After repeated data breaches that no company really seems to give a s— about my phone is blowing up with literally hundreds of spam calls and texts month. I get and make MAAAAYBE 2 or 3 important calls per month, 180-200 of the rest are literally all spam. Anyone have any suggestions, apps ect that they have found refuge with? I really don’t use SMS that much either, mostly it’s via signal, discord whats app, ect…
Just to put it out there I run CalyxOS on a Pixel 5a.
Nice to see the reddit attitude making it’s way here. OP is downvoting all of the correct answers and the bad advice is getting upvoted.
To everyone reading this. If you don’t want spam calls stop answering numbers you don’t recognize. You should also go to your carrier and opt in to whatever spam blocking service they offer (should be free).
I would also advise as I did in another comment to keep your real number on GV or similar with decent spam protection/blocking and use a direct number you can burn if needed.
the bad advice is getting upvoted.
But… You are the most upvoted comment… And seems good advice… I’m so confused
At the time of that comment I and all of the other legit advice was getting shit in and downvoted by OP and others.
I use T-Mobile Spam protection and configured it to send every unknown number directly to voicemail.
For any telemarketing, spam, etc. calls they get directly ignored without being sent to voicemail.
I’ve been lucky to only have one false positive in 5 years now, cost of doing business.
I don’t have that level of protection turned on and I get very few calls. Both my work and personal numbers are on GV so if somehow either of my direct lines start getting spam bombed I can burn them and get new ones. Thinking about it, I should maybe be prepared and grab one to park as I’ve advised so I have a fresh and clean one ready to go.
If you don’t want spam calls stop answering numbers you don’t recognize.
I never answer calls from the area code my phone number is from because they are all spam. I haven’t even lived in that area for years. But I still get 3 a day. I can’t even remember the last time I answered one. 2, maybe 3 years ago? I still get them, though.
Edit: I just checked, and I am enrolled in Verizon’s call filter thing.
If you are still getting that many and sometimes more, I would suggest exactly what I did to OP in another comment. Get a new number. Grab one from GV, number barn, etc that hasn’t been used in awhile. Alternatively move your current number (if you want to keep it long term) and get a new direct number.
I have my main number on GV, I’ve had it for over a decade. I ported it to GV from tmo about that long ago. I grew up in Florida so just because I got a 727 area code for my personal direct line, I moved that sim to my work phone when I moves to having 2 phones. That number gets like 5 calls a week if that and they are mostly from house flippers trying to lowball me on a property I don’t own nor have ever seen. The other ones are political bs. My current personal direct line is a local number and that one gets literally zero spam calls, a few texts but nowhere near the insanity that some people deal with. I have no idea how many calls or texts are being blocked by tmo now.
I’ll repeat. If you are getting a shit storm of spam and turning on the carrier level protection doesn’t help, it’s time for a new number. I responded up top level because OP was being obstinate and saying that a new number was pointless because it had been used by deadbeats (paraphrasing here) without seeing the irony in that statement.
I pretend to be another call center. Or an IVR.
“Thank you for calling Punkadye Laboratories and Archives. My name is Terry. May I have your GSN number please?”
I don’t know what a GSN number is; just something that I made up. Once in a while, I get an actual person, but I insist that I have “their latest GSN or a recent invoice,” before I continue. I have “a call center voice,” and can reasonably fake gender neutral.
Sometimes I answer, “Thank you for calling Punkadye Laboratories and Archives. Please listen closely, as our menu options recently changed. If you know the number of your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time. If this is a billing question, please press 1. If this is technical support, please press 2.”
Rarely does the call get past the press one part. Often this cuts the latest wave of calls quickly.
as our menu options recently changed
They’ve ALWAYS changed… 😭
so, your mileage may vary but here’s what I do:
- people I want to talk to are in my contacts list
- I ignore all other incoming calls
- voicemail is a filter. use it.
If they don’t leave a voicemail, then it’s either spam or not urgent.
Fuck the people (like my boss) who say “You’re so hard to get hold of”. Send a message or leave a voicemail, you caveman.
Or a debt collector. Fuck those people.
I keep my voicemail full. Text me if you need to talk from a number I don’t have in my contacts
where I live, literally noone use the voicemail, for most of them it is the first thing to opt out from
kinda strange, I don’t know why, but I personally have it disabled (and everyone I know) for 25 years now, because it was super annoying it lets only a few rings and then redirects everyone to voicemail if I’m not quick enough to pick it up.
Also, the mentality here is “I’m not paying for leaving a message, I pay for talk to you directly”, so this can add to the voicemail “hate” here
I just don’t answer unless the number is in my contacts list. If it’s important, they will leave a voicemail and I will call back. Spammers almost never leave a voicemail.
Pixel phone user, the built in spam blocker seems very reliable. When something goes through I use the call screening feature.
This is the reason why I won’t consider anything but a Pixel. I’ve tried other phones a couple of times but ended up replacing them with Pixels for the spam blocking.
This right here. Got a pixel a year ago… Holy shit. Was wondering why I literally get zero spam calls after formerly only owning Samsung phones… Google Assistant screening everything is just fantastic for my ADHD brain.
