(Picture alt text: a screenshot of my phone’s call log, with numbers redacted (just in case). The phone numbers (except for one) are all spam calls)
I’m not sure if this is the correct place for this, but I am at my limit with these.
Constantly throughout the day I get spam call after spam call. I constantly report them to Google (I’ve got a Pixel 5, if it matters), yet nothing changes. This has been happening for months.
These calls will also leave the exact same, completely silent, 4-second voicemails. I will block and report spam, but you know how it is. There’s no way to turn voice mail notifications off, and I wouldn’t necessarily want to, because I know I’d miss something genuine or important.
What do I do? Is there anything I can do, beyond changing numbers? Even then, I’m sure a new number would exist in some database somewhere and be victim to more spam calls. This is heinous.
Thanks for reading. I’m just so frustrated.
Edit: this got a lot more attention than I anticipated. I appreciate the suggestions for different spam blockers and settings! It’s also nice knowing I’m not alone. Hopefully, at least in the US, we’ll get some real legislation eventually that will kill these spam calls once and for all.
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The issue is lots of countries (including America) let scammers spoof a real life number.
So you get a spam call from a random local number block it because it was spam, but the scammers just use another number and all you’ve done is block a random number that’s owned by an actual individual or will be soon.
It’s all based on laws from decades ago and not accounting for modern tech
The phone companies could stop number spoofing if they wanted to, they just don’t see the benefit in doing so.
Someone should set up a robocalling system with number spoofing to call phone company execs and law makers to annoy them into stopping it.
They make a lot of money doing it…
And I think Colbert or Stewart did it
I think it was John Oliver
A couple weeks ago I got a random call from an 866 number whose caller id was Apex Tactical, as in the body cam and weapon gear manufacturer. I don’t have any involvement in or make any purchases in anything remotely related to them and it was kind of wild they didn’t leave a voicemail and I kind of just assumed it was a spoofed spam call but then that begs the question wtf why pick that company to impersonate lol
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This is a tactic that worked for me, but your mileage may vary. I used to get dozens of spam calls a day on both my work and personal numbers. I did all the things that you’re supposed to do and they just kept coming. I also needed to answer unknown numbers on my work phone so I couldn’t just block them.
So after a while, I started answering the calls and calling them back when I got silence. I made sure I could talk to a person/scammer as often as possible. In the beginning I would just ask them if they felt good about themselves trying to scam people out of their money. They would generally just hang up but one guy gave this long speech about how if you were that dumb you didn’t deserve that much money and how he was living the American dream (although I did ask him if he was in American at which point he hung up on me). After that, I would just start trying to keep them on the phone as long as possible. My job is such that I can work and talk on the phone at the same time, so I made a word document that had a fake name, birth day, social security number, address, a fake person basically. Then I would put on my “old man” voice and just act stupid to keep them on the phone. I kept one guy on the phone for four hours as I pretended to be too inept to turn on my laptop to give him my IP address. He was quite upset when I told him I knew he was scamming me.
Anyway, I haven’t gotten a scam call in like 6 months. I think scammers put me on their do not call list. Maybe worth a shot?
Pretty similar for me, almost disappointed I haven’t gotten one in a while. It’s funny to waste their time, and get them all worked up lol.
Yeah it was kinda fun. I figured ever minute I had them on the phone was a minute they weren’t scamming old people with dementia out of their money, so at the very least I was doing something mildly good too.
I do love the idea of wasting their time! I’ve done it a couple of times, but nothing quite so extensive as what you do. Usually when I call robo call numbers back, I get “this number is disconnected,” so I can’t even annoy the hell out of them like they do to me. :/
Four hour guy I had a lot of clerical work to do at work that day and didn’t need to talk on the phone at all so I just kept him going. Would go off on long made up stories related to what he was saying. Told him about my kids and their kids and my deceased wife. They guy told me that my card was used to purchase (among other expensive things) “$3,000 worth of Bitcoin” and I kept being like “what’s a bite coin?” and he COULD. NOT. GET. PAST. me calling it bite coin instead of Bitcoin. He would correct me every time. Then I asked what that was and he told me it was a digital currency and I told him about my coin collection for like 8 minutes before he steered me back on topic. I only told him I was wasting his time because I was done with work.
I will say, one guy asked if I lived alone and I told him I do now because my wife of 47 years died two months ago and he said “Ahhh…that’s sad…” and hung up on me. So at least that guy wasn’t completely evil.
If you’re not getting calls it’s just coincidence. Scammers don’t have a unified do not call register.
You’re just wasting your time.
Arguably what he is doing is for good, because he is also wasting their time, not being able to scam actual victims.
