Robocalls Deflected

[Tom Bender]

On my phone I set the 'Do Not Disturb' times to 6AM till 5:59AM with only my Contacts able to get thru. Everything else goes straight to voicemail without a ring or notification. There is an exception if a number calls a second time in 3 minutes. So far, only a few scammers have gotten thru using that, but nobody I wanted to talk to so I may close that loophole too.

So if you call me from number not in 'My Contacts' you'd better leave a message or I'll block your number next time I look.

It's a shame 'big tech' refuses to fix this.

[Lee Schierer]

That feature is not available on most landlines....

[glenn bradley]

That feature is not available on most landlines....

And that's a shame too when you think of the ratio of cell phones to residential land lines today. Its not like storage is expensive anymore. Come on Ma-Bell, pony up some services.

[Gary Ragatz]

That feature is not available on most landlines....

A friend of mine uses a service called Nomorobo https://www.nomorobo.com/ . It's a free app for cell phones and also works on his VOIP land line. He says it's not perfect, but has cut down on the number of robo calls he gets.

I haven't bothered with it - I don't get many robo calls on my cell phone, and the land line is probably going to go away in a couple of months, when my current Comcast contract is up.

[Mike Null]

Robo calls are so bad on my voip line that I'm about to cancel it for good. I hate to do it as I regard it as an emergency line rather than the cell phone.

[Tony Joyce]

Robo calls are so bad on my voip line that I'm about to cancel it for good. I hate to do it as I regard it as an emergency line rather than the cell phone.

Almost the same here except I consider it necessary, because cell service is so poor(rural area). I have Spectrum with two lines. They have nomorobo and call blocking, but with a forty number limit. I filled that fast. Spoofing numbers is a real problem here also.

[Jim Becker]

Services like NoMoRobo work well for some kinds of robocalls that come from identified numbers, but they don't work at all for the current popular calling method of random/targeted spoofed CID numbers, often made to seem like they are local calls. There is potential light at the end of that tunnel coming, however, as carriers begin to roll out solutions that can get behind the CID spoofing and cut the calls off before they get to you. It's taken awhile to get the carriers to agree to work on this solution, however, and they do need to insure that "legal spoofing" still can be used by government agencies and other approved entities. I think I saw something on the news this morning whereby Verizon is about to provide some additional support to their subscribers along these lines, but I haven't looked into it further because I'm not a VZ wireless subscriber. I suspect that most of this effort will be relative to wireless services because the networks behind them (IMS) is more adaptable to this kind of thing as opposed to the large amount of very old, legacy systems that are still behind most of the land line services delivered by copper still in place.

[Frank Pratt]

At work I get a minimum of 3 or 4 calls a day & up to 7 or 8 from "Google" trying to do whatever. I don't listen to them & just hang up straight away. The CID number is always different, but they seem to use the same area code for a couple of weeks & then move on to another one. It's pretty annoying & I've done lots of searching for remedies, but nothing has worked.

[Mike Null]

Google is the biggest nuisance on my cell phone.

[Kev Williams]

Google used to call me many times a day. I figured out how to stop those calls-- talk to them ;) -I explained what I did and didn't want, mostly that I wasn't going to pay for anything, and they've never called me since. Been at least 2 years or so...

Years ago there used to be an add-on device, which went away but maybe it's back? If not I should re-invent the thing... Anyway, it was very straightforward: Someone calls, IT answers the phone with a simple "PRESS 1 to continue this call" or something like that... Since robots can't press 1, call ends, the number gets blacklisted, and you never know about it. If 1 gets pressed, your phone rings, you read the caller-ID and talk if you so desire, or let it go to voice-mail. You still have to weed out the real people you may not want to talk to with your caller ID but I always thought the 'press 1' thing was genius...

[Bruce Wrenn]

This has PO'ed me for many years now. It's going to take a US attorney going after a service provider using the RICO Act. Because many people (myself included) don't have unlimited plans, when the get either a spoofed, or scam call, they foot the cost of the call, as they are paying for metered service. This means service provider is profiting from criminal activity, and is guilty under the RICO Act. Ever notice no scammers want money wired Western Union anymore? Look up what Western Union settled for under the RICO Act. Also, notice how many spoofed calls you get from numbers that are only one digit different from someone with who you regularly get calls. How did they get these numbers? Most likely directly from YOUR SERVICE provider.

[Jim Andrew]

I had an ap called Mr Number on my old phone, and it caught most of the garbage calls coming in. Got a new phone, and have not installed it yet, but a couple weeks ago got a call from a "private" number. Guess what I did not answer it.

[Lee Schierer]

This past week my home phone called my home phone over two dozen times over 5 days.

[Dave Cav]

I just canceled my landline and went to VOIP with OOMA. We almost never answer the landline any more, just let it go to voicemail. On my cell, if it's from my old area code (I kept my old cell number) and it's not in my contacts it never gets answered. I looked at some of the spam call blocker apps for cell phones but they all harvest and sell your contact info, so they're really part of the problem.

[Roger Feeley]

I use the paid version of nomorobo and it catches several calls a day. But then, I don't get that many to begin with.
I stumbled across a good way to detect robocallers. They tend to spoof the number as if it's from your home area code. But the jokes on them. I used to live in the 913 area code and then I moved to 703. When I get a 913 call that's not in my contacts...busted.