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Yes, amazed at how many local numbers are spam. I get three a lot: 1. Vacation Rewards Center - selling cruises I think 2. Business line of credit - their phr

Yes, amazed at how many local numbers are spam. I get three a lot: 1. Vacation Rewards Center - selling cruises I think 2. Business line of credit - their phrasing make it sound like I called them ("Hey, just getting back to you about that $15k line of credit) 3. Tax scare tactics, trying to settle debt or penalties I didn't know who feel for this stuff until I talked to an older gentleman who said he got these calls and it took him a long time and encouragement from his friends to know it was a scam.

abakker 8y ago
"this call is in reference to your credit account...there are no current problems with your account, please press 1 to be connected to an operator that can share an amazing opportunity for you $something" I've never clicked '1', and never felt I've missed out, but I've gotten that same call from local numbers in my same block maybe 50 times already this year.
- noonespecial 8y ago
  I always punch 1. I feel its my civic duty to waste 10 minutes of their time (usually while speaking in my best Monty Python accents). The interesting thing is that I usually only get a person 1/2 the time. The system just glitches to hangup the rest of the time.
  - macawfish 8y ago
    I get these things multiple times per day.
  - JdeBP 8y ago
    It's not a glitch. This sort of system (which will be some form of predictive dialler) relies upon there being far more in-progress calls than human agents. Sometimes, therefore, there's no available agent to connect a person to. This nature of such systems is why some countries regulate them.
  - pandaman 8y ago
    I started doing the same a few weeks ago. It could be a coincidence but the number of calls seems to decrease. Not that I was getting a lot but now I go for many days without any at all. I just get to the life person and put the phone on mute. As far as my disruption goes it's about the same but I imagine the scammer's cost raises manyfold: they pay a lot more for the time on the line and their operators get disrupted on top of that. If I get a call to last a minute vs 3 seconds it takes to hang up it already makes my number an order of magnitude more expensive to call vs. a number that hangs up/does not answer.
mattmcknight 8y ago
I received a call from a very angry lady in my local exchange who was convinced I was calling her all of the time. I tried to explain number spoofing to her, but not sure she got it. In any case, we've mutually blocked each other now.
mc32 8y ago
I get voice mails (calls I don't recognize and don't pick up, but in area code calls) in Chinese about once a week --weird.

abakker 8y ago

"this call is in reference to your credit account...there are no current problems with your account, please press 1 to be connected to an operator that can share an amazing opportunity for you $something" I've never clicked '1', and never felt I've missed out, but I've gotten that same call from local numbers in my same block maybe 50 times already this year.

noonespecial 8y ago
I always punch 1. I feel its my civic duty to waste 10 minutes of their time (usually while speaking in my best Monty Python accents). The interesting thing is that I usually only get a person 1/2 the time. The system just glitches to hangup the rest of the time.
- macawfish 8y ago
  I get these things multiple times per day.
- JdeBP 8y ago
  It's not a glitch. This sort of system (which will be some form of predictive dialler) relies upon there being far more in-progress calls than human agents. Sometimes, therefore, there's no available agent to connect a person to. This nature of such systems is why some countries regulate them.
- pandaman 8y ago
  I started doing the same a few weeks ago. It could be a coincidence but the number of calls seems to decrease. Not that I was getting a lot but now I go for many days without any at all. I just get to the life person and put the phone on mute. As far as my disruption goes it's about the same but I imagine the scammer's cost raises manyfold: they pay a lot more for the time on the line and their operators get disrupted on top of that. If I get a call to last a minute vs 3 seconds it takes to hang up it already makes my number an order of magnitude more expensive to call vs. a number that hangs up/does not answer.

mattmcknight 8y ago

I received a call from a very angry lady in my local exchange who was convinced I was calling her all of the time. I tried to explain number spoofing to her, but not sure she got it. In any case, we've mutually blocked each other now.

mc32 8y ago

I get voice mails (calls I don't recognize and don't pick up, but in area code calls) in Chinese about once a week --weird.