Submitted by Strict_Zebra_3585 t3_10abm8c in newhampshire
Is anyone else getting an obscene amount of robo calls lately? In the past 24 hours, I have gotten somewhere in the neighborhood of 80. That is no exaggeration. Some show up as 603 numbers, some from other places. Some show up with names like "Healthcare" others show up as an actual person's name. Did I get put on a list, or is this happening to everyone?!
Oh absolutely. It's been going on for about a year for me. The volume of calls has only increased. I just try to waste their time so they can't scam anyone else.
I've always gotten a few a week. But last night at about this time, 5 pm, I got blasted with 13 in a row, and since then it a been a minimum of 5 or 6 an hour ever since.
Pretty sure that's gotta be because we've both answered the calls once, and now that they know the number works, they don't leave you alone. I saw Kitboga talking about it on a "the official podcast" about it. They straight up will not leave that number alone.
I accidentally answered one because I routinely get calls from numbers I don't recognize for work. That probably did it. So frustrating.
Best advice I can give with that? If you don't NEED to answer it, let it go to VM then call back if it's legit. Otherwise, this is your life now lol
Wish I was able to just leave it to voicemail.
There is a neat feature on the iphone to silence calls from numbers that are not on your contact list. I do this. Not the best solutions, like if you are looking for a job and waiting on a call, or a doctors office where they dont call back on the main line, if it is important, they will leave a voice mail.
​
95% of my silenced calls dont leave a message, I assume they are spam "car warranty" or "I want to buy your house!" type crap.
​
Do not "decline" the call on your phone or watch. I believe this hangs up on the call, which in turn signals back to the caller that it is a valid number. They use auto-dialers that just call 603-555-1111, 603-555-1112, 603-555-1113 etc until someone answers, then the call is routed to a phone rep who reads the script (or a recording is played). If it is a valid number, they will keep calling.
​
(I started using the silence unknown numbers feature during the election when my phone was blowing up)
I get one about every 1-2 hours. I tried a blocker app that caught maybe 90% of them, but I got tired of paying for it. The best thing to do is nothing, so they can’t confirm that the line is still active. Just let it ring.
I did but Verizon started blocking them. If one goes through I report it as spam.
I don’t answer the phone anymore.
80 percent of mine are from "spectra or ATT customers". I am neither. So weird.
I'm in my early 40's and was getting blown up about Medicare. 🤷♂️
Get an air horn, then answer them.... I've also found queuing a particularly loud, and screamy clip from a B horror movie helps decrease these calls.
Edit: I have the track "Friday The 13th" by Figure saved, and set to the point where it goes "Jason Voorhees is dead..." and a very abrasive "drop" at a moments notice, I answer spam calls, and often play this.
My spam calls have decreased.
What would probably work better to trick their system is blare old school dial up noises, so the computer thinks it's a fax machine.
It's definitely been ramping up. Average is about 20 a day. Flagging them all as Spam.
What is the flagging process
Verizon let's you mark unknown numbers as "spam." Also, I sent a list of the calls (numbers, dates and times) to the AG.
But the calls come from distant parties pretending to be from those numbers. (Often local)
Right. AG compiles and works with FTC.
FTC already has notified VOIP companies that providing those types of services can lead to criminal charges. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2020/01/ftc-warns-19-voip-service-providers-assisting-facilitating-illegal-telemarketing-or-robocalling
[deleted]
I'm on it. Have been since 2009. Still got a few, but nothing like this last 24 hours. It's been insane!
I haven't seen that the dnc list stops India.
I've been on that since they first rolled it out. It doesn't stop the Indian calls.
It's hard to tell because I think that my phone screens them out. My phone is normally in the basement. If it rings, I get a note on my watch saying the number is calling. If I recognize the number, I call back on the computer. Otherwise it goes to voicemail. My mother gets about 45 calls a day. I can see it on her phone - they show up as missed calls as they never leave a message. I've been at her home for a while and I answered the calls and they were health insurance, utility switching, medicare-related, etc. There seems to be no way to get rid of these things.
Many seniors--people in their seventies and eighties--just think they have to answer every call. So they do. Seniors are favorite targets of scammers, because they are law abiding, polite, and sometimes easily confused. The scammers hope they can find someone with borderline dementia.
The more calls you answer, the more they will continue to call.
Back then calls were important. You didn't have spammers and scammers because they had to pay for the call.
I agree. Unfortunately, the scammers have taken advantage of the trusting nature of good people, who don't realize how much things have changed. I take the opportunity whenever I can to remind those trusting seniors. Of course, some are pretty stubborn, and don't want to hear me out.
It is very difficult to change the mindset of older folks because they have such a long history of doing things a certain way. Getting them to use modern technology is difficult unless the older person has a pliable mind. We got my mother computers and internet access in her house. Her approach to using the internet in her house was to ask one of us to come over and use the internet for her as opposed to self-service. My wife is like this as well as she grew up in an era where your manager told you what to do and how to do it. The modern world has managers giving you a task and you have to figure out how to do it.
Older people get spammed by postal mail too.