Not really. If you really wanted to help your time would be better spent volunteering for an organisation that teaches tech literacy to people.
Also I don’t really believe OPs claims. Sure OK occasionally you might get a scammer to talk for more than a few minutes but not often.
One spam call I asked the guy to stay on the line while I verify his number by running a route trace. He hung up and I stopped getting spam calls almost completely. Now I get a few that are auto-blocked but I still get robo-voicemails.
This has been effective for me, too, though I haven’t put that much effort towards it. I lose interest and change my mind about wanting to be on the phone for very long, but I’ll engage with them. Like question why they are asking for my name if they called claiming there was a warrant for me, or similar situations where they are asking for information that they should have if the call was legit. Their goal isn’t to call people and annoy them, they want easy money from stupid people (and tbh, I don’t have much sympathy for those dumb enough to fall for it).
If you slow them down in their system, they seem to have another system to help filter people like you out.
Yeah I’ve started doing the same and its almost like they maintain a list of us time wasters 😅 I’ll typically play along as long as I can so they think I’m all game. After they rage quit I immediately call the number back from a second phone and attempt to play dumb like I got disconnected, typically with some other dumbass that just resets and starts the script over, so I get a free two-fer 😂
It has become a fun little ride every once in a while!
It’s probably a coincidence. Systems like that would mark your number as active as soon as you called back, and therefore either valid for spam calls directly, or ready to resell to other spammers, so they get their money in either case.
Since you have a Pixel maybe try changing the call screening settings?
I just leave it on maximum. Too many spoofed local numbers. If it’s someone important a d they’re not in my contacts, they’ll either make it through the screener or leave a message.
Silly question, but where in settings is this? I feel like I’ve had it set up but can’t remember.
Open phone app, 3 dots at the top right, settings, call screen
Seems to be on, apparently… Thank you for showing me though!
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Thank you! I didn’t know where to find that setting and I didn’t know exactly what term to search in the settings to find it.
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I don’t see why prison calls need to be filtered out by spam filters
Probably because if they are automatically marked as “legit” spammers will just spoof those numbers.
Where is this setting?
Open phone app, 3 dots at the top right, settings, call screen
Interesting, the menu in your screenshot isn’t available on my Pixel
Are you in the US? I believe call screen is region limited.
I have the AI call screening, just not this specific menu… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So the solution is give Big Daddy G more control huh. How convenient for them.
Greetings, friend. Do you wish to look as happy as me? Well, you’ve got the power inside you right now. Use it, and send one dollar to Happy Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. Don’t delay. Eternal happiness is only a dollar away.
(Sorry for your inconvenience, but this is all I can think of now. 😆)
You know what? I appreciate this reference. And if I don’t laugh, I’ll scream. So thanks!
Sometimes that’s all you can do!
Screw telecoms for letting all this crap continue.
I’ve used it for years now. Very few calls make it through any more.
YACB the GOAT
Blacklist: *
Whitelist Contacts: On
Advanced Call Blocking Mode: On
Absolutely nothing gets through
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Would that work in OP’s case, where the spammers just spoof a local number? You’d think that it would get around that, just by virtue of being an “unrated” number.
yes, you can set up custom blacklists, with wildcard support
Use Carrion from F-Droid and make it your screening app. Numbers that call you have to go through a verification that is mandated in the US & Canada. Numbers that fail this handshake verification will be rejected.
Will this effect callers who’s numbers I don’t have that I need to take? I have business calls all the time where I don’t know the number.
As long as its a legit number that uses a popular carrier that supports modern protocols they should come through. I’d test it out yourself if you have any concerns.
That’s awesome. Thank you. I’ll try it.
I usually get around 1 spam call per day, but sometimes I can get as much as 12 per day. I legitimately wonder why I even have a phone plan at this point and I know I’m not the only one who has considered that.
There was one time I got spam calls just one after another for a good 15 minutes in a row. Like as soon as I’d reject the call, another one would come in. I ended up just turning off my phone for an hour or so. We’re really in a bad state with spam
I’ve had maybe 1 scam call in 5 year after turning on tmobiles blocking feature. Check with your carrier if they offer such a thing.
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You can effectively block all calls using Yet Another Call Blocker.
Optionally send all calls to voicemail.
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Turn off notifications, turn on the service and advanced mode.
My phone never even rings. Ever. All calls are sent to google voice mail.
For numbers that make it through Yet Another Call Blocker, they get sent to my Google voice mail (phone doesn’t even ring).
So then at most I have a notification of a call, and I can see it’s 2 or 3 seconds, so I know it’s BS.
