Tricks to eliminating spam calls?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hiya has nearly elimininated spam calls for me. The price is 100% worth it.

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I got rid of Hiya after iOS 14 revealed that it was constantly checking my clipboard when I was on the home screen, by far the most egregious of the apps that silently check my clipboard, and it even did this when their widget wasn't in use. I never tried the premium service because I can't see paying when I only get 3-5 "we've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty" and "thank you for staying at Hilton hotels" calls a week. 

I do get annoyed with the calls and will occasionally set my XS Max to DND for all calls except those in my phone book (especially when I am taking a nap) but getting rid of them entirely hasn't been a priority. 

The Pixel phones' call screening feature sounds promising but I'm not switching ecosystems just to get an AI to answer calls and tell me if they're spam/scam. I'm overall happy on iOS and as I have an LG G8 I have been testing Android 10 and it's still not got the polish iOS has, especially for gesture navigation which I have gotten totally used to using. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hiya has nearly elimininated spam calls for me. The price is 100% worth it.

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I got rid of Hiya after iOS 14 revealed that it was constantly checking my clipboard when I was on the home screen, by far the most egregious of the apps that silently check my clipboard, and it even did this when their widget wasn't in use. I never tried the premium service because I can't see paying when I only get 3-5 "we've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty" and "thank you for staying at Hilton hotels" calls a week. 

I do get annoyed with the calls and will occasionally set my XS Max to DND for all calls except those in my phone book (especially when I am taking a nap) but getting rid of them entirely hasn't been a priority. 

The Pixel phones' call screening feature sounds promising but I'm not switching ecosystems just to get an AI to answer calls and tell me if they're spam/scam. I'm overall happy on iOS and as I have an LG G8 I have been testing Android 10 and it's still not got the polish iOS has, especially for gesture navigation which I have gotten totally used to using. 

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I had been getting 20+ spam calls a day. I considered changing my number, but there are a number of potentially serious consequences if I were to do that... I don't do anything too sensitive or personal on my phone, anyway, but I definitely understand the concern.

[Anonymous]

I'm thankful for the features on my Google pixel phones, they added an automated call assistant that automatically picks up suspected spam calls and asks what theyre calling about. If it's a legit call it will connect you, but usually it just silently disconnects the spam without even alerting me. I would otherwise be getting interupted every other hour by these calls. 

[Anonymous]

I just verbally harass them and now I don't get too many.

I'm on the no call list anyway, so most robocallers are some illegal scam operation from some other country.

Just make sure that if you get really carried away with them it's someone that is definitely making an illegal call from some other country trying to scam you. What are they going to do about it?  Most states have Disorderly Conduct as phone harassment, so if you let loose on someone calling you legally and they're in the US and it's not a scam, you could get in big trouble.

But when it's a guy with a thick accent telling you your Social Security number has been suspended because someone left a van with dead bodies in it on the US-Mexico border in a rental car..... I tend to start getting a little loose.

It's pretty obvious from my results that when they realize what they're getting on the other end of the line they'll take you off their list voluntarily.  

This one time, I couldn't stop getting the Indiana Troopers Association to stop calling me, so I found out the name of the supervisor at the call center and I started calling her at her house in the middle of the night telling her "How do you like it? Take me off your list! I work third shift. You call me at my 3 AM. I call you at your 3 AM!". They never called again.

There was this one that I kept calling back and playing rickrolls and stuff into the phone until they burned the number and it was a busy signal.

I kept one of them on the phone for almost an hour pretending to be an old man with dementia that was trying to find his credit card. I kept saying, "Well mah wife's at the Walmart and she'll be back soon!" and then eventually I just gave them a bunch of digits that didn't do anything at the end of the call, and when he kept telling me it wasn't going through, I kept reading it back slowly and changing something around.

Watch some Vermin Supreme videos on Youtube and come up with an act like that for spammers. 

[Crysis]

I started answering, telling them I have a bad connection, and asking them to call me back on another number.  For the ones that I know to be fraud, I use either the local fbi office or the non emergent police number for my sleepy town.  Spam calls have plummeted 

[Boragard]

I change my phone number every 5 years.  Seems to work for me.

[OmarGB9]

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@Boragard wrote:

I change my phone number every 5 years.  Seems to work for me.

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Are you serious? That seems like a huge hassle.

[SecretAzure]

Let's revitalize this thread...because now it's seriously getting frustrating...but it's no longer the calls, I am getting spam TEXT MESSAGES! This is even more frustrating to me. As a millenial, I never answer my phone unless I am absolutely expecting the call or it's a close contact. AT&T Call Protect does a very good job of telling me when a call is probably spam or a fraud risk anyway. 

Now...what can I do about spam text messages? They're all political-adjacent. I have not contributed to a campain or made any donations lately. They do not even seem tied to any particular party either. Some are literally just promoting that I vote. In all cases, this is extremely annoying and it's borderline harassment.

If anyone has a solution that isn't "disable receiving texts from people not in your contacts" I am all ears. I am a MyFico'er, as such, I often receive a payment confirmation, delivery notifications, balance due (, albeit this one is rare with auto-pay), and two-factor authentication requests from random numbers. 

[Crysis]

Too true.  I resorted to sending grocery lists and random comments.

[Anonymous]

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@SecretAzure wrote:

Let's revitalize this thread...because now it's seriously getting frustrating...but it's no longer the calls, I am getting spam TEXT MESSAGES! This is even more frustrating to me. As a millenial, I never answer my phone unless I am absolutely expecting the call or it's a close contact. AT&T Call Protect does a very good job of telling me when a call is probably spam or a fraud risk anyway. 

Now...what can I do about spam text messages? They're all political-adjacent. I have not contributed to a campain or made any donations lately. They do not even seem tied to any particular party either. Some are literally just promoting that I vote. In all cases, this is extremely annoying and it's borderline harassment.

If anyone has a solution that isn't "disable receiving texts from people not in your contacts" I am all ears. I am a MyFico'er, as such, I often receive a payment confirmation, delivery notifications, balance due (, albeit this one is rare with auto-pay), and two-factor authentication requests from random numbers. 

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Try texting STOP when you get them. It's worked so far every time for me.