6 ms·

My solution since 2002: don't answer the phone.

bhpm 3y ago
Same here but every time I post that on this site I get replies about how they have to answer the phone because their kid could have fallen down a well and their wife could be in a coma and the police would be trying to contact them and if they don’t jump to answer the phone every time it rings their entire family could be murdered. So IDK. It seems to be a problem, I just don’t have enough of a life for it to be for me.
- otteromkram 3y ago
  Every time you post...with a brand new account? You don't even have any submissions, yet.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    Some folks cycle throwaways over time instead of allowing a consistent identity to be built. The guidelines request nicely against doing so but some always do anyways of course.
    - nvy 3y ago
      That's because HN prioritizes aesthetics over privacy and won't allow you to delete your account and all its comments.
      - zamadatix 3y ago
        Being able to delete an account allows you to decide to remove your information from the site after a certain point. Cycling accounts is about not letting someone who looks at a single account at any time find enough information to piece together your identity at any point. Both are privacy related but the former is not a lead-in to the latter. As one who'd also like to see the ability to fully delete your HN account for privacy reasons I still think summarizing the alternative reasons as only aesthetics sells the counterarguments a bit short... ... but overall I'm getting myself and the whole conversation extremely off topic here. Probably best to discuss this in a thread about privacy on HN instead of one on robocallers.
    - sumtechguy 3y ago
      doesnt matter anyway there is a 'ai' that can troll thru the posts and figure you back out. unless you change the way you type and the words you use every time too.
- pixl97 3y ago
  That said, who doesn't send SMS texts also, at least in the US?
  - baby 3y ago
    Just use whatsapp -.-
- zamadatix 3y ago
  You can cut through a surprising amount of spam by just reading the voicemail after letting an unknown number ring. If they didn't bother to leave one it was either not at all important or the vast majority of spam calls. If they did leave a voicemail you can generally tell whether it seems even remotely legitimate and, if it does, call back at the number. E.g. if you have a kid and the school calls they will leave something generic like "It's so and so elementary calling for <your name>..." you call the school's main number back and say "so and so called looking for me" and get directed to them. OTOH it seems if you ever answer these even once you're no longer a random number to try you're immediately marked as a real person who can be tricked into answering at least some calls and will never hear the end of the endless ringing.
  - AussieWog93 3y ago
    This might be a cultural thing, but at least in Australia nobody under the age of 60 would ever leave a voicemail. If you're deliberately making yourself hard to contact this way, a lot of people will just stop calling you.
    - doublepg23 3y ago
      My friends wouldn't leave a voicemail but a nurse at my doctors office absolutely would.
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      This is genuinely pretty shocking to me. Would e.g. the person calling from the school about your kid getting hurt during recess just hang up and assume you'll call back immediately during the workday on the basis you had a missed call? If you mean for people you have relations with (friends/family/coworkers) most here gave up memorizing numbers a long time ago and none of those would show as an unknown number. This is common enough here in the US that the iPhone has a built in feature to only ring for known contacts and for unknowns only notify voicemails.
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
- doctor_radium 3y ago
  Lol. T-Mobile has gotten good at flagging spam calls as "Scam Likely", but for the landline I do the same thing. (I don't believe landline carriers...at least in the US...were forced to implement Stir/Shaken, so it gets the full brunt.) My logic is always that if it's important, they'll leave a message. The landline message also includes the three escalating (line disconnected) SIT tones, which I would like to think helps. But if the spammer uses speech-to-text technology, I'm screwed. > Instead, report the phone number that the call instructs you to contact. Under the above scenario most callers aren't dumb enough to leave a message, and I'd be concerned that actually engaging with anybody would increase the number of calls, at least in the short term. If you're a staffer running the honeypot lines at the FCC, it would be fine because you can go home at the end of the day, but for a personal number I would need convincing. Would love to hear testimonials from anyone who tried this technique and their interpretation of the results.
- nvy 3y ago
  I simply have a whitelist of numbers I'll answer.
- powersnail 3y ago
  I'd assume police/hospital would leave a voice mail?
lotsofpulp 3y ago
My ATT mobile stopped getting spam calls in mid 2022. It was quite a sudden drop off between the couple years before that.
- Loughla 3y ago
  US cellular did too, but it's picked back up in the last month or so. So I'm guessing scammers figured out the system again.
xyst 3y ago
If I did this, I wouldn’t have a job
TrueGeek 3y ago
I had someone call Friday night. I sent it to voice mail and they immediately hung up and called back. It happed again and I sent it to voice mail again. On the third call in under a minute I thought something must be wrong and maybe this was a friend of a friend in trouble. I answered and they said “Are you interested in selling your house at 1234….” I hung up, mad at myself for falling for it, and at them for being so ballsy. Then they texted (it came through as an iMessage so I’m assuming it’s their real number) and they said “not sure what happened but we got cut off!”
- usui 3y ago
  Apple might be more incentivized to deal with spam using their communication rails more than a typical SMS provider. It might be worth at least marking this as spam in Messages.
chucksmash 3y ago
One thing I've noticed is that the majority of the spam calls I have received historically have had the same originating area code as my phone number. Perhaps this was number spoofing, or perhaps it was using local VoIP numbers to make spam calls. In either case, it was a great flag for "this call goes to voicemail" because I hadn't lived there in over ten years, I didn't grow up there, and anybody who needs to contact me without a "Hey this is _____" text/voicemail is already in my address book. It also means that if I pick up calls from numbers originating in <current locale area codes>, it usually IS somebody I need to speak with. No hassle filter to help answer the right calls and ignore the spam.
megablast 3y ago
And call the number back.
kulshan 3y ago
Send all unknown numbers (not in contact list) direct to voicemail...easy peasy. 99% spam calls don't leave voicemail and visual voicemail lets me delete and block quick. Very minimal intrusion into my device and time. Couldn't imagine taking the steps in this post to try and block a number that's probably already been replaced with a new one by the time it takes for anything to be done.
TuringNYC 3y ago
>> My solution since 2002: don't answer the phone. I have two children. Doesnt happen often, but I've received calls from my kids' school. Twice the kids got hurt on the playground and needed to be picked up. The call can from a random number from someone at the school, not the main number. I have also received calls from pharmacies about order verification for much needed prescriptions. And received calls from doctors' offices about last minute re-scheduling. Not answering voice calls seems like a solution that works 99% of the time and drastically fails 1%
- baby 3y ago
  I’ve disabled calls on iOS and it failed like twice in two years. Once it was a doctor appointment, and I’ve now learned to use their system to do online calls instead. The second time it was some insurance claim, which forced them to give up and send me an email after calling me a number of times. I’d say at this point let the system fail if they don’t have email or whatsapp or something else they can use to reach you.
baby 3y ago
^ this. In iOS you can disable them entirely which is what I’ve done for years now.

