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Even with strict guidelines/laws/regulations in the US, many of these spammers operate overseas and/or hide or fake their phone #. Not as easy to solve as you might think.
Are you saying that the technology of spam phone calls are too much for the government of the USA to handle?
Then the phone companies involved should address the problem.
Are you saying that the technology of spam phone calls are too much for the government of the USA to handle?
Then the phone companies involved should address the problem.
I am saying that it is beyond their control, especially if they are originating from overseas. The spammers constantly evolve to overcome efforts to block them. You are oversimplifying the issue.
At some point, if the government or the telephone companies started to prevent calls then they would be accused of censoring the rights of some individuals. It is a double edged sword.
The worst are the recent ones where you hear a cheerful recording that sounds live:
"Good afternoon, I'm Jerome! How are you today?"
I understand that those are robo-dialers, where computers dial huge lists of phone numbers.
Since they don't want to leave a recorded message, they are designed to listen and detect actual human voices rather than a recorded greeting. So they say something to get you to speak.
Then they switch to the Boiler Room telemarketers or such.
For a Cell: the best defense is to Screen ALL your calls. Don't answer ANY numbers that aren't in your contacts and show up with a Caller ID. If it's someone who actually knows you, they'll leave a message, you are alerted and call back. Time wasted about 5 minutes.
For landlines: Pick up the phone and stay quiet. When you hear a human, (saying, "hello???"), then you can start talking.
And the very second you realize it's a telemarketer, interrupt and say, "I'm sorry, I don't respond to any telephone solicitation, please remove my number from your lists." and hang up.
I got rid of my landline a year ago. Basically, I was paying $30 per month for Century Link to publish my phone number, and the nuisance calls were relentless. I got a Magic Jack for use as my home phone. $30 for a year of service, and not a single nuisance call. Of course this won't work if the power is out, or your internet is down.
I don't get many nuisance calls on my cell, and I just don't answer if it's an unfamiliar number.
And the very second you realize it's a telemarketer, interrupt and say, "I'm sorry, I don't respond to any telephone solicitation, please remove my number from your lists." and hang up.
Very important to do this. If you don't specifically ask each and every one to remove you, they can legally call again. If you ask and they call you back, they're legally liable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellise
I got rid of my landline a year ago. Basically, I was paying $30 per month for Century Link to publish my phone number, and the nuisance calls were relentless. I got a Magic Jack for use as my home phone. $30 for a year of service, and not a single nuisance call. Of course this won't work if the power is out, or your internet is down.
...
I cannot say enough good things about magicjack. To get around the power outage issues, we have our modem on an uninterruptible power supply. Gives us about an hour of voip service during a power loss.
We also have a ups on our dvr cable box. That way if there's a hiccup power glitch we don't have to sit thru a 5 minute reboot or worry about clobbered recordings.
It sucks. Spam calls to my cell quite a bit and it's so hard to tell if it's a legitimate call or not. I never answer the phone at home (I let it go to voicemail) unless I know exactly who it is AND I want to talk to them.
Very important to do this. If you don't specifically ask each and every one to remove you, they can legally call again. If you ask and they call you back, they're legally liable.
This advice made sense 10 years ago, but doesn't really apply in today's environment. If the calls originate from outside the country, like most vishing calls do, there is no way to enforce the penalties in that law. The international callers are spoofing the caller ID data of a domestic number. I've had vishing calls that spoofed my own number as the caller ID.
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