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For whatever reason, in my most current job, unwanted phone calls and email solicitations have gone up 20X. With phone calls I give a polite "not interested" a

For whatever reason, in my most current job, unwanted phone calls and email solicitations have gone up 20X. With phone calls I give a polite "not interested" and if there is anything other than "I'm sorry" I hang up mid-sentence. It took me a while to be this direct, but they have no right to waste my time. With email I used to politely say, "I'm not interested" to the spammer's email. (I've been on the other side, and it's tough work) Then I realized that it's just feeding the beast, so I usually ignore and mark as spam.

djKianoosh 10y ago
I take it a step further. insta-block phone numbers (never answer either) and insta-spam/unsubscribe emails.
- tokenizerrr 10y ago
  And how do you know a phone number is spam without answering it?
  - uxp 10y ago
    Generally, if it's not in my contacts list, then it's unsolicited and flagged spam. I won't answer unknown phone numbers (as I get a large number of spam calls in Spanish for immigration and high interest loans coming from or spoofed to the same area code and CO as my number, so even "local" numbers are suspect to me). If I don't answer, they leave a message, and it is someone or someplace I know about, then I'll add it to my contacts. If I answer an unknown number, just the act of asking "Hello?" seems to be about the equivalent as clicking an unsubscribe link in a true spam message; it notifies the spammer that they've got a warm contact that they can resell or contact again.
    - tokenizerrr 10y ago
      It's insane to me that you refuse to pick up the phone for people whose phone number you don't know. Aren't you anyone's emergency contact?
      - uxp 10y ago
        Yes I am. I know iOS allows someone to dial their emergency contact from a locked phone, so in that case I will receive a call from the person's phone that I know about. Otherwise, they leave a message and I get to it immediately and call them back. The reality of an emergency situation where someone I know has me listed as an ICE contact and someone else calls on their behalf from an unknown number is that I cannot do much to help them in a situation that a minute or two of phone-tag would introduce. That's what 911 and other emergency services are for. If you are ever in a situation where you come across someone that has just sustained major injury, who are you going to call first? Their children or spouse to let them know of the situation, or medical help via 911? I'd hope you would chose the latter to get them the critical medical help they need before you inform someone else of the situation.
        criley2 10y ago
        Additionally, if you're the emergency contact and I don't answer and you immediately call back, I'll probably pick up. I don't normally block numbers, just let them voicemail me if I don't recognize it, but if a spammer will double-call like that I'll block them, and it means I'll pick up for emergencies.
        pavel_lishin 10y ago
        Ditto for double-call signifying an emergency that I should pick up for, both for people I know and unknown numbers.
        tamana 10y ago
        How can you block them? The whole point is that spammers call from unknown numbers. Double calling is just an annoying arms race.
        jerf 10y ago
        Has anyone ever been double-called by a spammer? Honest question. I never have. I suspect they're generally working on some pretty razor-thin margins with these things nowadays [1], and chasing someone who didn't twitch at the bait is probably a losing proposition for them. [1]: Between all the easy competition and the incurred legal risks. Legal risk is a funny thing because you're basically rolling the dice on being able to collect money without getting in trouble. I wouldn't be surprised a full and honest accounting including legal risks yields a negative net expectation for phone spammers, it's just that even so, some people will get lucky and "win".
  - jobigoud 10y ago
    There are websites for caller reputation. (If you can assume that an unknown number is suspicious).
- jobigoud 10y ago
  I do the same. Almost no one has my landline phone number, so whenever I get a call I paste the number in Google. 9/10 times other people have already reported it as spam. I then proceed to blacklist it which can be done from the phone itself and takes about 5 keystrokes.
  - uxp 10y ago
    One app I've always wanted to write is one that intercepts incoming phone numbers that are not on your contact list and do a quick lookup on those reputation service sites and display it side-by-side with the number. Similar to how iOS has recently added the "Might Be John Doe" based on numbers it has learned about through iMessage or Mail. Maybe iOS 10 has added enough functionality on the call screen APIs to allow it (I haven't honestly checked), but up until now there hasn't been a way to tie into calls like that without actually writing an entire VoIP backend so you could control the complete call flow.
    - criley2 10y ago
      Truecaller and Contacts+ do something similar, TrueCaller is very similar to what you describe https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller...