bhpm 3y ago

Same here but every time I post that on this site I get replies about how they have to answer the phone because their kid could have fallen down a well and their wife could be in a coma and the police would be trying to contact them and if they don’t jump to answer the phone every time it rings their entire family could be murdered. So IDK. It seems to be a problem, I just don’t have enough of a life for it to be for me.

otteromkram 3y ago
Every time you post...with a brand new account? You don't even have any submissions, yet.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  Some folks cycle throwaways over time instead of allowing a consistent identity to be built. The guidelines request nicely against doing so but some always do anyways of course.
  - nvy 3y ago
    That's because HN prioritizes aesthetics over privacy and won't allow you to delete your account and all its comments.
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      Being able to delete an account allows you to decide to remove your information from the site after a certain point. Cycling accounts is about not letting someone who looks at a single account at any time find enough information to piece together your identity at any point. Both are privacy related but the former is not a lead-in to the latter. As one who'd also like to see the ability to fully delete your HN account for privacy reasons I still think summarizing the alternative reasons as only aesthetics sells the counterarguments a bit short... ... but overall I'm getting myself and the whole conversation extremely off topic here. Probably best to discuss this in a thread about privacy on HN instead of one on robocallers.
  - sumtechguy 3y ago
    doesnt matter anyway there is a 'ai' that can troll thru the posts and figure you back out. unless you change the way you type and the words you use every time too.
pixl97 3y ago
That said, who doesn't send SMS texts also, at least in the US?
- baby 3y ago
  Just use whatsapp -.-
zamadatix 3y ago
You can cut through a surprising amount of spam by just reading the voicemail after letting an unknown number ring. If they didn't bother to leave one it was either not at all important or the vast majority of spam calls. If they did leave a voicemail you can generally tell whether it seems even remotely legitimate and, if it does, call back at the number. E.g. if you have a kid and the school calls they will leave something generic like "It's so and so elementary calling for <your name>..." you call the school's main number back and say "so and so called looking for me" and get directed to them. OTOH it seems if you ever answer these even once you're no longer a random number to try you're immediately marked as a real person who can be tricked into answering at least some calls and will never hear the end of the endless ringing.
- AussieWog93 3y ago
  This might be a cultural thing, but at least in Australia nobody under the age of 60 would ever leave a voicemail. If you're deliberately making yourself hard to contact this way, a lot of people will just stop calling you.
  - doublepg23 3y ago
    My friends wouldn't leave a voicemail but a nurse at my doctors office absolutely would.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    This is genuinely pretty shocking to me. Would e.g. the person calling from the school about your kid getting hurt during recess just hang up and assume you'll call back immediately during the workday on the basis you had a missed call? If you mean for people you have relations with (friends/family/coworkers) most here gave up memorizing numbers a long time ago and none of those would show as an unknown number. This is common enough here in the US that the iPhone has a built in feature to only ring for known contacts and for unknowns only notify voicemails.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
doctor_radium 3y ago
Lol. T-Mobile has gotten good at flagging spam calls as "Scam Likely", but for the landline I do the same thing. (I don't believe landline carriers...at least in the US...were forced to implement Stir/Shaken, so it gets the full brunt.) My logic is always that if it's important, they'll leave a message. The landline message also includes the three escalating (line disconnected) SIT tones, which I would like to think helps. But if the spammer uses speech-to-text technology, I'm screwed. > Instead, report the phone number that the call instructs you to contact. Under the above scenario most callers aren't dumb enough to leave a message, and I'd be concerned that actually engaging with anybody would increase the number of calls, at least in the short term. If you're a staffer running the honeypot lines at the FCC, it would be fine because you can go home at the end of the day, but for a personal number I would need convincing. Would love to hear testimonials from anyone who tried this technique and their interpretation of the results.
nvy 3y ago
I simply have a whitelist of numbers I'll answer.
powersnail 3y ago
I'd assume police/hospital would leave a voice mail?

