Cell phone and "unknown" numbers

Smoke said:
You weren't just eating up his time.

This is the bottom line for me, I have never answered the phone on an unknown number and not had it be a waste of my very finite time.
Click to expand...
It was more entertaining than watching reruns of Magnum P.I. Besides that, in that timeframe land-lines had dials and did not display incomning call numbers. :)
 
I can't call it a scam, but recently I have been receiving calls, voice mails, and texts from callers wanting to buy my house. No idea why they think I might want to sell my house. The callers do know my name, phone number, and address, but that information would be easy enough for them to find.
 
DWalt said:
I can't call it a scam, but recently I have been receiving calls, voice mails, and texts from callers wanting to buy my house. No idea why they think I might want to sell my house. The callers do know my name, phone number, and address, but that information would be easy enough for them to find.
Click to expand...
I even get post cards from those folks.

House listings are in pretty short supply here, but in SA the listings seem to be pretty saturated, so I'm not sure why they're doing that there. SA is a bit of a buyer's market right now with prices falling a little and lots of homes for sale. Hope that turns around soon enough since I bought a home there in February that I intended to only keep for a couple of years. My son is living there, and as far as I'm concerned he can stay as long as he wants to. It or the money it sells for will be his eventually anyway. I guess when he moves on I will have to decide whether to sell it or keep it as a rental. Doubt I will ever live in it. My wife freaks out on the multi lane freeways. Ours here are only two lanes each way, although one is currently being expanded to 3.
 
I would like to learn some very nasty phrase in the Indian dialect I could say to these foreign spammers!
 
So I've mentioned that I don't respond to calls from people who aren't on my list. What I've noticed is having not done that for several years. I don't even get two or three of those calls a month. I've also noticed that several of them never even ring they just go straight to voicemail
 
Engineer1911 said:
In the past 2 weeks I received 7 calls from 'unknown' numbers. Being a very untrusting soul, my responses have varied from 'good bye', sarcasm, or vulgar profanity (DHS caller with distinct India accent). I have settled on an answer that works 100% of the time. In a very soft, cordial voice, "Hello, sheriff's department non-emergency number, how may I help you?" causes immediate termination of the call by the caller in about 4.3 microseconds. There are no 'follow-up' calls later. I label the number as Ign01 thru Ign10, shorthand for Ignore. when a label is full, I use the next available. Apparently Ign01, 02, and 03 are full.

In today's contentious social climate, no one wants to talk to the deputy sheriff.
Click to expand...
That's a lot of work. I just don't answer the call.
 
Smoke said:
But you still kept picking up the phone and you still kept extending the conversation.
Click to expand...
In the days before caller ID, you picked up the phone when it rang... Indeed I did continue the conversation, because both my wife and I found it entertaining to string the scammer along, I thought that I explained that.
 
My iPhone is set up so if you are not in my contacts the phone does not ring/vibrate, it just shows up in missed calls. IF the caller does not leave a voicemail then it gets blocked. I have over 5K blocked numbers.
 
Watched a 1944 movie last night. Navy officer and his wife meet up at a hotel for his first 72 hrs furlough in years. They get kissy and huggy (1944, remember?). Just then the phone rings. They both quit what they're doing and rush to answer the phone!
How priorities have changed.
 
Denverd0n said:
The problem with blocking the number is that a lot of scammers will spoof the number that the call is coming from. That means you are not blocking the actual number tha
they called from, just a random number that they picked for the caller-ID to display.
Click to expand...

Right, I even got a scam call that showed up as my own number.
 
The last call I got that was SPAM/scam was from Windows support(yeah right). The guy hung up after I got through part of the system information on the PC I use for home, of course, it is NOT Windows...

Screenshot From 2025-04-19 17-20-14.png
 
DWalt said:
I can't call it a scam, but recently I have been receiving calls, voice mails, and texts from callers wanting to buy my house. No idea why they think I might want to sell my house. The callers do know my name, phone number, and address, but that information would be easy enough for them to find.
Click to expand...
I have been getting offers in the mail about three times a week from different folks wanting to buy my place. Heck, it must be worth more than I thought! ;)
 
I have had the same mobile number for about 8 years(?) I usually answer all calls if the phone is in reach. I might get 5-7 spam calls a year. Now reading this, I feel ignored. :)
 
In 2014 I started getting angry texts from (apparently) some woman's angry ex-boyfriend. My old phone wouldn't block numbers so I just ignored those, but I was in the Philippines and the texts cost me money. He got madder and madder and his texts more and more threatening; I voice called him and told to check the number and let him know my next call would be to the State Police. It cost $3 or $4 for the call, but it worked.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top