this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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Pick up the phone, say nothing and mute it. Unless you have a good reason to answer it, leave it be. Hang up after 30 seconds of they dont. The more sophisticated spammers will write you off as an automated system.
If it's a human who should reach you, they'll assume it was a bad connection and say hello after 10 seconds or so.
Tried this a couple of times, but they kept calling my junk phone. I got like 7 or 8 calls the day after Thanksgiving. I block the numbers, but the next number will just be one or two digits different
I keep the junk phone for things like shopping clubs, pharmacy reminders, etc. I have a seperate number for people and trusted sources (though I realize that anyone can be compromised. I'll get a fresh number once that happens again)
Anyway, point is- I dont think they're human scammers. At least not the ones calling me
It's bad advice. Just stop answering the ones you don't recognize. If you have android, Googles phone app is pretty good at giving you the name of the company that is calling you (assuming it's not spoofed). It's also pretty good at flagging calls and texts that might be spam. If you are waiting for a call from your mechanic for example, it will usually show you that its Firestone or NTB or whatever calling.
Stop answering spam calls and they will eventually go away. If they don't go away or seem like they are waning, you might have someone fucking with you and it's time for a new number that you don't give out to anyone. I do the same with email. I have ProtonMail and I have a few aliases that I use for specific purposes, if/when one them is leaked/sold/traded/whatever, I will temporarily pause that address and eventually it will get flagged as a bad one and they will stop coming.
They do not go away. I have literally forgotten about this phone to the point of it being dead/drained for an extended period of time... they calls never stop
Have you turned on spam protection from your carrier? And as I said in another comment, if you port the number to GV or the like and let it sit, it will eventually stop getting calls. It also depends on what you mean by extended periods of time and if you then start answering the calls even when you aren't expecting a call or don't recognize the number.
I've answered two recently, but hadn't answered them for about 6 mo to a year or so.
Before that- probably 3 years ago, now, I contacted the carrier about spam texts from websites and that stopped, though I still get spam texts from numbers (mostly political)
This number belonged to someone who was ditching creditors, so I think they eventually sold the number and it just gets passed around. Half the reason I keep it is so that it doesnt get released to someone else (it's like something out of a pass-it-along horror movie)
Most of the time I dont care, but occationally I leave the volume up for some reason and end up with a 6am wake up spam call. I can ignore it 90% of the time