Do you really think I’m going to answer when I see the name of a town or city showing up on my CID display? How many real calls are from cities or towns instead of an individual? None that I’ve ever seen on my phone. Dumb!

The most common (almost daily) offender for me, is the ones that spoof your area code & prefix, easy to weed out.

Unless your phone number shows up in my already known contact list, you can talk to my answering machine.

Seems like this crap went way down for a while, but lately I’ve been getting a ton of spam calls. It’s starting to piss me off because if my phone rings I would rather answer it just Incase it’s something important... I shouldn’t have to ignore my phone because some jackasses decide to spam it with BS

I should have also included the morons who spoof my area code and prefix yet CID says “Out of area.” Duh.

I prefer the ones that have far too many digits.

My cellphone called my cellphone once about 6 months ago. But I didn't answer me.

Hey, tsmccull -- you mentioned two things, both of which are perfectly normal and not necessarily indicative of a scam call.

I'll 'splain, but first, my credentials so that you'll understand that I actually do know whereof I speak. Hop in my DeLorean, we'll put it in reverse and go back almost sixty years, to the 1960-ish time frame.

I was a young design engineer working at Bell Labs -- the AT&T subsidiary that did so much advanced design work. I was on one of the teams that was responsible for the development of ANI (Automatic Number Identification), which was a precursor to Caller ID. I do understand how this stuff works, and my fingerprints are actually on some of the code.

To address two of your points:

First: the town or city showing up on your display. This is optional, at the discretion of your carrier. There are situations in which the number of the calling party is available but the name is not, so the phone company that is handling that call can configure the system so that the originating city shows on your caller ID display if the name is not available. This is normal operation.

Second: "Out of Area" -- again, this is something that can be configured, optionally, by the carrier that is handling the call. In my opinion it is a poor choice of words, and really means that the caller ID information is not available for this particular call. It does not mean that the originating caller chose to block the information, it just means that for technical reasons the data is just not available. It does not necessarily indicate a scam, it's more like a technical glitch occurred on this call.

"Number Blocked" or words to that effect mean that the originator blocked the caller ID data. My wife does that, legitimately, on her phone if she needs to call a client from her personal phone instead of a work phone, like when she needs to return a call on a weekend or holiday. She is a mental health professional and does not want her clients to have her personal number. There are many legitimate reasons for a person to block the caller ID data, but it is also a feature that can be mis-used.

Thanks for the explanation V-tail, I didn’t know that. Unfortunately, the few times I’ve actually answered those types of calls they’ve all been robo dialers of one persuasion or another which is why I lumped them into the spam category. Also the fact that whenever those unanswered calls go to VM there isn’t any message left, so while they could be legit based on your information, I guess I’m just lucky and seem to get the illegitimate ones!

Yeah, the scammers seem to be the unintended beneficiaries of the "loopholes" in the system.

Why don't the carriers block the spammers? I have heard that they can, but don't.

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
Unless your phone number shows up in my already known contact list, you can talk to my answering machine.

Scammers can hit your contact list too. Their autodial machines are set for a particular area code and exchange (in my, case it is 928-231-xxxx, which is the VZ range for Wickenburg mobiles), and the machine picks the last four digits randomly. My neighbor got two "calls from me" that I did not place. Because I am in her contacts, the scammer caller appeared to be me. If I don't recognize the number, I don't answer it either. I have a canned text response I send that says something like I don't recognize your number, so please text or voicemail. This gets a reply from anyone who is legit but might not be in my contacts. And the scammers never get the text because they are not calling from a cell phone. The ones I hate more is the technique called "ringless voicemail". There is a way they can hit your carrier's voicemail without your phone ever ringing.
 

I got a caller ID hat said "Kingston". I thought Kingston Washington, but saw that the area code was 876, not 360. It was Kingston Jamaica with the Jamaican lottery scam:
https://jm.usembassy.gov/u-s-c...tims-of-crime/scams/

Needless to say, I didn't answer the phone (I don't know anyone in Jamaica).

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
My cellphone called my cellphone once about 6 months ago. But I didn't answer me.

Good thing you didn't answer for if you had, it would have sparked a terrible argument.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
My cellphone called my cellphone once about 6 months ago. But I didn't answer me.

Good thing you didn't answer for if you had, it would have sparked a terrible argument.

What if he had argued with himself, and lost the argument?

Nu!?

quote:

Originally posted by Kskelton:
Seems like this crap went way down for a while, but lately I’ve been getting a ton of spam calls. It’s starting to piss me off because if my phone rings I would rather answer it just Incase it’s something important... I shouldn’t have to ignore my phone because some jackasses decide to spam it with BS

I never answer my phone unless I recognize the number, if its something important the caller can leave a message.

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:

I never answer my phone unless I recognize the number, if its something important the caller can leave a message.

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
My cellphone called my cellphone once about 6 months ago. But I didn't answer me.

This has been happening a lot lately to me and, at first, I thought it was my future self calling with important news but thought better of it...Odd, future Kevmo did not leave a message?

Could be your future self telling you to wire the cash to that Nigerian guy so he’ll send you your lottery winnings!