I’ve been getting tons. And love the new,
Hey Patrick, this is Craig. Can you give me a call, an interesting opportunity just crossed my desk you might be interested in.
Same guy. Multiple times a day and it’s not like he remembers the earlier call
And don’t know Craig. The number comes up unavailable but I see it. And I certainly don’t need his interesting opportunity.
I’ve blocked at least 2000 numbers. It doesn’t help but it makes me feel better 
SOLVED!!!
About six months ago we bought this phone with “Smart Call Blocker”. Basically if the caller isn’t in your approved friends & family list they get a message telling them to record their name and only then will the phone ring through and announce their name. I’m happy to say that not a single scammer has ever bothered to record “this is the IRS” or “this is Microsoft technical support” and if I did hear that I’d just let it roll to voicemail.
So if someone calls on your approved list the phone rings but if they aren’t then the phone doesn’t ring unless the record their name. I’ll look at the end of the night and see several scammer calls that never got through.
The downsides include some complexity programming and inputting friends, and legitimate calllers not in the list need to navigate it once, then it’s easy to hit a button to add them to your approved list going forward. I just looked on Amazon and it looks backordered because they just had a Lightning sale on the system.
We’ve seen an uptick too, mostly from a local number. Very frustrating.
I had nomorobo for over a year and still had calls get thru. Lately I’ve seen an uptick and getting 4-5 a day. Ugh! So annoying. I’m going to set it with DND except for contacts as suggested above.
I give out my google number for everything these days. If it’s important for they will leave a voicemail.
I have my smart phone set to Do Not Disturb except for all the contacts in my address book. Only problem is I don’t get a sound notification for my texts any more. I still prefer to not have the spam calls, but it’s annoying that it silences the texts.
I never received spam calls on my iPhone until sometime in November. It was like someone turned on a switch and I received 4-5 a day. But only on business days. I religiously block all callers and it had slowed down to about 2 a day, when I read an article about using DND.
Just as others here mentioned, I’ve noticed a lot more local numbers spoofed in the last couple-few months. I let everything go to voice.
When my late MIL had a stroke very early 2018, one of the things DH did was change her address to ours with the postal service. Since we have a listed landline, that caught up with us, and we started getting MIL’s robocalls as well as ours.
I have the app TrueCaller on my phone, as well as Call Protect from my provider AT&T. It helps a lot.
My biggest complaint is with the Red Cross - they call me every day to ask me to donate blood.
I have started deleting my home phone number from the many places that have it, such as doctor’s offices and drug store customer programs. Our intention is to just stop having a home number. At least that will get rid of half of the junk calls.
It would seem that the most hopeful way to get rid of this is to have a large number of us cancel our phone service. It has to be possible for the phone companies to block these calls if they get sufficient motivation. If they haven’t gotten the word by now, then I don’t see how anything less than losing customers will be enough motivation.
I get a very official sounding call about my student loans. Cracks me up.
We used to on our landline - it was out of control! But we got rid of it about 3 years ago and only use cell phones. Do not miss it all these years later! Cell phone is hit and miss, I just block the ones that come through and never answer the ones I do not recognize.
I also have call protect. The calls it labels as spam are what appear to be AT&T Marketing calls!!
I recently cancelled our paper. DH and I actually like the physical paper but the delivery service and failed attempts to put in vacation holds are both frustrating. And we will be traveling soon after our year is up. We’ve been supporters of the paper for decades, and every year we do this dance with them to keep the rates in line. But I don’t want to even consider it until after we return from travel. Their sales people have called (the landline) and left messages EVERY DAY since we cancelled. Not returning those calls anytime soon. Also, last year when they started to hound me with calls, the number that claimed to be from the paper was actually a third party telemarketer. That was annoying.
Oh, the newspaper! I love reading print, but the cost was getting out of control. 6 months ago we went to the Thursday/Sunday option with online access for $16 a month. The full week was $48 month and jumping to $62! I said no way. So, 3 months ago they’ve raised their price to $25 and the revamped the Sunday paper to almost nothing. I’d like to just get rid of it, but we’ve always enjoyed reading the Sunday paper over coffee and talking about the articles. It’s not the same now. I’m done in no time.
I kinda like the Weds supermarket ads and the Sunday paper, and I know its unlikely I will read the print edition (It seems cumbersome to me and I don’t do it now even when away). I may discuss renewing it with them down the road but not now. And I’d want a weds/Sunday option and they don’t offer it.
I’ve been able in past years to get them to agree to a rate usually only a few dollars more than the previous year (they first try to almost double our rate). We’ve in past years managed to keep our 7 day delivery down to about $16/mo.
When they tried every sales hook on the planet to keep us as a customer, they said we could do the online only. I was curious as to how much that was (since it costs them essentially nothing to turn that on). It was $22/mo!! Um, no. Last year it took many calls for them to get a rate into a range I’d accept. Each time thy’d call and say it was the lowest they could go, and then someone would call a few days later with a lower rate. I tell them each time the terrible delivery issues we’ve had and that I cannot justify paying more for continued bad service.
I did that dance with newspaper delivery for years. DH liked having a daily paper; I only needed Thurs. Rates were ridiculous. Eventually we settled on Thurs/Sun editions with digital access the rest of the week. When we moved, I tried to cancel the print delivery and keep digital, which still had 9 months left on our yearly deal. They wouldn’t do that since they considered only keeping digital as a new subscription. We cancelled. Now we have a Sun delivery/digital subscription to our new local paper that I got through Groupon. Let’s see what they want to charge when that runs out.
Re: robocalls. For about 2 weeks, once or twice a day, I got a call saying my SSN would be suspended. Each incoming # was slightly different from the previous one. I never answered the calls. Fortunately, they eventually stopped, but I know it’s only time until a new one starts.
We were out of town for several weeks and when we got back there were 24 voice messages on our landline. Only 2 were real people. We have nomorobo but it did not seem to stop them. However, I think the system learns or they give up. We have not had many calls since getting back and no messages. We do have the annoying 1 ring a couple of times a day though. I just started getting more on my cell phone. I have nomorobo and RoboKiller on my phone but a couple get through anyhow. All of our phones are listed on the Do Not Call registry. Not very effective since only honest vendors use it. I think phone companies should be able to do more. They have no incentive
Okay, I just realized I don’t have nomorobo. I have RoboKiller, and very few calls get through. It does recognize spoofed numbers as spam.
Sorry for the error.
@college_query We also receive numerous calls from the Red Cross (three donors in the house). The last time I answered, I told the woman that we wouldn’t donate any more if they continued to hound us with phone calls. She was able to put us on the “only call twice a year list”, or something like that. I hope it works!
Ok…I’ll try to look at the glass as half full. The increase in spam phone calls has significantly reduced the amount of junk snail mail we receive.
I’m sick of being asked if I want my chimney cleaned, or if I want new windows and siding. And health insurance.
And Hilton Hotels? They use that local auto robotcall thing that uses your area code. Disgusting. It makes me never want to stay at a Hilton Hotel ever again.
Are you sure it is Hilton? Or maybe someone phishing. I am not aware of Hilton spoofing numbers. Any I got from them were legit numbers.