Robocalling is a serious problem, and these companies that participate in this crap need to be punished and be made an example of. I've taken every measure then I can on my landline and cell phone, but there are still calls that make there way though. Since nothing has seemed to work, on my cell phone, I started doing the thing you're not supposed to do, I answer and press 1 to speak to a live representative. I engage these scumbags and waste 15-20 minutes of their time by just spouting nonsense, pretending I can't here them and asking them to repeat and pretending I'm shuffling papers. I'm down from 3 - 4 spam calls a day to 1 or 2 every few weeks.
The problem with the if you don't know the number don't answer mentality is if you use your phone for business. Every call you don't answer could be lost money. And further more when did constancy being annoyed become acceptable. Getting junk via snail mail, email, fax, phone, text message, when will it end. We all have a right not be bothered. I don't know if this exists, but I would love it if there was a system where you could upload your contacts to a service, and they are whitelisted. For any number not on this list you either have to press a number or speak your name to get in contact with me. I tried whitelist only on my Spectrum home phone, but they only allow 30 numbers to be whitelisted and I have more then 30 numbers that could call me. I have NoMoreRobo enabled, but junk calls still come in, but just with one ring, and it doesn't help with spoofed numbers. On both the cell and home phones, I'll get calls with the same area code, same exchange and maybe 2 of the last 4 digits are different. If I could use Wildcards * in blocking numbers that would be great.
Last week I got one for a discounted stay in a resort. I thanked the kind fellow on the line and told him a nice trip is exactly what I need because my pet gerbil jumped out of his cage, ran out the door and got ran over by the garbage truck and my wife of 17 days ran off with the ice cream man and it's been a hard week and staying in a 5 star resort would make all the difference in my life so I can get away from it all. After the sales spiel and me expressing interest and asking random stupid questions like does the resort serve Diet Dr. Pepper and if there was a nude beach near by, he asked me for a valid major credit card number. I politely told him that due to the type of business that I'm in I cannot use credit cards and risk having my finances tracked. He again asked me for a credit card number incase I incur long distance phone charges or the hotel room gets damaged. I told him that I just got doing a job for Maria by 'taking care' of her now ex-boyfriend (if you know what I mean), and she paid me $50 large upfront and I'll get the second half of the payment after I swing by the lake. There was an awkward moment of silence and the guy said a credit card is still needed. I proceeded to ask him why the stack of $50,000 I was looking at wasn't good enough, and then asked if $100,000 would be okay. He said he still needed a credit card number to complete the transaction, I proceeded to ask him why my money green enough for him and tell him how offended I was. He then apologized a few times and told me sorry for the trouble and have a nice day.
I haven't gotten a spam call on my cell phone since and it's been about 10 days, a new record!
