[SHAKEN OR STIRRED?] Blocking Phone Scams and Robocalls

Verizon offers a plan called Caller Name ID which offers options to block an unknown caller and why. You can also add them to your contacts. It's not free but I find it useful at times, my wife and I have LG G6s they have an option in the recent call list to either clear or block a call or calls from the same #

Mostly a result of my family's making political contributions by phone, we now, on many days, get phone calls every few minutes (I still have a landline.) "Private Number", "Out of Area", "Caller Name Unavailable". My phone service is Spectrum. What would be the best action for me to take?

There is no such thing as a legit robocall. Period.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Not so fast... If you work at a school, or have children who attend, robocalls are sometimes needed to quickly notify people of delays or closings due to bad weather, late buses, emergency situations, etc.

I don't answer calls that I don't recognize. I figure that's what voicemail is for. And if they don't leave a message? It it couldn't have been that important.

I have my mobile service through Comcast/Xfinity, which is actually Verizon service resold through Xfinity. Can we assume that Comcast/Xfinity will pass through Verizon's Call Filter App (or a cosmetically variant of such service, once Verizon makes its Call Filter free in March, 2019?

Didn't this whole robocall mess start because of the oxymoron called "legit robocalls"? FCC has allowed this mess to become like the proverbial tail that wags the dog!
My outgoing recording states "Please announce name, and call purpose so that this automated messaging system can allow me to decide if I will return your call promptly." But only if the robocall is missed by nomorobo. That is as much effort as I am willing expand on this FCC imposed burden to all of us.

There is no such thing as a legit robocall. Period.

Really Jim? I receive doctor and medical facility robo-reminders of upcoming appointments and the VA DOES THE SAME! The VA robo identifies me and tells me what/where my next scheduled appointment is. It asks me to punch 1 to confirm the appointment or 2 if you do not agree with time/place. Quite helpful actually... I'd say those are 'legit' robocalls.

My phone has an option to announce the caller. If it is a name, I know it is one of my contacts and I can answer. If it announces a number I just let it go. I would guess if it is a legitimate call, the caller will leave a message and I can call back - spammers never leave messages.

I still use a landline with caller ID. Since I know who my friends, acquaintances, and legitimate businesses are, I proceed to answer. I don't answer suspicious numbers.

Also, if a business is legitimate, they are professional and leave a message. I agree with Jim that there is NO such thing as a legitimate robocall. A legitimate business does NOT resort to the lowly means of robocalls.

I also agree with Bill above that the "Do Not Call" list is a joke. This is partly because the government uses outdated technologies, whereby, the hucksters, spammer, scammers, and fraudulent schemers keep up with the latest in spoofing technology.

The bottom line, whether it pertains to computers, internet activity, and phones, it is vital to always be on guard. There are too many frauds out there involving bad guys that are all too happy to see one's money parted from them. The important rule is that if it seems too good to be true, then it definitely is too good to be true!

Within minutes of plugging a phone/answering machine into our new AT&T landline the phone started ringing with robocalls, to the AT&T tech's surprise. While setting up our online account with them I discovered and installed Call Protect. The line has gone almost silent. Our mobile carrier is T-Mo and though we appreciate their new identifier, my question to them is if you are able to identifiy a call as "Suspected Spam/Scam" why do you allow it to go through? And why are you still limiting us to 10 names/numbers on our Call Reject lists?? And why do you allow some of those rejected numbers to go directly to voicemail with no indication we've even received a call except to see a voicemail notification? You have no idea the reason why a customer has added a number to the reject list. There are numerous legitimate reasons for someone to reject an identifiable phone number. No, the answer is not for us to pony up more money to protect ourselves from something you should be doing under the DNC law for free.

Based in the UK and using landline: TrueCall (not the same as Truecaller) actually prevents the phone from ringing at all for callers who are not whitelisted until they have personally identified themselves. (It might also work for mobile/smart phones, but we haven't tried that). I think the feature of not letting the phone even ring is excellent - I can check Truecall's weblog from time to time and gloat over those failed calls which didn't even disturb our afternoon naps!

I got a telly zapper a few years ago. When a telemarketer calls, my phone rings once and the Tele zapper Send a tone which indicates that the phone is disconnected. The Tele marketer might use that response to remove the number from their list. A few telemarketers get through, but the device blocks most of them.

I'M BOMBARDED with Robo-callers. I've taken advantage of my Panasonic's 300 "Block Caller", but with this 'Spoofing'... these calls kept coming in. So I changed my outgoing message: "Tired of Robo Calls. Leave your message & I'll call you back"
Also, I turned down the volume of both the "Ring" and incoming messages to a whisper. I might go with NoMoRobo, since I'm on AT&T's Uverse.
Happy Blocking guys

I also no longer answer calls from numbers that I don't recognize but my experience with letting the calls go to voicemail is different that some other commenters. Quite often the spammer/scammer does leave a message, i.e. "Important information about a medical device" or "You owe the IRS money and we've notified the police". Luckily these calls are easy to identify. As a delivery driver though, people's reticence to answer the phone anymore has made my job more difficult and slowed my efficiency. If I need to contact a customer about their order, 3/4 of the time they don't answer their phone and I have to leave a message and then wait until they call me back - resulting in slower delivery times. Thanks Bob for a great article!

I am on a landline with no caller id. If I have time I spoof the callers and waste their time. At times I start speaking German and they hang up quick. What we need is a do not call list without any exceptions. No poles, charities, politics nor sales pitches.

I use Youmail for iPhone. There is a free and paid version. I use the free version. It's great for weeding out spam calls and also offers text transcription. Recommended.

What about Robokiller? It wastes the time of the robomarketer and even lets you hear the interactions between the telemarketer and the app. I don't have it yet but I understand it can be quite amusing.

Hi Bob,

I use an app called Blacklist Pro (yes, if they work well enough, I pay for them) on my cell phone. It blocks most nagging calls, and also allows me to specify entire area codes and/or exchanges.

That may seem extreme, but I was receiving multiple calls a day from the same sales pitch for Medicare, and the same area code/exchange from which I have no reason to expect any other calls, so I blocked all calls from that sequence of numbers.

Works very well for my needs

I'd like to see ALL companies make an app that only allows calls from my "contacts" list to go through, including "texts" & or "short codes".
I'd add names/numbers from those I want to communicate.

On my cell phone (which is a Verizon product) I use the NoMoRobo which works very effectively. Also, as an added service, Frontier (the current owner of Verizon) offers the NoMoRobo on all their wired home lines. They also added another feature recently where they analyze the call automatically, and instead of a caller ID the calls are shown as "Potential Spam" and you can decide for yourself whether to answer or not - that works well here, and then I can choose to block that number completely.