Depends on the person. Some older people, such as myself, move forward. We ask our kids for help with the new technology. We accept technological change as inevitable, and we keep learning as we go. I have the advantage of having an administrative job where I worked with a computer on my desk beginning in 1990. Software and hardware change constantly. To me, a computer is part of my brain. So is my iphone now.
The problem is when the older folks figure they don't need to learn the new technology, they will just go with the landline, the newspaper, cable tv. I have a 93 year old neighbor who is convinced that he doesn't need the internet to know what is going on in the world. Not true, but he can't be convinced.
Schools used different methods of teaching in the 40s, 50s and 60s emphasizing rote over analysis, creativity and discovery. So people didn't necessarily know how to learn new things that they didn't already know, without some kind of training. That changed in subsequent years and you can see that reflected in math textbooks among other things. This was mirrored in Asia where countries came to believe that their rote learning methods was insufficient for a modern world.
I'm a retired software engineer so I basically have a math background; but you generally have to figure out how to do things without help. So you explore, experiment, fail and eventually figure it out. This was the way it was back for us in the 70s and 80s but this became what employers wanted from all of their employees later on. Self-motivated, able to solve problems and find solutions without help or management attention, initiative, etc.
I have taken it as a given for some of the older folks that I know as this is what I have observed. I know retired engineers, doctors and others and they generally don't have a problem learning or even inventing new things. But I don't think that they are the majority.
I suppose it also depends on your background, your upbringing. My dad, who was educated in a small town in Minnesota in the 1920s and 30s, was also very good at math and science. I have no idea what sort of curriculum they had, but he went off to college, was trained at Harvard and MIT and the US Naval Academy during WWII. His grandfather was raised in an orphanage in Germany, where he learned engineering and mathematics. I guess to be a military engineer, but he immigrated to the US instead.
So even if I went to public schools during the fifties and sixties, I had a scientist for a father, which makes all the difference in the world. My mom grew up on a farm, where she learned all about animal behavior and how plants grow. Both my parents were grandchildren and great-grandchildren of pioneers, so they were accustomed to the idea that they had to solve problems with their common sense and their own knowledge. They also both read extensively and we possessed many books, as well as visited the library.
Also, women of my boomer generation (and older) were expected to act like dummies when it comes to computers, math, and science. So, not only do they have trouble with technology, they also fall for pseudoscience. They think emotionally, not logically. And I can say all that sexist stuff since I'm a woman. Older men certainly have issues as well--I have a friend who is a retired science teacher but can't figure out how to use email or voice mail, or even how smart phones work--he thinks they require wifi. He just won't admit he doesn't understand, he's convinced he's got it down.
In fact, I would say the real problem with elementary education is that so many of the teachers are women, who are often terrified of science and advanced math. The love to teach reading and arithmetic, but they can't make science interesting if they don't enjoy it for its own sake.
I agree with what you wrote. Modern parents try to treat their sons and daughters the same but there are influences beyond parents. The question is: can the schools provide the spark to make science interesting and approachable without having someone with a strong math and science background at home?
Perhaps in better school districts. I like the idea of everyone knowing this stuff as then parents can help their kids learn this stuff and talk about why it is interesting and useful.
My wife and my mother fit your description of their schooling. My wife grew up in an Asian country in the 1960s and the teaching was rote learning. Both struggle with technology expecting someone else to do things for them.
My mother resented her father giving her many brothers money to go to college but not paying for her to go.
If you can get kids to do reading and math early, then they can learn on their own with only a little help. There are a lot of good self-programmed materials out there and kids have the satisfaction of learning or discovering on their own. I am somewhat of a fan of the unschooling philosophy as I have seen it work spectacularly well.
There are so many cultural influences in the way we learn. Your description of your wife's experience is interesting. My midwestern parents were of German and Norwegian background, also Protestant. Reading was important culturally, but the pioneer aspect puts everyone into survival mode. Women couldn't be feminine and sweet, there was too much work. If a woman couldn't sew, preserve food, grow a garden, and often balance the books for the farm--she wasn't much use. I carry that with me.
I would hope today's schools put more emphasis on critical thinking, and that includes basic science and mathematics. While we don't have to be pioneers, we need to be better prepared for life and decision making. Cursive handwriting isn't the same as understanding and reading labels and directions.
Several Asian countries acknowledged over-dependence on rote learning in the 1980s and 1990s and worked to try to get the creativity that the US had in a lot of different areas. So yes, critical thinking. A good example is the Singapore Math books that you can find in Barnes and Noble. The elementary school books would give a lot of parents a tough time. These textbooks are really cheap but they have very challenging problem sets.
We have kids for 12 years and I don't understand how kids learn so little math (or other subjects) in that amount of time. There are school districts in the US that are world-class but the average seems to be poor. I think that NH does well compared to the rest of the country. I used to follow the TIMSS studies out of Boston College and recall that Asian countries did particularly well in their testing.
My mother told me stories of working in rice fields and women delivering in the rice fields and then going back to work. I don't know if she was serious or not. She did a lot of the survival stuff and we used to go to Chinatown to buy live birds and she would butcher them in the sink. She was a single parent of four kids and worked two jobs to support us so we grew up without any supervision.
