What's Up with These 800 Number Phone Calls Lately?

In recent months, I’ve had strange phone calls that begin with the 800 number. I don’t answer them but do check my voicemail for anything legit and important. These strange 800 number calls do leave me voice messages but they’re all taped and in Chinese, which I don’t understand. At least it begins with an English message, something about “DHL” international delivery not being picked up or something like that. We don’t have anything shipped via “DHL” nor expecting any package from anyone. I guess they’re targeting me and my wife because we have Asian names. With these phone calls, we simply blocked them.

Today, however, they (whoever they are) decided to “machine gun” call both of us at the same time. At 5:39 p.m., I got a call from 800-322-1016. At 5:45 p.m., I got one from 80057190929 (that’s the exact record), then at 5:47 p.m., from +800 5719 0929, then at 5:48 p.m., from (800) 858-3253, and then, finally! one from +1 800-858-3253 at 5:50 p.m. While I was getting these calls, my wife’s phone went off from these calls, as well. Just bizarre. All these while having our dinner.

It’s something I’ve never experienced before, this machine gun calling. It’s like someone’s really pi**ed that we haven’t yet been duped into whatever they wanted us to be duped into.

Does anyone have any insights into what these 800 number scammers are up to?

Not even remotely an Asian name here, but we have received a fair number of these calls. Someone says they are carpet-bombing area codes with large Chinese population to extort money via some immigration scam. Our area has a big Chinese presence.

@BunsenBurner

That’s interesting. I had to assume that they were specifically targeting Asians since they were leaving voice messages in Chinese with a bit of English intro.

I’m getting them all the time. Not asian by any means. Happening to lots of people at work. Not a large Asian population here. They are coming into our work phones (gov’t facility), homes and cells.

This week it has been health insurance calls every 30 minutes on the work phone!

I’ve seen an uptick as well but I never answer a number I don’t know and no messages.

I’ve been getting a bunch from Canada in the last few days.

Wow I thought it was just me suddenly getting these 800 number calls over the last two days. It forced me to look for a solution and the best I arrived at is the IPhone feature that started with iOS 13 where you can set it to send unknown callers directly to voicemail. Sadly that is what has been my m.o. for unknown callers lately anyway. Got to: Settings>phone > silence unknown callers

Hubby turns 65 next year - Oy Vey, we get at LOT of calls from “Medicare” (companies that want to sell wrap-around policies).

We get calls from one 800 number or another almost daily. What screws me to the ceiling is that the call doesn’t disconnect until after my machine has started recording, so I have to delete a bunch of empty messages. Still beats letting them talk to me.

One day last week my own number called me every twenty minutes – by the time the spoofer blinked first, we had 18 missed calls.

There was a spike in empty messages left on my office phone… 5 yesterday and 3 today.

We got a 800 area code call where they left a message that I will lose my SSN if I don’t call them back—wow!

Used to be none left messages but now they’re leaving messages telling me to call the agent back—SS or insurance or a other folks I have no dealings with. I never answer but get text voice mail and can read some version of any message they leave.

Sometimes H’s cell and mine will ring at same or nearly same time from same #. Weird.

I’ve been getting lots of calls from 800 and 844 numbers that are getting past my robo call filters. I don’t answer.

At least the 1-800 calls are easy to recognize as spam and ignore. The calls that really annoy me are the ones that use our local exchange! I can’t tell if they’re legitimate or not. I’ve used the iPhone feature to filter calls from people not in my contact list, but then of course I miss calls I need to take. It’s getting almost unbearable. :frowning:

I also get the Chinese calls and am not Asian. I’ve gotten a lot of the health insurance calls too. I get a ton of calls from the area code my phone has (but I no longer live in), and these calls are not from the hometown, but a large array of other tiny towns that are obviously not legit calls. I don’t pick up any of these calls. Very few leave voice mail. I have started blocking many of the numbers after the fact, but obviously, they find new numbers to use. It is very annoying. Blocking the numbers, which I just started doing and learned how to do, is helping just a tiny bit, but not enough.

I would not want to use a setting that blocks all unknown numbers, however. I have an independent business and some calls are potential clients, etc. and I draw clients from throughout the US and abroad.

I stopped answering calls from unknown numbers years ago for exactly this reason. The more recent trick they have is to spoof the incoming caller id area code so it matches that of your phone number or local area as @MaineLonghorn noticed.

Add me to the list of getting the Chinese calls (have been getting them for a while, but they seem to come in spurts). Add to the health insurance, political and “the company is going out of business and we need to send you $ back”, and the "greetings citizen- your social security number has been suspended (or whatever) calls and the landline, which I answer only if I recognize the caller, goes unanswered. Some leave messages (whichis how I know what they are). Some of the “greetings citizen” calls have found their way to my cellphone. When I block the number, andother comes through. Ugh!

Along with these frequent 800 numbers, I’ve been getting even more calls from my area code and with the first 3 digit numbers that match mine.

Prior to getting the 800 numbers, I started getting the calls from the UK while we were sleeping, usually around 2 or 3 a.m. I now make sure that we turn off our phones before going to sleep. These calls from the UK seem to have stopped when the 800 number call bombardment commenced.

There’s nothing I can do except to block each one as it comes.

It’s not just 800 numbers. I got some 928(?) numbers who left a message in Chinese. I have no idea what it was saying. The new iPhone software sends any number not on my list to voicemail without ringing. It’s quiet ever since on my end.

We have days where all the phones in our office start to ring and the calls are from 800 numbers and if you answer the recording is in Chinese. Our IT person keeps blocking numbers, but it continues to happen.

I never answer my cell phone unless it is a number that I know.

The last few days mine weren’t even 800 numbers. One even said McDonalds! When I’m at work I have to pick up and the one that said McDonalds was health insurance. Needless to say I hang up. On my cell they go to voice mail. The 800 numbers are in Chinese! I think today IT blocked the most recent round because I haven’t gotten any today!

If you see a “local” number that you do not recognize, isn’t it always an illegal telemarketer or scam?

Or are you referring to your business phone number that may receive legitimate calls from potential customers whom you previously had no contact with?