Check your caller ID (loan, home, university)

[Worren]

They're at it again. Telemarketers, scammers, politicians and others are updating their sucker lists. They want to know who answers their phones and are gullible enough to give them money. They do it by using robo calling computers to ring every phone in every area code. You can tell them fairly easily because when they call your caller ID will say "no caller ID" or something similar. They don't want you to know who they are and are betting most folks never use caller ID. Blocking anonymous callers doesn't help as it just tells them that yours is an active number. They usually ring only four or six times, which is also a tip off. Many folks do not enjoy being interrupted during dinner or evening relaxation times. Also, if you've ever been had by telephone crooks you know how easy it is to fall victim to them.
So, to foil these crooks and scammers, don't answer until the phone has rung at least six times, check your caller ID and if you don't recognize the caller don't answer. There are a lot of fake charities that use legitimate charities names. NEVER give out personal information such as social security numbers, date of birth, family members names or hours you're not home. Never physically threaten or swear at telemarketers since some will record you and you could get in trouble with the law.
Visit the website :800notes.com and check numbers that call you. Save yourself a lot of grief by checking every unknown number. Some are ok but most are not on the up and up.

[Carolina Knight]

Beware of phone numbers whose area codes and prefixes start with 1 or 0. No area codes and prefixes start with those numbers.

[GRU_Minion]

There's not really much point in caller ID anymore except for people you actually know. I get calls every other day both on my cell phone (which is also my home phone) and on my work cell and desk phone with robocalls from those stupid alarm companies, ones calling about my business' Google ranking, "Howard from the loan department", and now some university saying they need more information to send me my degree. None of them are real phone numbers because they're different every time they call. Usually just junk Skype phone numbers they use until it gets shut down and they move to the next one.