New/old phone scam on the uprise.

[BC38]

I said this before I'll say it again the quickest way to get a predictive dialer to quit calling your number is not to answer your phone. Yes I'm aware some people can't do that but if you can do that don't answer calls from unknown numbers and they will drop off grammatically.

If it's a legitimate call, they will leave a voicemail. The world is not going to end if they have to wait a minute for you to call them back

That doesn't seem to add up to me. If the call goes to voicemail doesn't that just give them confirmation that yours is an active number?

Using my method over the last couple of years has reduced our spam calls from several per day to no more than a couple a week, and often less than that, because it makes it appear that my number is no longer active.

 

[taz666]

Not answering the phone once cost me a million dollars. Not a day goes by I don't kick myself.

 

[BC38]

Not answering the phone once cost me a million dollars. Not a day goes by I don't kick myself.

There's got to be a good story behind that one.

 

[Ματθιας]

My mom has a landline with a number that's 45+ years old.

If the phone gets answered, there are still spam calls.

If the phone doesn't get answered, there are still spam calls.

And if the call goes unanswered it goes to voice mail - no message but dead air and a click.

It got so bad not answering the phone with multiple calls, I had to turn off her ringer.

I've been asking her to get rid of the landline so she doesn't pay $60 per month, but she wants to keep the old number despite her using her cell more. All the people who have the landline number are all dead...

 

[roarindan]

" Sheriff's office...Fraud division ... this is Officer Grant "

 

[biku324]

Today an unfamiliar number showed up on my cell, so I let it go to voicemail. An angry-sounding male said, "This is your final warning before garnishee,' then hung up. I haven't bothered to call back. It's a beautiful day here, apparently a nice day for phishing.

 

[johngalt]

I have put a lot more miles on my car than I thought. I have lots of unpaid tolls.

 

[Goldstar225]

If you answer your phone and it says "can you hear me"....HANG UP !! do not say yes....if you say yes they are recording your answer and using that yes response to sign you up and bill you for services you do not want.........

I have heard and read about this for many years. My question is, they only have a phone number. No name, date of birth, SSAN, address, or other identifier. That being the case just how are they going to create an account, sign you up for an unrequested service or bill you for anything????? Assuming that they could, a debt created from ONE word? Sounds like an urban myth to me.

 

[Walkin Horse]

The OP's inference was towards home/personal phones not work phones.

I get paid a monthly stipend for my phone. My company email is on it along with my phone number in my signature. I have people calling me about projects and drivers about deliveries. A lot of people realize the scam issue and send a text first. If the number isn't in my directory,I then can choose to answer the text or call back. The company I work for has gone cell phone crazy.Our pay stubs are on an app called Workday along with signing up for benefits. A company app for messages about weather. A safety app called Vector. Of course Outlook and Teams. And the biggest pain are the 57 people that report directly to me,have my number to callout sick.

 

[jeffrefrig]

Getting "older", I've been dealing with medical specialists for body parts I never knew I had. Many times I get a call from the doctor office from a worker using her personal phone so a quick game of phone tag breaks out.

 

[Smoke]

That doesn't seem to add up to me. If the call goes to voicemail doesn't that just give them confirmation that yours is an active number?

I'm absolutely certain that the technology has changed since I was a telemarketer but when I worked as a telemarketer I wasn't sitting at a phone I was sitting at a computer that was hooked up to an auto dialer that dialed random numbers all day long.

Apparently when the call goes to voicemail there's a gap of a second or two between the time the call connects and the voicemail greeting starts.

The auto dialer was set up to recognize that beat and end the call. Apparently it kept that number in a data bank somewhere and the third or fourth time did it ended a call because it went to voicemail it dropped the number out of the queue.

Repeatedly connecting to voicemail is a waste of time and money.

 

[Smoke]

One of the things that I hated the most about working for G4S is that my phone rang and rang or I got texts All Day Long.

G4S had a company policy that all employees were essentially on call all the time. If your phone rang anytime day or night you have one hour to return the call or they'd write you up. So I couldn't even turn my phone off when I was sleeping.

Right before I quit my phone got added to a group chat for my site. I'm not even sure why they did it because I wasn't allowed to respond to this group chat and I couldn't leave the group chat and my phone beeped all day long.

The day retired I turned the ringer on my phone off.

 

[johngalt]

If a company expects me to be on call 24 hours a day they better be paying me.

I guess Peter Hegseth has a pretty cool chat group. Wonder how to get in on that?

 

[taz666]

I guess Peter Hegseth has a pretty cool chat group. Wonder how to get in on that?

A twelve pack of Corona?

 

[Mr. Vito]

Why would anyone answer a call they don't recognize?

More than once I have been at home awaiting the arrival of a technician or repairman, where the company told me that I would receive a call telling me when in the day the person would arrive, and their name. Often the phone used to call me is not the main number of the company so my phone does not recognize it. In those cases I answer calls from unfamiliar phone numbers. But I never answer if the call starts with "Can you hear me?". You could answer by saying "I can hear you" and then wait for them to try again. You could nicely tie up the scammer for several minutes playing this game with them.