lotsofpulp 3y ago

My ATT mobile stopped getting spam calls in mid 2022. It was quite a sudden drop off between the couple years before that.

Loughla 3y ago
US cellular did too, but it's picked back up in the last month or so. So I'm guessing scammers figured out the system again.

xyst 3y ago

If I did this, I wouldn’t have a job

TrueGeek 3y ago

I had someone call Friday night. I sent it to voice mail and they immediately hung up and called back. It happed again and I sent it to voice mail again. On the third call in under a minute I thought something must be wrong and maybe this was a friend of a friend in trouble. I answered and they said “Are you interested in selling your house at 1234….” I hung up, mad at myself for falling for it, and at them for being so ballsy. Then they texted (it came through as an iMessage so I’m assuming it’s their real number) and they said “not sure what happened but we got cut off!”

usui 3y ago
Apple might be more incentivized to deal with spam using their communication rails more than a typical SMS provider. It might be worth at least marking this as spam in Messages.

chucksmash 3y ago

One thing I've noticed is that the majority of the spam calls I have received historically have had the same originating area code as my phone number. Perhaps this was number spoofing, or perhaps it was using local VoIP numbers to make spam calls. In either case, it was a great flag for "this call goes to voicemail" because I hadn't lived there in over ten years, I didn't grow up there, and anybody who needs to contact me without a "Hey this is _____" text/voicemail is already in my address book. It also means that if I pick up calls from numbers originating in <current locale area codes>, it usually IS somebody I need to speak with. No hassle filter to help answer the right calls and ignore the spam.

megablast 3y ago

And call the number back.

kulshan 3y ago

Send all unknown numbers (not in contact list) direct to voicemail...easy peasy. 99% spam calls don't leave voicemail and visual voicemail lets me delete and block quick. Very minimal intrusion into my device and time. Couldn't imagine taking the steps in this post to try and block a number that's probably already been replaced with a new one by the time it takes for anything to be done.

TuringNYC 3y ago

>> My solution since 2002: don't answer the phone. I have two children. Doesnt happen often, but I've received calls from my kids' school. Twice the kids got hurt on the playground and needed to be picked up. The call can from a random number from someone at the school, not the main number. I have also received calls from pharmacies about order verification for much needed prescriptions. And received calls from doctors' offices about last minute re-scheduling. Not answering voice calls seems like a solution that works 99% of the time and drastically fails 1%

baby 3y ago
I’ve disabled calls on iOS and it failed like twice in two years. Once it was a doctor appointment, and I’ve now learned to use their system to do online calls instead. The second time it was some insurance claim, which forced them to give up and send me an email after calling me a number of times. I’d say at this point let the system fail if they don’t have email or whatsapp or something else they can use to reach you.

baby 3y ago

^ this. In iOS you can disable them entirely which is what I’ve done for years now.