they're in my phonebook, it goes through. If it's a work call from an unknown number, they have the option of leaving a voicemail. And since I have an iPhone, it transcribes the voicemail for me so I don't really even need to listen to the voicemail. I can just delete it if it just has someone saying "hello???".

Spammers suck.
They intentionally put the "yes" out of context to claim you said yes to what they are selling if you dispute the charges.
 
I'm guessing Android does this too but iPhone allows you to silence all calls not from a number in your address book and they go to voice mail.

This may not work if you need to receive calls from people you don't know. But it works well for me.
Not a mobile number. It's my land line work number that is posted / listed on hundreds of sites, search engines, and directories. Don't really want to get a new phone number.
 
The robocalls are probably coming from a cell farm in another country. Not under the jurisdiction of USA laws. The calls will not stop. Either get some app to help stop the flow of calls, or change your number.

I hate that is what we are reduced to doing. I refuse to give my phone number to practically anyone. Friends, family, my mechanic, my doctor, and that is about it. If someone says they 'need' my number to conduct business, I usually fake number them. I went in person to a large chain pizza place and ordered a pizza. They said they needed a phone number. I said I didn't want to give a phone number, and they told me they needed it for the system and cannot place the order without one. I gave them 555-1212.

Absolutely ridiculous.
I setup a google voice number for this stuff. That way if I ever actually need it (like they need to send a code to it or whatever) I can logon and get it.
 
I'm guessing Android does this too but iPhone allows you to silence all calls not from a number in your address book and they go to voice mail.

This may not work if you need to receive calls from people you don't know. But it works well for me.
Not a mobile number. It's my land line work number that is posted / listed on hundreds of sites, search engines, and directories. Don't really want to get a new phone number.
Ohhhh we still get a million of those also
 
I'm guessing Android does this too but iPhone allows you to silence all calls not from a number in your address book and they go to voice mail.

This may not work if you need to receive calls from people you don't know. But it works well for me.
Not a mobile number. It's my land line work number that is posted / listed on hundreds of sites, search engines, and directories. Don't really want to get a new phone number.
Oh yikes.
 
Not a mobile number. It's my land line work number that is posted / listed on hundreds of sites, search engines, and directories. Don't really want to get a new phone number.


One thing that has anecdotally worked in the past is putting the three-beep disconnect tone at the start of my answering machine message. That do-doo-DOO series of tones. You apparently don't need the rest of the "I'm sorry..." message, you can follow it with your own "Anarchy99 can't get to the phone right now, please leave a message at the beep" after the two second do-doo-DOO. The rumor is that auto-dialers and spam calling computers will disconnect and remove your number from their database upon hearing the tones, their computers don't listen to the voice part of the recording. Humans, though, might be initially confused for a few seconds but they'll hear your voice and continue with the call. Do it for a week or two maybe and switch back and see if calls are reduced.

Otherwise, yeah, some kind of spam filtering/forwarding might be necessary.
 
Not a mobile number. It's my land line work number that is posted / listed on hundreds of sites, search engines, and directories. Don't really want to get a new phone number.


One thing that has anecdotally worked in the past is putting the three-beep disconnect tone at the start of my answering machine message. That do-doo-DOO series of tones. You apparently don't need the rest of the "I'm sorry..." message, you can follow it with your own "Anarchy99 can't get to the phone right now, please leave a message at the beep" after the two second do-doo-DOO. The rumor is that auto-dialers and spam calling computers will disconnect and remove your number from their database upon hearing the tones, their computers don't listen to the voice part of the recording. Humans, though, might be initially confused for a few seconds but they'll hear your voice and continue with the call. Do it for a week or two maybe and switch back and see if calls are reduced.

Otherwise, yeah, some kind of spam filtering/forwarding might be necessary.
I'm trying this, just recorded the tone from my computer. 🤞
 
I'm guessing Android does this too but iPhone allows you to silence all calls not from a number in your address book and they go to voice mail.

This may not work if you need to receive calls from people you don't know. But it works well for me.
Not a mobile number. It's my land line work number that is posted / listed on hundreds of sites, search engines, and directories. Don't really want to get a new phone number.

Dang. Sorry, GB. I've got nothing there.
 
I'm guessing Android does this too but iPhone allows you to silence all calls not from a number in your address book and they go to voice mail.

This may not work if you need to receive calls from people you don't know. But it works well for me.
This explains why you never answer my calls...
 
I'm guessing Android does this too but iPhone allows you to silence all calls not from a number in your address book and they go to voice mail.

This may not work if you need to receive calls from people you don't know. But it works well for me.
I don't think android has this option; just when the number is unknown which apparently is different than when not in contacts. I had to install an app to do it.
 
