Happy answers calls. When he senses someone has an attitude problem, he transfers the call to Grumpy. Or Dopey, for some who may be a bit confused about the problem they're trying to resolve.

“The caller leaves a message if legitimate and I call back. Simple. No terror involved. I add the number to my contact list for future reference.”

Exactly...beyond simple!

"Remember to ask for Goofy. LOL" I was thinking Gaston LeGume!

Also, my voicemail greeting is via text entered and played on Google Translate, recorded to the phone ... to help avoid potential AI scammers catching and faking my voice. Crazy? Maybe. AI to my advantage! Yay!

Olychick, I had to look that one up!

Yes, perfect.

Olychick, feel free to call my number any time. Watch your language or you won't last long with Happy.

Oh Elmer, you misunderstood. I wouldn't call, I would just forward all the sales calls to you so you can talk to them, not me!

You can deal with your own calls. Try to do so rationally and politely. Practice doing it without getting angry, annoyed or worried.

I am a luddite with a landline. A package deal with internet and cable. I have five landline phones thru out the house and I never answer unless I check caller ID. I notice I get less every year because if you answer, they know it's a legitimate number. I've had iPhones for many years and I never give out my number even to dentists/doctors.. so I get very few random calls there.

Lol, Elmer. I already DO deal with my own calls. I don't need your help with that, nor would I ever take lessons on social graces from you, for heaven's sake.

I do not get many sales calls. I DO get lots of scam calls, most that do originate from overseas though not all, even though they have legitimate numbers (its called spoofing), and they are often threatening me with arrest or a lien or something else I am supposed to burst into tears over and happily go get some gift cards and send them the numbers to. I also get scam calls disguised as sales calls or "friendly reminders" that there was an issue with some payment and whatever service that payment was supposed to pay for will be cut off IMMEDIATLY if I do not pay up. While they do not TERRORIZE me personally, as I know they are full of it, lots of people do fall for these things and genuinely are terrified when they receive such calls. That's why they work, and why they continue on.

I have my phone set to only ring if the caller is in my contacts list. If I am expecting a call from someone not in my list, I turn that off until I receive that call, then it gets turned back on. This is to avoid general annoyance of course. But also, as I work night shifts it is pretty much required for me to get enough sleep. I get several of these calls a day, and one of my first tasks of the day is to go and erase the voicemails that they left in an attempt to send me in a panic to get my debit card...

I do partially blame myself for the sheer number of such calls, I used to answer and then proceed to mess with them for however long. When they would threaten me with arrest I would ask which county? Ill just go turn myself in. Or i would say "ok, ill go wait for them on the porch to come get me, let me put a bra on first." That was in my early twenties. Now I know that with each answered call, my number was flagged as a good number that was answered and added to a list that is sold to other scammers. So that was dumb.

These threads come up time and again, and each time we hear that the majority of us ignore calls from unknown numbers, and Elmer prefers his method of answering all calls. Big deal, we’re all free to choose whichever method we prefer, maybe even switching it up as the mood strikes. I’d imagine we all just do what makes us happiest, what seems least intrusive to us. Clearly we’re all aware of our options when the phone rings, so why try to convince others that our choices are best? Seems subjective and inconsequential to me. You want to answer the phone, answer it, if you don’t, don’t. It really is as simple as that. The ”better” way is the way that makes you happiest.

Having said that, I don’t really understand being curious enough about the display on my caller ID to start a thread about it, but not curious enough to simply answer one of the calls to see what it’s all about. Approach any call with a healthy level of caution, don’t give out your cc or ss numbers, mother’s maiden name or ATM pin, and entertain the call as you see fit.

" I don’t really understand being curious enough about the display on my caller ID to start a thread about it, but not curious enough to simply answer one of the calls to see what it’s all about "

Well said. Nothing to add.

Telemarketer does not equal scam.

The purpose of The Kitchen Table is to be able to talk about “ nothing and everything.”

So IMHO, no reason to ever question anyone’s question.

If you find a topic not to your liking,don’t participate.

Certain remarks turn off a conversation which is the exact opposite of our purpose here.

Sorry if my tone was uninviting; that wasn’t my intention. Sometimes the obvious just escapes us, and I thought it worth mentioning that great way to find out who is calling is to answer the phone! 😉 That needn't be considered a high risk option.

"Tellemarker does not equal scam."

I agree; I think our discussion eventually morphed from scam to what is more like spam and they are not the same. But sometimes it's difficult to tell which one you are dealing with. There seems to be so much hostility to telemarketers these days that I can't believe that companies actually still use that method to reach customers. I can't think of the last time I was contacted by a legit business trying to sell me something. Of course, if I don't answer and they don't leave a message, I wouldn't know if it was a legit business calling trying to sell me something.

