I get a call every morn at 9:40 a.m. from various numbers, none that I recognize. Someone has me automated for a call at that time every day. I don’t even bother looking at the Caller ID now.

I also get a call from Evangeline Deacon every day. “She” leaves a message saying that Medicare will pay for something or other. I only get half the message since the robot talks right over my outgoing message.

it seems Nomorobo is catching fewer calls but I am grateful for the ones it blocks.

its the calls on my cell phone that really make my blood boil.

My parents are 85. They live in a building with other independent older people. They often share meals. The most common topic of discussion is what scam calls they all got,how many PER DAY and is there anything new out there. My mom wants to know how they know they are "old people." They get the one about the grand son in jail--in some South American jail about once a day.

I'm one that doesn't keep a cell phone on my person or have the handset in my lap, so I have to keep jumping up and down when the phone rings in the other room. Mostly I wait for the answering machine, also keep a list of the numbers that I know are telemarketers and scan down through them to see if it's on there. Yeah, I know they can change their numbers.

Lately, it's been someone from another electric company offering me better rates. ugh. I just hang up.

Just the other day we had 3 calls within hours of each other identified as our name and number! Looked at called id and laughed. Yes all the robot calls and spoofing of numbers is ridiculous!

I recently purchased a phone system (Panasonic answering device + 5 headsets from Costco) and it allows me to block up to 250 numbers. There is a "block number" key on the phone and all I have to do is press that and the number is logged and blocked from further bothering me. I imagine it won't take too long to reach my limit of blocked numbers and I'll have to clear the log and start over. But for now, I do get some relief from certain annoying repeat offenders. The do-not-call registry is a joke.

It truly is terrible. I understand getting these calls on a landline, but I also get spam/scam on my cell phone.

I especially despise the ones that come off as threatening me because I did something against the law.

I constantly block all of these and I have to say I am not getting them as frequently as I used to.

I have had the exact problem, just now reading this I had a call come in. The number has 13 digits and starts with a V, they call us a lot. Every morning at 8:01 I get the same call. Many calls with our local area code. I find it very annoying.

We completely disabled our landline due to the proliferation of robo calls. They were especially aggressive during the period for Medicare supplement sign-up. We were just questioning this morning about why we continue to pay $35 per month for something we can’t even use. I suppose the fact we even have a landline number puts us in the category of “elderly”.

The last voice mail message I got was in Chinese. My brother says he gets those too from time to time. We used to get messages in Japanese when we lived in Venice (CA), and so once when our phone rang while my BIL was visiting, I told him to answer the phone in Japanese (He lived in Tokyo for a couple of years). He thought that would be innocuous enough, but he had the hardest time getting the Japanese person on the other end off the line. Once we got a Japanese message with an Italian accent. The Japanese person who had our number before had run up some bills that they never paid.

Before I had caller ID I would answer, put the phone down and walk away!! Back then as long as I had my phone off the hook their line was tied up. It really ticked off a few of these obnoxious people. Loved it!!

How on earth are they managing to make the caller ID display YOUR name and phone number? Obviously, it's not you calling yourself, but I can't quite wrap my head around how they're managing to do this. How infuriating. The only people that ever call us on our landline are DH's parents or mine, and I honestly don't know why we retain it. Our folks can easily be retrained to call our mobiles, and I am so sick of the phone ringing at odd hours as it's always robo-calls. It never goes to voicemail, and some calls generate 20 rings or more. Maddening. Of course, we don't dare pick up the receiver though.

Ida Claire, it's called "Phone Cloning"

I really wish there was a way to stop telephone solicitations completely. Have any of you ever purchased anything because they called you at home?

I once told a candidate for City Council that if his people start calling my house he would lose my vote. Never received a call from him.

Ida, see if you can add you phone to the no more robo system. Most robo calls will only ring once before they are sent out to robo hell. It doesn’t work for all calls, and all systems are not compatible.

Nomorobo.com

Unfortunately, NoMoRoBo only works on mobile and VOIP. If you have an actual landline, no dice.

I think the reason the 'do not call' is ineffective is that as soon as one source goes down, another comes in. We screen all calls on our landline and set the number of rings to shortest duration, so we can pick up when it's actually someone we want to talk to.

No caller ID because we don't want to pay a penny more than the minimum to our crappy phone co.

