If someone calls, it’s either a scam or someone has died. Either way I ain’t answering.
More than once I thought that something horrible had happened because people called directly.
If you don’t answer, they won’t have died.
Schroedingers Ringtone
Or I’m already in the drive thru line and need to know if you want something and don’t have time for texting. But that is rare. I plan ahead.
It’s either a scam or a recruiter cold calling for me. If you know me you’ll just text me.
Image Transcription:
A photo of Kermit the Frog from the Muppets sitting at a desk with his feet up, looking at a mobile phone he’s holding in his right hand, with the caption: Me waiting for my phone to stop ringing because I don’t use it for that
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
Like email, it’s been mostly ruined by spam and scams. There tends to be a lot more of them than here are genuine phone calls, excluding a few specific uses (like family members who use phone calls for everything).
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I get 4-5 a week in America. 4-5 a day if there’s an election coming up.
I’ve had it happen in both Australia and Sweden a bunch. It tends to come in waves, probably because they’ve just managed to get around whatever new anti-spam measures are being added in, or are biding their time with spoofed numbers.
It tends to come once every few months or few weeks, and at its worst, I had one or two every day.
I have the same experience in Sweden
I get about 5-6 a week. It’s worse when I pick up the phone, because I am waiting for a call from a number I might not know. Most recently I was acting as a job reference. Out of 20 calls, 2 were legit. The moment I started answering the phone, the spam calls increased to a few a day (they established I was a real number). The only way I get off these lists is to pretend I am another call center. Then they start to die down back to only a few a week (or whomever is calling from dozens of unknown caller id’s that leave no voice mail or voice mail is the tail end of a recording).
I get 3 or 4 per year. The trick is to not give your phone number to any companies. Those rewards programs at restaurants and stores are selling your info straight to sketchy advertisers and scam call centers.
I used to get 40-50 spam calls a week, that’s when I started screening my calls. Now I can’t due to work, but get very few spam calls these days. It’s ironic.
How are y’all getting so many spam calls? I have a Pixel 6 Pro with AT&T. I rarely if ever get any spam calls. If I do get a call from an unknown number, I have the option on my phone for Google to screen it using an automated system. It asks the caller for the purpose of their call, then transibes it to me in real time to let me decide if I want to answer. The vast majority of these calls end up hanging up without even responding to the Google prompt.
Sometimes I forget it’s a phone and freak out when it starts ringing, like I’ve just found a new feature.
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Use the down button
If it’s a spam call, that let’s them know that the number is active. They’ll keep calling if you do that.
It just stops ringing the phone, doesn’t decline the call
I think they mean the hardware volume down button, not the one to reject the call
Oh gotcha. Down = volume down.
No it won’t. Also if it’s a spam call block it.
I’d fine telecom’s a million bucks per connected spam call and it’d be fixed by Wednesday of next week.
And who is gonna pass that law with both parties getting their dicks and clits sucked by the telecoms every day?
Some hacker should find all their phone numbers (and their families phone numbers) and add them to the top of the Indian scam call list. Then something would get done about this.
Ugh they made phones useless for receiving calls. We can build incredible floating airports and fill them to the brim with the most advanced fighters in the world, we put a man on the moon then put a car on the moon for hin drive but for fucks sake we can’t stop spam calls. Drives me nuts.
If Congress, and their families, started getting stupid spam calls 10 times a day, I guarantee something would get done about this.
I like to waste their time. If they hang up on me, they’re not calling back.
I do this sometimes, it’s great. I pretend to be just really, really, really dumb that whatever they’re trying to make me do doesn’t work. “Give me your credit card number” “I can’t, they’re glued to the credit card…”
If they start yelling, you broke them.
That’s great. I’ll have to look for a chance to use that one.
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I just keep my phone on Airplane mode with Wi-fi On when I’m at home or at work
My phone has Wi-Fi calling and texting so that doesn’t even work for me 😭
Forward all your calls to a third party number with an app, and then never open the app.
Can’t you disable it
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Pressing the power button on the side of your device should mute the ring without rejecting the call allowing it to ring out in silence. Hope this helps.
Yep. That’s what I do when I don’t want to answer. Works great.
No way
Volume down does this on most Android phones. Just tap it once and it will mute the ring till it goes to voicemail. It will still vibrate though.
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I don’t order food unless I can do it with an app/website.
Back when I first got a sidekick, T-Mobile was offering a special data and text only plan just for that device and that’s what I got. Not only was it cheaper, I didn’t want to actually use the phone as a phone. I wanted it for texting and having access to the regular internet and not just bullshit WAP sites. It even had a telnet client so I could play MUDS while not at home! 😃
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Why not just turn off the ringer and let everything go to voicemail?
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Why not save some money and just get a data-only plan? Or just ditch the plan altogether and use wifi?
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I have issues with this with roommates with ASD. My wife has the same problem at work.
I’ll allow text messages because I know some people prefer it, but after the third text I’m calling.