Oh thank you so much for you wise advice Elmer! Perhaps with that, I can now move out of the corner of my closet where I spend all day, every day in fear lest the phone ring and cause me terrible anxiety leading me to scream and shout until that horrendous ringing is over! Should I answer? What if it's a wrong number? Are they out to get me? What if I don't answer and they need me! Oy! The confusion! The worry! The terror!!!

🙄

"There seems to be so much hostility to telemarketers these days that I can't believe that companies actually still use that method to reach customers."

I remember back in the '80s when I worked for a bank there were some days we had to work late to call people at home during the early evening/dinner hour to sell our banking products. This was a relatively new thing back then in my area and I remember I vehemently hated doing it -- I was embarrassed to call people to sell them something, felt bad I was probably interrupting their dinner ("dinnertime" was the norm back then) and thought if it were me I'd be PO'd at the nerve of someone calling me during dinner to sell me something. People were usually pretty polite about it, I don't recall anyone being particularly nasty....they weren't getting robocalled endlessly back in those days and generally were trusting of people who called...but still...I absolutely hated it. That marketing strategy didn't last too long at this place of employment, thank goodness.

I vaguely recall hearing a news spot on the radio not too long ago about human trafficking in the telemarketing industry. If true, that doesn't surprise me in the least.

Annie, you're such a hoot.

Group discussions are like ringing phones. One can answer if they choose to do so, or not. 🤷‍♀️

I often do answer these types of calls when they don't come in during my work day.

Some are simply offering something and I can just say no, but when they are scammers - want to verify a purchase - looking for account information . . . I play along, I drag it out, I have fun asking stupid questions - I can keep someone on the phone for 30-40 minutes while cooking or doing housework or gardening. It is a form of entertainment - how long can I keep them from calling someone else who may actually be harmed. If we all did this they would reach far fewer vulnerable people and we would make their scams less profitable.

When I used to pay bills by mail I stuffed all the junk that came with my bill in the envelope with the check. Same thought pattern. . . If enough people stuffed all the junk back in the envelope and staff had to dig through it to find your check the companies may find the practice to be less profitable.

"I play along"

Amy, above, said she used to play along too and her replies sounded very funny:

"When they would threaten me with arrest I would ask which county? Ill just go turn myself in. Or i would say "ok, ill go wait for them on the porch to come get me, let me put a bra on first."

But then she stopped when she cottoned to the fact that each of her replies established that she was a real number and her number would then get gathered and sold to more scammers.

😳

roxsol -- Oh my! Looks like Kim took that call a long time ago, judging by the brick-size phone. Hope she wasn't driving. (WHO would put that on a headstone!)

Chisue, I think Kim and her family had a great sense of humour. Kim must have been a God-fearing woman who loved talking on the phone.

I just hope that last call wasn’t a scam. 😁

You can always answer, say no thanks and be done with it. I answer all calls, those with caller ID and those without, when it's convenient for me to do so. I'm never concerned, agitated or irritated by them. Try it!

As usual, a bad suggestion. Common sense reasons for not answering unsolicited calls are mentioned in earlier posts. In addition scammers can record your voice while you’re talking with them, then afterwards with AI technology use your voices on a call to your family member for extortion. This scheme has been on the national news lately, and the experts who have dealt with these telemarketers and scammers recommend to let your phone ring if you don’t know the source. Even if it sounds like someone you know from a voicemail, try to reach your family member directly to verify a situation. Scammers can even make the call number displayed on your phone the number you know from your phone list so you would pick up the call. Don’t be a victim of this latest AI ploy, hang up the call, always call back the number directly to verify.

"Common sense reasons for not answering unsolicited calls are mentioned in earlier posts".

I saw no compelling reasons. What did you see that made an impression on you?

" scammers can record your voice while you’re talking with them, then afterwards with AI technology use your voices on a call to your family member for extortion. "

Too much imagination at work. Do you have family members that gullible?

" This scheme has been on the national news lately, "

Don't believe everything you see on TV.

" Don’t be a victim of this latest AI ploy, "

Nor be needlessly paralyzed by imagination and/or paranoia.

Only a fool thinks they are invincible to mental deterioration especially in advancing age or under other external factors. And there was no imagination when there were police and FBI investigations on these new AI scams. But if they choose to live under a rock so be it.

Only a fool cowers from ordinary things that happen in everyday life. A ringing phone is not the breaking of glass and rammed in doors of a deadly home invasion.

Scams and cons are not new. The means used may change over time but again, same old, same old. It can happen in a parking lot, walking down the street - anywhere.

Anyone susceptible to being fooled or lacking the cognitive ability to recognize and reject such advances can protect themselves by transferring hands-on access to their financial means to another person.