If my phone rings, and I see an unknown number, I just decline. I’m at this level of trust.
Answering my phone is like answering my door.
If I’m not expecting you, I’m not answering.
Anyone important will leave a VM,email, or text to reach back out.
This crap is the only reason I need AI. Unknown call? Take it, AI call screener with infinite patience. Why doesn’t this exist?
It does, my Pixel has call screening built-in and it works great. I think you can install Google Dialer on some other Android phones and use it
I don’t just want it to screen the calls away. I want it to take the call, listen to them, then use an elderly senile voice to waste their time for hours. And even on Pixel I still have text spam coming through.
But then you won’t be able to receive phone calls from other numbers while the phone engages in the fake conversation
The phone could just forward suspected spam calls to a separate number. I wouldn’t expect the AI to run on your phone. Send it to a centralized server just for handling this stuff. If it turns out to be legit, you could still take it back, kinda like voicemail. Besides, who are these people getting multiple calls at once?
This is actually a feature on the Pixel 8. It can even hold for you.
Edit: Well, it can screen the call by listening to the audio for a moment. Making it waste their time might be possible… I can get it talk like a cowboy by just prompting it to do so… Maybe I can prompt it to waste telemarketer and scammers time too 🤔
You can literally see it in this screenshot screening calls.
Yeah, that’s not what I want it to do. I want it to deliberately and maliciously waste spammers’ time. Take the call. Talk to them. Act senile. Keep them talking to an AI as long as possible. Destroy their industry.
Ah ok, yes that would be cool to have
Sounds like a job for Lenny bot. (There are samples on video sites).
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Soo… One of you please make a soundboard app where at the push of a button I can send these telemarketer full on baby screaming sounds or play my own “response” to their ads.
Bad idea… responding to the call marks your number as “active” in their system and they’ll spam you with even more calls. I found that out the hard way.
Or better yet, connect them to a voice chat ai that just wastes their time until they hang up. I wonder if something like that exists…
A few years ago I felt the same way. I installed the Should I Answer? app and even limited calls to people in my contacts to get it under control.
I’m on a Pixel too. I’m in the USA and, at some point, Google got their act together on screening calls here. Most spam is rejected outright and the remaining ones get screened by the phone itself. I haven’t had spam call in a couple of years now! And I don’t have to use Should I Answer? anymore.
The pixel automatic call screener is the best feature of the phone IMO. If its important/relevant whoever is calling will talk to the screener and I can choose to answer. Spam is either already filtered or just hangs up once screened.
Save all known callers to your address book. Set “block calls from unknown numbers” in the android caller settings. Done.
This is hard if you have to see doctors. They like to call from different variations of their numbers.
On Android you don’t have to save the number, you can just block it. I’m not sure if this is true for all Android phones.
I know you can block numbers without adding them, but I mean to do the exact opposite. Save all of your actual contacts and block unknown ones straight away, or send them to mailbox where you leave a recording to email you instead.
Yeah I misunderstood what you said. Thanks for clarifying.
In my country hospitals and the like tend to call with hidden numbers, so it wouldn’t work here.
Whitelist > blacklist
you misunderstood. you save the ones you expect calls from and block all others by default.
Yeah I misunderstood what they said. Thanks for clarifying.
Totally anecdotal but if you have the number connected with social media like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc if you delete your account or maybe even switch out to a different phone number, you will get less to no spam calls. I deleted my social media and after that I don’t receive any calls. I only get calls that I’m supposed to get now.
Also, my phone number registered with bank and dmv is different so this might also be a contributing factor.
Did the same thing. I switched my number and only gave it out in my professional and personal life. Zero spam calls.
That does mean no “rewards programs” at stores and what have you as well.
Would some temp voip number work?
Here’s the voicemail log that I mentioned. It’s just insane.
I don’t even bother with voicemail anymore. They’ve completely taken it over.
What’s real funny though is I got a new number and it hasn’t gotten any spam calls at all, while my old one is still getting them.
I fixed that issue long ago by filling up my voicemail so no one can leave a voice message. Then have your voice mail tell people to send you a text.
I dont know where you live but in Croatia (EU) there is a registar “Dont Call” that you can add your number to. They told me that phone service providers are sharing our numbers LOL unless you ask them not to. This registar should be level above providers so your number should be private no matter what. I was just going to apply to that
That’s… not how that works.
Diallers just dial random numbers. They don’t need a list of numbers to call.
They DGAF if you’re on a do not call register.
In EU due to GDPR you do have the right to be forgot. I have asked those companies who have called me, to delete all information they have about me, and in return I have got the information needed to go through the process. That way there have been less spam calls
