Choose Your Weapon in the Robocall Wars - Comments Page 2

Nomorobo has worked great for me.

My cell phone is a dumb as rocks flip phone (no butt dialing) on a prepaid plan. I keep the phone turned off unless I'm going to make a call (rarely) and disabled voice mail and text messaging so the misbegotten phone scammers can't run up my phone bill (besides, anyone who wants to talk to me can TALK to me). I also have GPS and caller ID turned off. I almost never give this number out.

My home phone is actually a cell phone that connects to regular landmine phones. Being a cell phone weeds out most phone spammers since robocalls to cell phones are illegal: pretty much only the scammers ignore the law. I also avoid giving out my home phone number to avoid keeping it off spam lists as much as possible. I normally get one spam call once every month or two although I got a flood of them this month (relatively speaking; I got two). Since I'm only charged a fixed monthly fee for unlimited local and long distance calls, I kept the answering machine activated.

I own my phones, they don't own me. If my home phone rings at an inconvenient time for me, I let it go to the answering machine. If the call is important, I'll get a message and can reply at a more convenient time.

I let my landline-provided voicemail screen ALL calls (unless I see a friend's name or number on my caller ID and pick it up...). Robo-calls will usually not wait past the 4th ring that my voicemail answers on and they hang up. (if it is not important enough to leave a message, it is NOT important for me to answer). When I recognize a known soliciter I don't like on caller ID? I will sometimes answer, press the 3 (to get a live person online) and then let loose with a tirade of obscenity (something about what they should do to themselves..). That will often get my number removed from future attempts.

18 months ago I turned on “Do not Disturb” in iPhone Settings.
There currently is no perfect solution.

For each contact I wish to hear from when phone is locked I set “Emergency Bypass On” in Ringtone selection.

When I set up new contacts I decide if they will ring when phone is locked.

All others go to voicemail/recents where I block then delete.

Pros - no robocall interruptions in last 18 months while phone is locked.

Cons - a couple times a year I get a call when phone is unlocked while reading Bob Rankin email 😀

Definitely not for everyone, but works for me so far.

@Ken McInnes - I also have concerns about missing an actual important call at night from family or friends. Here is what I do: On my iPhone, I have “Do not Disturb” set up to automatically occur during my chosen night hours. Then, I have an exception set in place in the “Do not Disturb” settings to allow calls to ring ONLY if they come from people in my favorites list (there are other exception options, such as full contacts list.) Granted, this doesn’t take into account calls from, perhaps, a hospital or police, but in my case, I feel the likelihood is that an emergency call will come from a family member’s number, so I’m not overly concerned.

Bob I frequently get calls that show up as SCAM LIKELY in the caller I.D.
First of all, why would any scammer deliberately label their calls as such, and more importantly,
who in their right mind would answer such a call?

EDITOR'S NOTE: The "SCAM LIKELY" indicator is probably coming from T-Mobile.

Two things here. First, if the area code and first three numbers are the same as my number I never answer the call. If people check the numbers on their call list they will see that it is very rare that someone you know has a number with the same area code and first three numbers as yours. Try it. Second, I got an e-mail from something called Android Lane with an article containing detailed instructions as to how to set up fake phone number so people wouldn't know who was calling! How stupid was that on their part!!

I'm with Lou. "Should I answer" is the best I've found to stop those pesky unwanted calls. I ran my virus and malware on it to make sure it was clean. Pasted it with flying colors. It's also free and easy to install. No junk pop-ups either. I'm a happy camper now. BTW.... my phone is an Android.

All of the above suggestions are great - unless you use your cell phone as your business phone. I can't afford to not answer the phone yet the robo calls are so annoying!

Here in the U.K. I use a device from TrueCall that sits between the wall socket and my handset. It allows through all numbers it recognizes, automatically zaps known scam numbers and only rings those unknown callers who prove they are not robots. It has revolutionised my life.

As many others have mentioned don't answer the phone. I used to try to block them but as it has been mentioned that merely tells them it is a "good" number.

Private cell and home numbers...I let the voice mail fill up, never check my messages...every call I get goes to voice mail, they cannot leave another voice message. Occasional 'block' a constant caller who just cannot move on. I report most calls I do not know as 'Do not call'...Only pick up on callers I know.

Today I got five recorded calls from "Apple" telling me something was wrong with my Apple products. The messages were left on my answering machine (I have a landline). I have never had any Apple products. Earlier this week I received several calls "in answer to your request for information" about back pain, knee pain, etc. I have never requested such information from anyone. But legitimate recorded calls can be also annoying (though less frequent). I get calls from my health insurer to inform me about their house calls program.

Here in the UK we've been plagued for years with calls purportedly from Microsoft, from BT (the national telephone network) and others claiming to be my ISP. I just ignore them but they ARE a nuisance (not least because I only use landline and don't have an answerphone facility set up).

More worrying, particularly for those of a nervous disposition, are calls purportedly from HMRC (the UK equivalent to the IRS) claiming that "an Arrest Warrant has been issued", quoting a reference and insisting I contact my "Case Officer" or dire consequences will result. This is clearly a scam; HMRC does not contact individuals in this manner.

I treat these calls with the same contempt that I do to other nuisance calls, but it is little wonder that thousands of people are scammed with large financial losses because they are fearful of the consequences if they ignore such calls.

Dialling 1471 (to obtain the caller's number) more often than not gives a quite fictitious result, even more annoying than "number withheld". It really is a national (indeed, international) disgrace that there appears to be no means of putting these callers out of business - or the will to do so.

The only thing worse that getting a robocall is when they use your phone number as the 'spoof'. In addition to the robocalls themselves, I started getting irate calls from people who *69'd their robocall and started screaming "stop calling me!!!" I contacted AT&T fraud dept (my wireless carrier) but since the calls didn't originate with AT&T there was little they could do. They've died down -- they obviously moved on to a different # to spoof. Ain't technology wonderful.