djKianoosh 10y ago

I take it a step further. insta-block phone numbers (never answer either) and insta-spam/unsubscribe emails.

tokenizerrr 10y ago
And how do you know a phone number is spam without answering it?
- uxp 10y ago
  Generally, if it's not in my contacts list, then it's unsolicited and flagged spam. I won't answer unknown phone numbers (as I get a large number of spam calls in Spanish for immigration and high interest loans coming from or spoofed to the same area code and CO as my number, so even "local" numbers are suspect to me). If I don't answer, they leave a message, and it is someone or someplace I know about, then I'll add it to my contacts. If I answer an unknown number, just the act of asking "Hello?" seems to be about the equivalent as clicking an unsubscribe link in a true spam message; it notifies the spammer that they've got a warm contact that they can resell or contact again.
  - tokenizerrr 10y ago
    It's insane to me that you refuse to pick up the phone for people whose phone number you don't know. Aren't you anyone's emergency contact?
    - uxp 10y ago
      Yes I am. I know iOS allows someone to dial their emergency contact from a locked phone, so in that case I will receive a call from the person's phone that I know about. Otherwise, they leave a message and I get to it immediately and call them back. The reality of an emergency situation where someone I know has me listed as an ICE contact and someone else calls on their behalf from an unknown number is that I cannot do much to help them in a situation that a minute or two of phone-tag would introduce. That's what 911 and other emergency services are for. If you are ever in a situation where you come across someone that has just sustained major injury, who are you going to call first? Their children or spouse to let them know of the situation, or medical help via 911? I'd hope you would chose the latter to get them the critical medical help they need before you inform someone else of the situation.
      - criley2 10y ago
        Additionally, if you're the emergency contact and I don't answer and you immediately call back, I'll probably pick up. I don't normally block numbers, just let them voicemail me if I don't recognize it, but if a spammer will double-call like that I'll block them, and it means I'll pick up for emergencies.
        pavel_lishin 10y ago
        Ditto for double-call signifying an emergency that I should pick up for, both for people I know and unknown numbers.
        tamana 10y ago
        How can you block them? The whole point is that spammers call from unknown numbers. Double calling is just an annoying arms race.
        jerf 10y ago
        Has anyone ever been double-called by a spammer? Honest question. I never have. I suspect they're generally working on some pretty razor-thin margins with these things nowadays [1], and chasing someone who didn't twitch at the bait is probably a losing proposition for them. [1]: Between all the easy competition and the incurred legal risks. Legal risk is a funny thing because you're basically rolling the dice on being able to collect money without getting in trouble. I wouldn't be surprised a full and honest accounting including legal risks yields a negative net expectation for phone spammers, it's just that even so, some people will get lucky and "win".
- jobigoud 10y ago
  There are websites for caller reputation. (If you can assume that an unknown number is suspicious).
jobigoud 10y ago
I do the same. Almost no one has my landline phone number, so whenever I get a call I paste the number in Google. 9/10 times other people have already reported it as spam. I then proceed to blacklist it which can be done from the phone itself and takes about 5 keystrokes.
- uxp 10y ago
  One app I've always wanted to write is one that intercepts incoming phone numbers that are not on your contact list and do a quick lookup on those reputation service sites and display it side-by-side with the number. Similar to how iOS has recently added the "Might Be John Doe" based on numbers it has learned about through iMessage or Mail. Maybe iOS 10 has added enough functionality on the call screen APIs to allow it (I haven't honestly checked), but up until now there hasn't been a way to tie into calls like that without actually writing an entire VoIP backend so you could control the complete call flow.
  - criley2 10y ago
    Truecaller and Contacts+ do something similar, TrueCaller is very similar to what you describe https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.truecaller...