The modern world is considerably different and demands different skills and abilities and a lot of our young people have those abilities. It almost seems natural to them.
We used the Socratic method around our house to teach and to get an idea if the kids understood something or not. And to see if they could connect things together that were not inherently obvious.
There are so many challenges. Overall, I think Americans are just lazy when it comes to math and science. That is why Asians and Europeans out do them in school and the workplace. Harvard has been accused of restricting the number of Asian students who are admitted--there would be mostly Asian students there, because their academics are so high.
Not recently, they don't like me anymore though. Last time, I was able to gather enough information to send a demand letter, and we settled for quite a bit of cash. Now I welcome them! Can't do anything about overseas scammers though.
[deleted]
Me too, I got my phone numbers when I lived in another state, and it's easy to drag them around with me, and changing them would be a lot of work. But when I get a 510 call it's always either a scammer or a recruiter who doesn't know where I live.
I assign specific ring tones to people who actually call me, such as family, friends, the dentist, my mechanic, etc. Then when I hear the generic ring tone, I know I can just ignore the phone. I let the call go to voicemail, and most of the time, there is no voice mail.
I have as well, starting Monday my phone started ringing every few minutes. I received about 40 spam calls in 24 hours, some numbers calling multiple times. I called my provider on the issue and they were able to change a spam filter setting on my account which seemed to help but hasn't fixed the issue completely. It's ridiculous.
I’ve been getting two to three a day this month, I’m in the do not call list too
Never pick up the phone for numbers you don't recognize. They use the fact that you picked up as evidence that calling you more often might be productive.
Anyone worth talking to will leave a message.
Consider changing my phone number to another state. Mine is now in Lawrence, Mass (ewww... but that's precisely the reason I made the change).
Now most of the robocalls are setting their Caller ID to Lawrence area. So easy to ignore as I have no contacts there.
I can freely answer "603" Caller ID and maybe <5% are Robos.
Look into a service called nomorobo, it’s usually free. You add them on your phone line, and they check incoming caller ID against their database of robocalls, and if they find it they answer it, usually after the first ring.
Yea, do not call list doesn't always work.
I work in sales operations, so I know all the tools that get used.
There are auto dialers that call up to 10 people at once, and whoever picks up, it drops the others and connects to that one, but then they call the other back.
There is a feature on a lot of tools called "local dial". It makes the number calling you look like it is from the 603. If they called MA it would show up as 781.
There is the double call, which is exactly what it sounds like, you don't pick up and them immediately cLl you back so you think it is an emergency or important. I will not let my sales team do this because I hate it.
The one you want to check to see if you are on it is ZoomInfo. It scrapes LinkedIn for your info and it searches everything to get your info and it tries to keep track of when you change jobs to provide updated info to their customers. It really is not great at that part. I am on the Do not call list and I'm a customer and I co statly get added back in, then my account manager gets an earful.
go here to request your info gets removed from zoominfo
There are alternatives to ZoomInfo out there, but it is one of the most popular.
Nice try, pal. You're one of them. I click that link, and I'm on every list known to man!
I straight up ask people if they got my info from zoominfo or which program so I know which one to go yell at
I'm just messing with you!
Oh okay! Sorry. I get it. I'm just trying to help. I know how annoying it is. I do my best to set my team up to not be annoying and I call them put when they are. It isn't much but it is what I can do right now!
Appreciate you.
I appreciate you. And if you want me to check any programs I have access to and see if you are in them, I can request to update your info, and i can try to change your number to a fake one. PM me if I can help
Or don't belive me and stay on the lists, up to you. There are like 500 places out there about checking your info online and they all tell you to fill this out and get off the list.
If you applied for student loan forgiveness, that might have been a cause. Supposedly your info would have been added to a bunch of call directories.
Not the case for me. Never had a student loan.
I get many and I got my degree in a country that doesn't charge for education, so I never even had a student loan. This sounds like right wing disinformation.
This sounds like someone who got a free college degree, hence their reading comprehension isn’t so guuuud.
LOL! You think a commercial system that want you in college long enough to earn a lifetime debt has any incentive to teach? Sounds like someone who paid someone to give them an inescapable loan and wasn't educated enough to understand they got scammed.
Most of these calls are from Indian call centers. UI can't be bothered wasting my time to lead them on, I've tried and I always end up laughing at their pathetic lies, so I found a few grave insults in Hindi to use when I talk to them. They are criminals, so they don't deserve any courtesy. They scam people out of huge amounts of money, and often steal controlling access to their PCs and bank accounts. The phone companies could block all of these calls, but they are making money from them, so they don't care. I don't get as many as you though, just about four so far today. Maybe my aggressive attitude to telling them what scum they are has some positive affect after all.
Glucose12 t1_j44gnsn wrote
You must be on multiple lists. I usually just get one or two.
Have you put (all of) your phone numbers on the national do-not-call registry? It won't help with the foreign hacked calls showing up as a local number, but it might help with -some- of the spammers who aren't out-and-out criminals.