WWTBAM Bored

I've done the Do Not Call registry, and blocked some numbers at Verizon. There have been a flood of magazine spam callers lately (I talked to one, long enough to find out the scam). Is there any recourse, except to just stop answering the phone (which I've done)?

I don't know why it is any more demoralizing than paper mail garbage or e-mail spam, but it is. It feels more personal, somehow. I read a great article 3-4 months ago about how this is why people don't answer the phone anymore, and for those of us who grew up feeling obligated to do so (except during the dinner hour), it was a tidal shift in how the world works.

Ritterskoop wrote:I've done the Do Not Call registry, and blocked some numbers at Verizon. There have been a flood of magazine spam callers lately (I talked to one, long enough to find out the scam). Is there any recourse, except to just stop answering the phone (which I've done)?

I don't know why it is any more demoralizing than paper mail garbage or e-mail spam, but it is. It feels more personal, somehow. I read a great article 3-4 months ago about how this is why people don't answer the phone anymore, and for those of us who grew up feeling obligated to do so (except during the dinner hour), it was a tidal shift in how the world works.

The government is toothless. If they're calling your cell phone, install and use the TrueCaller app. It's not perfect but you can add the numbers that call you to the block list.

Blocking methods are just about useless - the spammers are constantly spoofing numbers and rarely call from the same number. The high volume of spam calls has totally shredded any remnants of phone patience that I may have had. I have no choice but to answer my cell phone as I use it for work but we no longer answer our home phone unless we recognize a name from caller ID. All I can do when answering a robo call on my cell is just hang up as fast as I can.

If I do ever run into and can identify "Bridget from Credit Card Services" or any of her perky robo's in arms, I'll likely just gut her on the spot and leave her bleeding out body in the street to rot. (I may be just a tad bitter about all the wasted time answering robo calls)

Read an article recently that claimed that in 2018, 29% of all calls were robo calls. They expect that to go up to 48% in 2019. The only silver lining is that the spam robo's are totally killing the success ratio's of legitimate telemarketing.