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Ask HN: How do I stop spam phone calls?

by theoblank on 6/15/21, 8:53 PM with 4 comments

Some health insurance scam keeps calling me. I’ve been getting at least a dozen calls per day for the past couple of weeks. I block the numbers on my phone, but they seem to have dozens if not hundreds of phone numbers they’re using from all different area codes.

I also updated my phone to not notify me if it’s an unknown number, but it’s still an annoyance.

Anyone else dealt with this or have any suggestions?

  • by simonblack on 6/15/21, 10:34 PM

    I have on my phone-answering recording just the tones (http://www.k3pgp.org/telezap.htm) that specify that the line is not in use followed immediately by the terse command "Leave a Message". That is all, nothing else.

    I only call back people who have left a message. These days there are very, very few of those.

    It's quite fun to hear the phone ring, then the tones and 'Leave a Message', followed by "beep, beep, beep, beep ..." as the autodialler disconnects at the other end.

    On my mobile phone, if the call is shown as from "No Caller ID" or a plain phone number (which indicates that it is from somebody not in my contacts list), I let it go to voice-mail. Once again, no voice-mail left means no call back from me.

  • by pwg on 6/15/21, 9:09 PM

    > but they seem to have dozens if not hundreds of phone numbers they’re using from all different area codes

    They don't have hundreds of numbers they are calling from. Those numbers you see are all fake. Caller-ID is trivial to fake, as it basically (before shaken/stir finally get deployed) is just passing along to your phone a value defined by the scammer.

    As far as how to stop, you can't.

    The best you can do is what you've done. Adjust phone settings so that only caller ID's found in your phonebook ring through. That will mean most of the fakes don't ring your phone (although they will junk up your voicemail). But should the scammer happen to randomly pick a number that is already in your phonebook, their call will ring through.

  • by doctorshady on 6/15/21, 9:31 PM

    A voicemail only encourages them to call further. You could forward all calls (or simply forward on busy/reject) to a disconnected phone number.

    Alternatively, some people say that if you put SIT tones ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tone ) on a voicemail greeting, that can help.

  • by db48x on 6/15/21, 8:57 PM

    In principle you can complain to the FCC, but in practice there’s not much they can do about it since the caller is probably not in the US.