!!! 19 spam phone calls received in the last 5 hours !!!!!! NINETEEN !!!

And 1 spam text! And you even had not my name in it but someone else’s name.

The day is only 1/2 way through.

At least I was able to remember not to use profanity in the thread title for this posting.

Scammers: May the fleas of a thousand camels infest not only your crotch and armpits, but also your nasal hairs, ear hairs, eyebrows and buttcrack hairs.

And may you get every possible STD known on planet Earth, and may new ones be named after you so you may be known forever!
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Wow...Tell us how you really feel....... drill sgt.

Why did you answer the phone if you didn't recognize the phone number?

Or maybe you don't have caller ID?

They are worse than I can remember. It's really bad when you're expecting an important call and have to screen them closely.

Sadly, the no-call lists are a joke.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
Why did you answer the phone if you didn't recognize the phone number?

Or maybe you don't have caller ID?

Say what? My phone identifies them as spam. I don’t answer phone calls I don’t recognize. None ever leave a message. Other regular identifiers indicating spam.

quote:

Originally posted by FiveFiveSixFan:
They are worse than I can remember. It's really bad when you're expecting an important call and have to screen them closely.

Sadly, the no-call lists are a joke.

Yes, I have a Niece and a Nephew with cancer. One should recover ok, we are told. The other, sadly, is incurable and the inevitable is near.

And now up to 25 spam phone calls @ 4:26 PM.

One did leave a voice mail, not a person speaking, but a recording about Medigap insurance.
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It's just royally pissing me off, to be on the phone with family about issues, and the dang phone keeps bleeping at me for another call coming in.
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I block them all, and don't get as many now. I have been blocking them for years.

Welcome to the 21 Century.

It's why we don't answer if we don't know who it is, recognize the number or if not expecting a call.

Sometimes I do answer if I am in the mood to eff with somebody.

And they still do make answering machines if you are on a land line.

Oh, we still have a land line so we (wife and I) rarely get cell phone spam calls and don't give out that number freely.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:

It's just royally pissing me off, to be on the phone with family about issues, and the dang phone keeps bleeping at me for another call coming in.

You can disable Call Waiting, so that you don't get call-us interrupt-us if you're already on a call.

I get several spam calls per day, caught by spam filter by Verizon, and also iPhone filter. I also get at least 4-5 spam texts per day either wanting to buy a property I don’t own or to vote for some Demoncrat. When I Google my number it shows it attached to some other dude here in town. I think the a-hole must have just pulled it out of the air to give someone and now it’s out there. It’s also on the dark web. It’s like playing whack-a-mole blocking and deleting them all. Ugggh! And no, I don’t answer unknown numbers.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
It's why we don't answer if we don't know who it is, recognize the number or if not expecting a call.

Sometimes I do answer if I am in the mood to eff with somebody.

^^^ used to be my standard procedure.

Now, I just leave the ringer off, unless I'm waiting on a call back.
People on the friends list will still ring through.

I have my iPhone (my only phone) set up so it doesn’t ring if the calling number isn’t in my address book. A nearly perfect solution to the junk call problem.

^^^^ This. Works for me. Now blessed silence!

Ended up the day with 29 junk spam calls.

A friend suggested I touched the answer button on my phone, and to not say a word, just push the MUTE button, and listen to see what happens.

There were quite a few with the exact same thing: A very foreign accent would say Hello and thanks for calling the Medigap center, where we help you navigate the Medicare maze at sign up.

I'm not here to disparage people, or a group of people, but it sounded exactly like the typical Indian/Pakistan voices and such. Obviously a very long distance connection, you can usually tell by the delay and sound, etc.

After they said their initial spiel and asked for who they were speaking with, I of course did not respond, so a few seconds after that they'd disconnect.

The other calls, when I pushed to answer and hit the MUTE button, there was no response, nothing, and after a few seconds the call was terminated by them. Usually for most of them, within seconds another call would ring in, showing a different number, but evidently probably the same scumbags, all computer controlled of course. If I had time and inclination I could play that game all day.

