General > General Technical Chat

UPDATED: Well... looks like I've l̶o̶s̶t̶ won the battle against scam callers

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xrunner:
Select a distinctive ringtone for your contacts which is the same sound. All other ring tones will be unknown callers. Simply don't answer. If it's an important message from a long lost relative they will leave a message.

All the calls I get from people who want to buy my house (a bothersome problem for people in my area now) I don't answer. Guess what? They don't ever leave a message.

m k:
A message is obvious next step if you have a legit case.

Around here the current issue is optical fibre.
How would a blocked general sales call go through to those who are possibly interested?
For now it's door to door and leaflets, after general awareness ads.

Here, still few years ago, don't know how it is now, voice was differently legislated, aerial radio and TV also.
For voice it was even a bit more different, telcos fought against VoIP, surprisingly they were never against cable TV.

In practice the law was that if you speak nobody is allowed to tap the call, without a special exception.
And it continued so that if that sound is not speak the law is still the same.
But then everything changed and protection of the law was not present for calls outside of the phone network.
And telcos argued that old legislation must be widened to cover all calls.
For protection of the public that was not, just a simple money thing it was.

Now all net addresses are free to grab.
I'd say that finally there must be a state operated gate keeper.
Here it already goes so that you can't manage your own addresses.
The real reason is that state had no entity to keep up so one commercial step was created in between.
It's still the same free to grab but state has less clueless questions to answer.

Stray Electron:

--- Quote from: Halcyon on March 25, 2023, 04:55:19 am ---

Keen to hear how others manage these nuisance callers.

--- End quote ---


   1) NEVER answer a call unless you KNOW exactly who it is. If you do answer a call from a SCAMMER, you'll go right back to the top of not only their call list but also all of the list of all of the other SCAMMERS.

    2)  NEVER, EVER, EVER give your phone number to your doctor's office or any other business.  Take my word for it, they ALL sell their data to other companies (quaintly referred to as their "business associates") and your data will spread like wildfire.

    3) Block the phone number of EVERY unknown caller that you get a call from. (You can later unblock the number if it turns out that the call was legitimate.)  Tele SCAMMERS do change their phone numbers periodically but after a time they seem to reuse their old numbers again.  So if you block them after the first call, you'll never be bothered again.

    4)  Re-read rule #2!   I don't care what excuses or reasons they offer, do NOT give them your phone number or you will be on everyone's call list.

 
  Over the last 20 or so years I've tried every combination and technique but the rules above are the only thing that has worked.

      I was particularly upset to find that at least two of my Dr's offices were "sharing" my information, in direct violation of the Hippa Act.

Stray Electron:

--- Quote from: Bud on March 25, 2023, 05:00:44 am ---
--- Quote from: Halcyon on March 25, 2023, 04:55:19 am ---
Another useful feature would be to only accept calls from those in my contacts, but again, not a feature that's available in the native phone application.

--- End quote ---
Exists natively on iPhone.

--- End quote ---


   There is a setting for it on my Samsung phone but it doesn't work!    :rant:

Stray Electron:

--- Quote from: Halcyon on March 25, 2023, 05:31:58 am ---

I'm honestly at the stage where I don't care if I'm completely unreachable via phone.


--- End quote ---

    X2.  This is where I'm at too.  My family and friend's know how to find me.  Everyone else can FO. It's not worth being interrupted 10 to 20 times PER DAY to get one legitimate call.

    Thanks to the telemarketers, pollsters, political calls, charity hoaxs and other SCAMMERS and the inaction of the phone companies, the days of the "Telephone" as a useful tool are over with IMO.   In my younger years I didn't have a phone and I'm ready to go back to not having one.

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