I have a pixel. How do I enable this? The only thing I see is an option to warn me when it’s suspected spam. But I don’t see any way to prevent it from ringing.
Check my other reply to this comment
I guess your other comment didn’t federate to my instance, because there is no other comment by you in this thread. I even checked your profile. Can you link me to it?
My message and a slightly different location said by another user. Hope it helps
Railcar8095 In the phone app: Settings > Caller ID& spam > Filter spam calls
[email protected] You got me in the right place! Phone settings -> Spam and Call Screen -> Call Screen Spam
Oh, call screen? I was afraid that would answer the calls with the Google Assistant and make it so more spammers would call me.
Imagine being unemployed and looking for work.
I have to answer every call.
Every call is spam. The number of calls I get has increased tenfold.
I’m certain that some of these jobs and recruitment sites aren’t actually hiring for anything. They are just collecting and selling my data.
Shit man, I’m in the exact same boat (well, employed, but not even remotely close to being in a financially viable way). I’m so tired of answering the phone, being asked my name, and not knowing if it’s going to be one of the hundreds of jobs I’ve applied for, a debt collector, or a run of the mill spam/scam.
Pixel’s all screening from Google has pretty much completely solved my spam call issue.
Set it up to screen every single call from anyone who is not in my contacts, And I haven’t had to miss any important unexpected calls, or answer any spam calls, in months
I love this feature so much. While I feel like the Pixel misses a lot of cool features from OnePlus and Samsung, this is IMO a killer feature.
Too bad you aren’t running stock Android to get that spam blocking.
Mine will show “Spam” or “Telemarketer”, but there’s no way to stop it from ringing trough, outside of blocking each number afterward. I’d like to know who thought that just announcing spam was better than not letting it through.
Check your settings, mine doesn’t even show me a missed call.
blocking numbers is a waste of time.
I like answering them and asking if their parents are proud of them.
I added the phone number disconnected sound effect to the beginning of my voicemail outgoing message, set my ringer to silent, and set a personalized ringtone to anyone I actually wanted to speak with. That worked okay to get me off most of the lists. When that wasn’t enough to drive all of them away I started answering unknown numbers and fucking with the people on the other end, saying anything to string them along and waste their time with bullshit and lies. That actually worked better than anything else.
My wife and I used to take care of her grandmother. After a while, this old lady got excited to get a scam call or telemarketer, because she would hand the phone to me and I’d just pick a persona:
- Confused old man
- Helplessly stoned young man
- Lecherous and blustery impolite person
There were others, but those were her favorites.
I started answering unknown numbers and fucking with the people on the other end, saying anything to string them along and waste their time with bullshit and lies
I had a stoner friend who would drop everything in any given evening to do exactly this, specifically for his own entertainment and derision.
Ah, to be young and with plenty of spare time on hand, those were the days and we didn’t even realize it.
I find if you answer their calls and fuck with them for a bit they tend to stop calling
I never answer unless I recognize the caller. If it is important they can leave a voice mail.
On the plus side I no longer get the weekly call from the Chinese lady.
I do the same. And then I quickly block the number I didn’t know. Seems to help, but I still get lots of spam calls.
I have Call Screen on my Pixel 6a doing a lot of heavy lifting for me.
I really wish there was a non-Google version of it that everyone could download and use.
That reminds me, STT, TTS and a tiny LLM are feasible to run on phone hardware these days. You could conceivably build something like Google’s data gobbling solution but fully local and offline.
Yet Another Call Blocker is in F-Droid.
This is not advice.
I hated spam calls. Got them constantly.
I decided to just fuck with them mercilessly. I’d answer almost every time. Even if I had to drop whatever I was doing. My single overriding goal was to keep them on the line as long as possible and then, once discovered, piss them off as much as possible.
I’ve been doing this for years. No YouTube channel or anything. I didn’t record the calls. Just a personal hobby of mine.
If I was at work, I’d try to keep them talking while I ignored them and kept working. If I wasn’t busy, I’d interact more.
Initially, it seemed to cause a massive increase in spam calls. Like, it seemed fairly obvious to me that I was getting more calls because I was responding. Since I enjoyed fucking with them, I didn’t mind getting them any more.
I always figured I was at least tying up one scammer for as long as possible.
After awhile all my calls were hangups. I’d answer, and then they would immediately disconnect. I know that happens sometimes because the robo caller calls multiple lines at once and drops all but the first one that answers, but it started happening every time for me.
A few months ago I read about some scam call networks getting busted. I wondered if it would have any effect.
Seems like it has. I don’t even get one call or week anymore.
yea i answer and string them along for ages. since i am not well, my voice and tiredness always shows through, but im quite lonely so i quite enjoy these long rambling chats. i always try to be helpful and ask them lots of questions, and always say yes to whatever they want. but i never give out bank account numbers etc. but i always say “yes i will contact my lawyer and they will cut you a cheque,. how much do you need? pls, let me help?” etc etc.
I use the app “should I answer” on Google play store. It worked pretty well for my partner who isn’t really that smart with that kinda stuff and used to get lots of calls. But it helped her a bit mitigating it.
I like it too but I wish they would stop harrasing you with their database update, it’s so annoying!
Oh forgot I turned that notification off. So I only update it once in a while.