So, I'm wondering, as a possible explanation, if Zuckerberg and the others who have done extensive data mining and selling of such are to initially blame. Store loyalty discount cards have our name and other info, and what we buy, and more. We all know, or should know, that everything we do online, or sometimes on paper too, etc, all that data is mined and stored and collated and correlated etc, and sold. I think the dark side of the internet knows more about us, and sells that data, than we realize and comprehend how much is done.

Facebook is horrible about this. There are always tons of questions about inane subject as such What song was #1 when you graduated from high school? When was your first...blah blah blah? People play these stupid games on facebook, cuz they're "cute and fun" and give up personal data.

How often do you tell someone Happy Birthday, or received a Happy Birthday, on facebook?

Yes, IMO facebook is the devil.

Having said all that, I am just about at the point when I will be signing up for Medicare and Social Security. (Yeah I know, I'm giving up personal data on the internet, but the cat is out of the bag on that one). It seems quite logical that this scam originated from such personal data. I'll just about wager that the majority, if not all, of the calls are actually from one scammy group/place, as they spoof phone numbers and emails and such.

The interwebz and dark sites, info gathering, selling and such, probably years ago, my age, and thus this sort of crap is happening.

These calls today were NOT legitimate, it's to get even more identify theft. They obviously hope to get my SS#, DOB, etc.

Not too long ago, I was trying to locate an old college friend, so I googled his name and last known city.
The results were astounding! His current address, other relatives, his exact birthday accurately published, phone numbers and addresses, emails. (Not every search will list as much personal data, but it's surely coming.) At this time I believe that much data published on the internet on one person is an outlier but I'm sure more is coming.

Our right to privacy exists, but in reality we no longer have privacy. We are a commodity to be bought and sold.

There have been posts here lately of speaking of something in a conversation, and the next thing they notice is the suggested ads appearing in front of them, on the computer/cell phone screen, etc. Isn't that crazy?

Our cells phones and providers, obviously, listen and sell our data. Recently I began to NOT discuss anything of importance unless I moved my cell phone to a different spot away from me where it could not listen in.

Sorry about the long rambling post, but I think this shit is serious, very serious indeed, and will get worse, and not to our benefit.
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A couple of years ago I was out walking the neighborhood and came across a loose dog. Super chill but wouldn't let me get close enough to read his tag. He wanted to hang out in a particular front yard. I googled the house address on my cell phone and within moments had a name and phone number which connected me to the dog's owner who was at work.

The data is all out there on all of us. While we do benefit individually from instant information, the bad guys know how to harvest it for their purposes.

I do what I can to block incoming unwanted contact, and try not to get too upset at the few scams/spams that get through because it is beyond my control to make scammers give up.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
Why did you answer the phone if you didn't recognize the phone number?

Or maybe you don't have caller ID?

Say what? My phone identifies them as spam. I don’t answer phone calls I don’t recognize. None ever leave a message. Other regular identifiers indicating spam.

Okay, so you're ranting about the number of calls that come in and you don't answer? Okay

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
It's why we don't answer if we don't know who it is, recognize the number or if not expecting a call.

That doesn't even work all the time now.

Yesterday my wife answered a call because Caller Id showed her sister's name and number.
It was a spam call.

Last week my plumber called me saying he was returning my call, when I hadn't called him.

It seems they have gotten better at mining numbers related to your own number.

Interestingly, many of my spam calls show only a city or town and state abbreviation as the CID. Pretty easy to ignore those since I don’t think I’ve ever called or expected a callback from an actual town. Guess my spammers are getting lazy about faking a real person’s caller id.

quote:

Why did you answer the phone if you didn't recognize the phone number?

Or maybe you don't have caller ID?

Some of us receive calls from the public or customers on our phones. We have to answer the phone even when we don't recognize the number.

In my case some of those calls can originate from anywhere (including outside the US), so even trying to screen by area code does no good.

I have an answer for this. We need to change the modeling behind telephone service from where the owner pays for it to a system where the caller pays for it (or at least some of it).

If you wish to make outgoing calls you prepay into an account. When making a call the person answering has the ability to press 1 (or something) to accept the call as legitimate with no charge, or to charge for the inconvenience.

If it actually cost nonsense callers to make their nonsense calls, perhaps the practice would slow down.

I've even joked about switching my company line to a 1-900 number. In addition to the regular spam I get many calls from people I don't know wanting information/advice (and have zero intent of spending any money with me).