4 ms·

I accidentally discovered a way to battle this. I had a phone number from a different state, far away from the state I'm living right now. I often get calls f

I accidentally discovered a way to battle this. I had a phone number from a different state, far away from the state I'm living right now. I often get calls from the old state which I have no business with, and occasionally get calls from other states (not the one I'm living in) to test to see if I pick up. Robo caller has 1/50 chance of hitting the right state, even lower for hitting the right region. I let all strange and not-in-my-contact numbers go to voice mail which I left in default. If it's important enough, hit my voice mail, I will call back. I got vastly reduced number of robocalls in the past year or so this way.

coding123 7y ago
I've been using that trick for a few years... The problem I have with it, even with hiya installed, is that it still causes me to lose concentration and all of my blood to boil. If I had my hands on the people doing this...
reaperducer 7y ago
It also helps to have that phone number in a low-value NPA. Robocallers have advanced beyond just random numbers now. They're targeting specific area codes and prefixes based on conversion rates.
cgriswald 7y ago
I’ve been doing the same for years and years and get more calls than ever. A fair chunk of them now leave voicemails, and at least half of those aren’t in a language I speak.
- artificialLimbs 7y ago
  I've extended my voicemail 'greeting' to around 20 seconds and I stopped getting voicemails.
cydonian_monk 7y ago
This can backfire. I have a similar set up, area code and number from state I used to live in, half way across the US. One of the businesses local to where I now live uses some sort of "least cost" attempt at routing calls out of call centers in or close to the area code of the number they're calling. The result? A call from an agent at a business which is 5 miles away from me sounds worse than the transatlantic calls I used get from my dad in the 80s.
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
I have dual SIMs, the oldest having a number from another state. The old number was publicly disclosed on resumes and gets hammered with robocalls from the same area code. The new one is only used for businesses I have accounts with and remains mostly silent.
Balgair 7y ago
Oh, I just got rid of voicemail all together. Just let it ring, then drop, if I don't know it. My friend used the Off-Hook tone [0] as th initial sound on their voicemail, then followed by them actually leaving an invation to leave a message. It seemed for a while there that the robocall would just interpert the off-hook tone as a dead number and not wait the 3 seconds. But then they started waiting until the line dropped and that trick stopped working. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-hook_tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-hook_tone
- criddell 7y ago
  I'd like voicemail only for people in my address book. It feels like there are so many easy ways to make the phone app better yet nothing ever seems to change with it. My phone is in my pocket now instead of on my desk, but it's basically the same thing I had in 1982. Why is there so little innovation around the telephone and voice calls?
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    Why is there so little innovation around the telephone and voice calls? I imagine patent trolls are to thank for this state of affairs, along with the system that enables them. I don't have any evidence of that, though.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Well, one reason might be that people who are not in your address book--who you can otherwise easily "Do Not Disturb"--may be emergency calls related to people you know but the originators, e.g. police/hospital are not in your contacts list. Those are more or less exactly the sort of calls I want to be able to leave a voicemail even if I don't otherwise process their call. Unfortunately, it means I get various voicemails threatening to delete my SSN or that police are coming to arrest me. But, other than making it harder for scammers, I'm not sure what the fix is other than basically switching your phone to a pure whitelist system.
    - criddell 7y ago

coding123 7y ago

I've been using that trick for a few years... The problem I have with it, even with hiya installed, is that it still causes me to lose concentration and all of my blood to boil. If I had my hands on the people doing this...

reaperducer 7y ago

It also helps to have that phone number in a low-value NPA. Robocallers have advanced beyond just random numbers now. They're targeting specific area codes and prefixes based on conversion rates.

cgriswald 7y ago

I’ve been doing the same for years and years and get more calls than ever. A fair chunk of them now leave voicemails, and at least half of those aren’t in a language I speak.

artificialLimbs 7y ago
I've extended my voicemail 'greeting' to around 20 seconds and I stopped getting voicemails.

cydonian_monk 7y ago

This can backfire. I have a similar set up, area code and number from state I used to live in, half way across the US. One of the businesses local to where I now live uses some sort of "least cost" attempt at routing calls out of call centers in or close to the area code of the number they're calling. The result? A call from an agent at a business which is 5 miles away from me sounds worse than the transatlantic calls I used get from my dad in the 80s.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago

I have dual SIMs, the oldest having a number from another state. The old number was publicly disclosed on resumes and gets hammered with robocalls from the same area code. The new one is only used for businesses I have accounts with and remains mostly silent.

Balgair 7y ago

Oh, I just got rid of voicemail all together. Just let it ring, then drop, if I don't know it. My friend used the Off-Hook tone [0] as th initial sound on their voicemail, then followed by them actually leaving an invation to leave a message. It seemed for a while there that the robocall would just interpert the off-hook tone as a dead number and not wait the 3 seconds. But then they started waiting until the line dropped and that trick stopped working. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-hook_tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-hook_tone

criddell 7y ago
I'd like voicemail only for people in my address book. It feels like there are so many easy ways to make the phone app better yet nothing ever seems to change with it. My phone is in my pocket now instead of on my desk, but it's basically the same thing I had in 1982. Why is there so little innovation around the telephone and voice calls?
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  Why is there so little innovation around the telephone and voice calls? I imagine patent trolls are to thank for this state of affairs, along with the system that enables them. I don't have any evidence of that, though.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Well, one reason might be that people who are not in your address book--who you can otherwise easily "Do Not Disturb"--may be emergency calls related to people you know but the originators, e.g. police/hospital are not in your contacts list. Those are more or less exactly the sort of calls I want to be able to leave a voicemail even if I don't otherwise process their call. Unfortunately, it means I get various voicemails threatening to delete my SSN or that police are coming to arrest me. But, other than making it harder for scammers, I'm not sure what the fix is other than basically switching your phone to a pure whitelist system.
  - criddell 7y ago