Seems like the carriers could do something about this, especially if they are originating overseas. Just block all my inbound calls from Laos and Kyrgyzstan, see if I care.
 
I can only speak from my experience. I used to get 3 to 4 a day. I haven't gotten one in months. Maybe gotten 2 or 3 this past year. Registered on the feds DoNotCall.gov years ago. Don't know if this is what helped or if it's just blind luck. Worth a shot for those who haven't done it.

DoNotCall.gov
 
On my Android phone, the call screen is red, and the caller is listed as "Potential Spam" when it's believed to be spam. Happens a couple of times a day.
 
On my Android phone, the call screen is red, and the caller is listed as "Potential Spam" when it's believed to be spam. Happens a couple of times a day.
I was about to concur with this, but in the phone app settings if you tap on "Caller ID and spam protection" I found an unchecked option to "block spam and scam calls" (I get calls labeled as potential spam), and from here there is a choice to block all or block high risk scams only (nah boss, send me the good spam).
 
Truecaller app works pretty good. I just use the free version. "Do you know what a Do Not Call list is?" usually results in a quick hang-up and they seldom call back.
 
I'm guessing Android does this too but iPhone allows you to silence all calls not from a number in your address book and they go to voice mail.

This may not work if you need to receive calls from people you don't know. But it works well for me.
Not a mobile number. It's my land line work number that is posted / listed on hundreds of sites, search engines, and directories. Don't really want to get a new phone number.
You may want to check into getting an auto attendant ("Thank you for calling. Press 1 to ...). That would probably stop the call from progressing past the auto attendant unless it is a live person hitting the keypad. If this phone is for business, most people are use to getting this first.

I don't have anything like this, just a thought I had to combat robocalls.
 
Truecaller app works pretty good. I just use the free version. "Do you know what a Do Not Call list is?" usually results in a quick hang-up and they seldom call back.
For anyone that has tried a Truecaller device (ie, not just a piece of software) that gets attached to a phone, can you still set up cloud based VM / email notifications? From what I saw described, the box gets attached to the phone to try to block / weed out calls. You can enter in numbers you want to block . . . but not sure how much that would help if every incoming spam call originated from a different phone number.
 
Saw this on the news. AI answers these calls and is designed to keep the caller on the phone as long as possible to waste their time. They do it with an old lady's voice who comes off clueless and keeps going in circles throughout (things like getting a pen, paper, asking questions, redundancy, confusion, etc.). The average time for the predatory calls -- before the human finally hangs up on "her" -- was over 20 minutes. One guy was on 43 minutes and ended up infuriated.

These scumbags would get extremely frustrated and begin lashing out in the end, with insults about "her" stupidity and cursing out the poor old lady.

It was great. No idea the name, just that it was done in the U.K.
 
Block the calls from those numbers as they call. Takes time, but works. Didn’t receive one spam call this election cycle
 
Talked to IT and phone support from my phone service provider. They tightened up some security settings, added a layer of call blocking from anonymous or unregistered phone numbers, and are seeing if they have a secondary call blocking solution. Will see if this makes a dent.
 
Saw this on the news. AI answers these calls and is designed to keep the caller on the phone as long as possible to waste their time. They do it with an old lady's voice who comes off clueless and keeps going in circles throughout (things like getting a pen, paper, asking questions, redundancy, confusion, etc.). The average time for the predatory calls -- before the human finally hangs up on "her" -- was over 20 minutes. One guy was on 43 minutes and ended up infuriated.

These scumbags would get extremely frustrated and begin lashing out in the end, with insults about "her" stupidity and cursing out the poor old lady.

It was great. No idea the name, just that it was done in the U.K.
Just wait until the scumbags start harnessing AI better.
 
Saw this on the news. AI answers these calls and is designed to keep the caller on the phone as long as possible to waste their time. They do it with an old lady's voice who comes off clueless and keeps going in circles throughout (things like getting a pen, paper, asking questions, redundancy, confusion, etc.). The average time for the predatory calls -- before the human finally hangs up on "her" -- was over 20 minutes. One guy was on 43 minutes and ended up infuriated.

These scumbags would get extremely frustrated and begin lashing out in the end, with insults about "her" stupidity and cursing out the poor old lady.

It was great. No idea the name, just that it was done in the U.K.
Yeah, I've seen these. But I've got to believe that the people making these calls are only doing so because they have to in order to survive (scammers excepted). I'd have to be at about the end of my rope before I'd take a job telemarketing.

But then again, I'm just an old softie.
 
Not only does everyone want to give me a loan, but someone is going to deliver a summons to my workplace if I don't call them back immediately.
 

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