Just that very thing happened to an oldster in my extended family. Two guys knocked on the door, saying they were from the power company, and needed to access the power pole in the backyard. She said okay. They responsed, they needed her to watch. She started out the front door and one guy said - No, go ahead out the back door, I'll meet your there.

So one guy goes down the driveway to the backyard, the occupant goes out a back door and meets him. He never went up the pole, he just stood and talked with her for 10 minutes. Where was the second guy? Why, he was in the house, grabbing everything small of value - money and cards from her purse, some jewelry from her bedroom, etc.

After that, her kids took possession of her checkbook and credit cards. She received $150 per week for spending money and they collected and paid her bills. . Problem solved. The problem was mental deterioration (and in this person's case, a lifetime of being dim-witted). The event highlighted the need for how to deal with that reality that should have been done years sooner. Shaking in fear and an underground bunker to protect from con schemes weren't needed.

You can always answer, say no thanks and be done with it."

Or we can do as we wish and not answer. Why does it matter to you how others handle their lives when it has NOTHING to do with you?

Why can't you just state what you prefer to do and leave it at that instead of trying to convince people in post after post that YOUR way is superior for lives you know nothing about? No one cares how you do it.

" No one cares how you do it"

I don't see where this quoted sentence comes from but in case these were my words, I can respond - the intent of my comments was to try to suggest a calmer and more rational attitude about calls. And to dispel any fear or concern about a ringing phone or the presence of snarling wolves on the other end of the call.

Heck, if a ringing phone can trigger one's personal emotions or concerns, why not keep it turned off?

Elmer reminds me of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory. Totally convinced he was the only person with sufficient intelligence to decide what was right/correct or what was wrong/incorrect with the rest of humanity being too intellectually inferior to decide for themselves. And of course only his way was 'right', regardless of the circumstances. And with zero interpersonal skills - patronizing, condescending and lacking any recognizable sense of humor.

"the intent of my comments was to try to suggest a calmer and more rational attitude about calls"

You can't even see that to others YOUR way is NOT a calmer and more rational attitude to US! You think we don't know what is calmer and more rational to US? To many of us YOUR way is not rational or calmer to US. You do not get to decide what is rational to others, as much as you believe you have that right. In fact, it's quite irrational to most of us that you think you know what is best for others because it is best for you.

Elmer, whether or not safety is the issue,

I’m a always amused at how passionate you seem to be when the topic of answering the phone comes up. I’m not afraid, I just prefer not to pick up the phone unless it’s a call I know i want. My method of seeing if they leave a message (99% of the time they don’t) and calling back if it’s a call of interest (75% of the 1% of the time they leave a message it’s not) is no different than your choice to ignore a call a let it go to voicemail when you’re otherwise preoccupied. If that were such a burden I suspect you’d drop what you’re doing to answer the call.

I’d suspect most of the ”fears” people are citing are little more than excuses for their preference to not answer unknown calls. I don’t need a rationale other than that I just don’t feel like answering. So I don’t. If I ever get to the point where I’m missing a lot of wanted calls and find myself always calling people back, I’ll simply change my ways. My heels are not dug in whatsoever on this matter.

food, like other things, of course, what one prefers when there are choices is personal preference, Note that what started the thread was "Is this a scam call" and what followed were many comments about how people don't answer a ringing phone because of risk. People will know it's an active number (duh). And artificial intelligence mischief and other scams and problems are fostered and will appear sometime in the future.

" I’d suspect most of the ”fears” people are citing are little more than excuses for their preference to not answer unknown calls. "

The passion and venomous responses my comments solicited suggest otherwise.

When any of you choose to call me, feel free. The phone rings day and night and I always will answer it but for a silent time for sleeping from 10pm to 8am. Please don't leave a voice mail, I ignore them. And following the Golden Rule, I never leave one. "Missed call" with my Caller ID will tell you all you need and in return, that's what I leave.

Interesting how we all have different phone etiquette. Like you, I don’t leave messages. Instead I’ll hang up and text if I want to get a message through. I don’t love getting voicemails, but as a general rule I will not return a call if they’ve neither left neither voicemail nor text. The ”missed calls” log is rarely visited. I find it mildly annoying to get a call back from someone I didn’t leave a message for. ”I saw I missed your call.” Ugh.

Do you initiate calls with texts? For me, with friends and family, that’s generally a yes. ”You free?” Or, ”Pls give a call when you have a free moment.” Helps put everything on mutually convenient terms.

@Jennifer Hogan —> ”When I used to pay bills by mail I stuffed all the junk that came with my bill in the envelope with the check. Same thought pattern. . . If enough people stuffed all the junk back in the envelope and staff had to dig through it to find your check the companies may find the practice to be less profitable.”

