Spam phone calls.

[Pappy13]

Also, tell new people you give your number to that you don’t answer the phone unless you recognize the number so make sure you leave a message if it goes to vm, don’t just keep calling trying to reach me live and/or text me before you call.  

I don’t do what Pappy does (but I probably should) but if I get call from someone not in my contacts about 90% of the time I ignore the call and send it to vm.

That's a good point Hoodie. I do tell everyone that if you're not in my contacts list my phone sends you straight to voicemail so leave me a message and I'll return your call. And then whenever I do get a voicemail that's legit, I always put that number into my contacts list so I know who it is and can find them later and my phone will ring (it's actually kind of a reminder to add them to my contacts list). It actually works really well. I was skeptical at first with doing this too but then it worked so well that I would NEVER go back. Don't think I've EVER missed a call that was so important that it couldn't have gone to voicemail. My kids are all grown so that's not an issue with me but at least you can tell your kids to text you if they are using someone else's phone if they can't reach you by calling you. I think the positive on this FAR outweighs the negative.

[Dave Gray]

I just got thinking about this again today, as I've received multiple spam calls today alone.  ...and it's not even trying to sell me shit -- that's annoying, too.  But this is robots telling me there's a warrant out for my arrest and to push 1 to talk to an Indian in a loud call center.

I just know that people are getting scammed by this shit regularly.  It seems like it would hurt business, too.  I don't do any business over the phone of someone who just calls me randomly because who knows.

[pondwater]

I just got thinking about this again today, as I've received multiple spam calls today alone.  ...and it's not even trying to sell me shit -- that's annoying, too.  But this is robots telling me there's a warrant out for my arrest and to push 1 to talk to an Indian in a loud call center.

I just know that people are getting scammed by this shit regularly.  It seems like it would hurt business, too.  I don't do any business over the phone of someone who just calls me randomly because who knows.

Keep getting them. The last one I answered a couple weeks ago said breast cancer on the TV caller ID. I answered it and said, "you call me everyday, please take me off your list and don't call back". The lady on the other end said, "we're exempt, but I'll put you on our internal do not call list".

I just hung up. Then I thought to myself exempt? WTF you mean exempt? Don't fucking call this number. Anyhow, they haven't called back. Now I have to do that with the police officers and veterans organizations next time they call begging for shit.

[Dave Gray]

I'm worried about over-regulation here.  I know that lots of business use phones to convince people to buy stuff.  Lots of places sell data to target people.  I get that.  And I don't want to hurt those business and take away a tool to reach potential customers.

But someone telling me that I'm going to jail and have a warrant out for my arrest is a scammer.  They're spoofing a number.  For me, it's annoying, but I know for sure that it's working and these people are stealing.  I'm certain that the govt. could work with the carriers in the US to block/track this stuff as well as stop number spoofing.

[Spider-Dan]

Keep getting them. The last one I answered a couple weeks ago said breast cancer on the TV caller ID. I answered it and said, "you call me everyday, please take me off your list and don't call back". The lady on the other end said, "we're exempt, but I'll put you on our internal do not call list".

I just hung up. Then I thought to myself exempt? WTF you mean exempt?

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/national-do-not-call-registry-faqs#what%20doesn't%20do

Are any other types of calls still allowed under FTC rules if I’m on the Registry?

The rules allow

- political calls
- charitable calls
- debt collection calls
- purely informational calls
- surveys

But these calls can’t also include a sales pitch.

They are "exempt" because, as a charitable organization, the federal Do Not Call Registry does not apply to them.

[Dave Gray]

The Do Not Call List registry is fine, but these are thieves that are breaking the law anyway, so it doesn't apply to them either.  This is a technology problem that needs to happen on the carrier end, I think.

[Fau Teixeira]

There's a ton of examples on youtube of recorded conversations with these scam artists from india, where they convince old people that they need to go buy gift cards and have them shipped. These locations are often blind drops or air bnb's that exist only to collect these scam gift cards.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

It is easily fixed if congress/fcc had the will to require honest display of caller id and held the phone companies responsible to manage this with customers.

[Spider-Dan]

Even if Caller ID were required, these international scammers obviously have the technology to spoof it (or we wouldn't be seeing them show up under domestic numbers).  Caller ID isn't the answer to this problem.

[pondwater]

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/national-do-not-call-registry-faqs#what%20doesn't%20do

Are any other types of calls still allowed under FTC rules if I’m on the Registry?

The rules allow

- political calls
- charitable calls
- debt collection calls
- purely informational calls
- surveys

But these calls can’t also include a sales pitch.

They are "exempt" because, as a charitable organization, the federal Do Not Call Registry does not apply to them.

As far as I'm concerned, charitable organizations are no different than scammers, they want something from you. They shouldn't be allowed to harass people and it should be illegal. Anyhow, I don't mind cussing out a volunteer that's harassing me. Thanks for the tip 👍👍👍

[Fau Teixeira]

As far as I'm concerned, charitable organizations are no different than scammers, they want something from you. They shouldn't be allowed to harass people and it should be illegal. Anyhow, I don't mind cussing out a volunteer that's harassing me. Thanks for the tip 👍👍👍

Holy shit we agree 100% on this.
Toss in churches as well! Bunch of scammers.

[Tenshot13]

I feel the same way about the homeless

[Pappy13]

The #1 greatest thing in the world for this is to block all calls from people that are not in your contacts list. They all go straight to voice mail, your phone does not ring. I must have like 3 or 4 a day. All I do is check my voice mail once a day to see if I have missed any calls that I wanted to get and I almost never get voice mails. Rarely do I find a legit call on my voice mail. This has completely solved this problem without any help from anyone. Everyone should quit worrying about missing a phone call (if they aren't in your contacts list then is it that important really)? Just make sure that when you do get a legit phone call you add it to your contacts. Once in a while I'll get a phone call from a doctor or something that's not in my contacts list but then I add them for next time. 99% of calls like that though are now being done by text anyway. You do NOT need to answer calls from people not in your contacts list. Once a month I'll go through and look at my missed calls list and delete them and it's hilarious. I actually enjoy that time spent deleting all those calls from spammers. LOL

[Dave Gray]

I feel the same way about the homeless

You mean like panhandling?  I agree.  I hate it.

[Tenshot13]

You mean like panhandling?  I agree.  I hate it.

Yes that's what I mean.  I'll buy a guy some food before I just hand him money.   Almost all of the time they don't want the food.