When it's something important, they leave a message, and get a callback.

I do answer polls sometimes during election cycles, and I've also participated in telephone-townhalls.

An aside: I see elementary & middle school kids answer calls on their mobile phones from unknown numbers, which I find disturbing, to say the least.

“Unfortunately, NoMoRoBo only works on mobile and VOIP. If you have an actual landline, no dice.”

I thought many/most (what I consider) landlines were now VOIP?

I know Frontier Communications lets me refer to our house phone as a landline.

today was a first for me- multiple times my cell got a call from ME from my cell number. I went to answer it but each time, the spam blocker cut it off.

It had my name and city (where I used to live that the cell was originally). Like for example, Audrey calling from Tulsa.

I know I saw up above people had this on their landline saying it was them calling but this is new to me at least on my cell phone.

Today I had 15 calls from "Apple" a robot call that I didn't answer at all. They called every 15 minutes. My blocked number list was full but after call # 3 in an hour, I emptied the list and added the number. Unbelievably, they were calling from only one number. They kept calling all afternoon; when blocked, the phone rings once then stops. Makes me crazy!!!

That is too funny mor! But we can so relate. We have taken to picking up the phone and either not saying anything, or answering and saying hello in a crazy voice ( kind of like Polly want a cracker) or an angry voice just to see if they will speak. Occasionally, it is someone we were looking to hear from and it does make for some splainin' !

If you pick up a robo call, does it affect the frequency of future calls? I just wonder if your number goes into some sort of "warm body here" designation.

I've wondered, too, Ida and have just gone under the assumption that it does increase frequency of calls so don't pick up...EVER! Our calls seem to come in spurts. Like today I've had five or six but tomorrow we probably won't get any. Anyone else notice that?

Answering might ensure a call back, but I know I typically don't answer (and my phone often cuts out the suspected spam calls). I continue to get calls from the same #'s (lol MINE) whether I answer or not. I think it used to matter, but even not answering, I get calls from that number over and over

Well, if they're going to spoof a number, I guess it's better to have them spoof your own number to you rather than to 10,000 other people (some of whom might call you to tell you to quit calling them).

I understand that sometimes those calls are to check if it is a valid phone number, so answering would definitely be a bad idea.

I also had my land line disconnected because of robots calls, including ones showing my number on caller id. One time had an irate lady from Washington threatening to call the police if I kept calling her, lol. Tried to explain the number cloning, but she didn't understand.

When I started getting them while teaching, I told them to all yell "hi" when I gave the signal. Sure enough, I got another call, explained I didn't appreciate them calling while I was at work and neither did my students, and students yelled. Oddly, I've only had one or two random calls since. I guess word gets passed around.

Carol

My husband gets as many as 30 calls a day, from all over the country. I suspect it is because he is job hunting online and isn't savvy about what sites he visits and gives out his contact information to. He gets dozens of e-mails per day too and lots of junk mail. He can't even keep up with deleting them. I've tried to get him to unsubscribe and mark spam but he doesn't. His phone is full of apps that give him pop ups, and is almost unusable at this point. He can't be bothered but the constant phone ringing bothers me. Now my phone has started in with it. I suspect I got fooled by phone number cloning to answer once or twice and now my number is making the rounds. This is getting close to bad science fiction . . .

Honestly, I think if anyone wants to be certain of being elected to high office all they'd have to do it run on a platform of outlawing robot calls - both sides of the aisle would vote for them!! It seems likely there is the technology to block them all, but I'm left to wonder if somehow the telephone companies don't make money off of the calls somehow? I know they're probably mostly offshore, but there must be something to be done that isn't being done.

Our former Gov left 12 calls on my answering machine. In 1 day she did not get my vote.

Had a call during the shutdown. Asked if I agreed with shutdown. Then a man ask for money to support his campaign against shutdown. His name was not Nancy.

Listened to this podcast today and immediately thought of this conversation. Internet sleuths investigate and explain what seems to be a recent rise in creepy robocalls. There's a transcript too:

https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/135-the-robocall-conundrum#episode-player

#135 Robocall: Bang Bang

January 31, 2019

Show Notes

This week, Alex investigates the rise of one of the most hated businesses: Robocalls. And Damiano tries to figure out if a robocaller is tracking his every move.