In Abbie Hoffman’s Steal this Book, he suggested taping a brick to those postage paid cards forcing the company to pay the postage if it made it back.

" Do you initiate calls with texts? For me, with friends and family, that’s generally a yes. ”You free?” "

Yes, absolutely. Sometimes. Mostly with family.

To be considerate to others, I try to follow what I consider an "urgency ranking" in contacting people.

-Email is for low priority. Please respond in the next few days at your convenience unless you can't. If so, please let me know you can't.

-Messages are for greater priority than email but still, a response can wait.

-Phone calls when something has some urgency or needs immediate attention.

I never, ever, ever call someone during what I know to be their working hours unless it would be to tell them their house is burning down or their child had been kidnapped. Especially none of my kids because I know they spend most of the minutes of their working days in the presence of others.

The other thing I will never do is have a "conversation" via text messages. Too slow, a bit awkward to when driving (yes, I know, CarPlay will do that hands-free), annoying. Even though I always use the speech to text feature.

You want to "talk"? Great. Call me, I'll answer it unless busy with something else I can't or don't want to interrupt.

I dislike talking on the phone and do so mostly only as much as necessary. Something about the phone just feels invasive to me and people say that I am hard to get hold of. Yes, I am. But that is my intention.

I only answer if the number is in my contacts. That has caused me some complication at times, but I can live with it.

I used to get so dammed many soliciting calls! Now my phone rarely rings. That is the way I want it.

Elmer, you have an edge to you and even though you have turned that edge towards me at times, as a fellow snarky person, I have to respect your talent for it. Ever seen the TV program "the Conners" , an off shoot of Rosanne? My favorite character is Darlene. She is such a superb snark! I rarely ever in my life have watched sit coms, but just stumbled into this recently while browsing the streaming choices . She is a snark goddess!

My mom used to call me a "contraried little heifer". Guess I always was in opposition to the world , much like my paternal grandmother. She was a strong character of solid opinions, in my estimation.

"Too slow, a bit awkward to when driving (yes, I know, CarPlay will do that hands-free), annoying. Even though I always use the speech to text feature."

Wasn't there another thread on phone conversations where you excoriated me for texting while driving (even though only occasionally and always hands free) and that there was *never* any reason to do it? Sigh.

Sorry Annie, I see where my run together and poorly organized words were not clear. I'll try to clarify. There is no inconsistency, just a muddle in the words.

I only compose text messages when my feet are on terra firma. How I do it is using speech to text, my input method of choice for most iPhone input. For a few reasons but mostly that my large fingers and thumbs are not made for the small keyboard images AND it's much faster.

I never read or send messages when driving because 1)it takes one's eyes and attention off the road needlessly and 2)it's not necessary. Text messages are low priority to me and should someone need my attention immediately, they should call. Yes, I know that CarPlay offers hands-free text reception and sending but for the reasons described, I have no need for and choose to not use that capability.

" Do you initiate calls with texts? For me, with friends and family, that’s generally a yes. ”You free?” "

OMG - If you want to talk to me call. If you want to text me - text, don't text to see if it is okay to call.

I spend approximately 6 hours a day in meetings, get approximately 60 IMs a day and 100 e-mails a day at work.

I absolutely hate when people IM and say Good morning. Then I have to say good morning, are you needing my assistance with something? Just ask me the f*n question and stop wasting my time.

When I am done with work or between meetings at work I will take a quick scroll through my personal cell. Did someone I care about call. I will call back the people I really want to talk to. I will scroll through vm and texts after talking to the others. If I call you back I probably did not listen to the vm or read the text messages. If you sent me something on my personal e-mail expect that I will see it when I pay bills on the weekend. I am not looking at e-mails after work.

If you are using more than one way to reach me you are a nuisance and wasting my time.

This article is two years old but I think much of it still applies. Three ”rules” stand out relating to this conversation: Text before you call, you don’t have to answer the phone, and don’t leave voicemails.

The author does acknowledge that these aren’t hard fast rules and may depend on your age and relationships. Some rules are followed far to infreqiently, in particular my pet peeve of talking on speaker. While driving is a rare acceptable excuse in my book.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/25/cell-phone-etiquette-call-voicemail/

I really like the feature where VM messages show a transcript so you dont have to listen to the message.

Just this a.m. on the news they had a piece about this hotel scam.

@Annie Deighnaugh was there supposed to be a link to a hotel scam?

No, just mentioning that it made the local news.

Hey - FWIW, I listened to this rerun of a podcast over the weekend - about how many of those fraudsters operate and who gets hurt besides the targets of those scams...

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/23/1253043749/pig-butchering-scam-crypto-tether

I text two out-of-state friends to suggest a call, because I don't know their working schedules and other daily obligations vs. myself being retired.