from Hacker News

Is a solution to spam phone calls to answer it?

by prirun on 7/22/24, 5:00 PM with 4 comments

I've been doing this recently, then setting the phone down and continuing to work. If everyone did this, it would tie up the spammer's resources. I tied up my first spam call today for 30 seconds. The last call I got was in a loop, with a guy saying my pre-authorized PS5 was being shipped, to cancel press 1. I just let it loop for 2 minutes, then it hung up.

It somehow feels better to me than not answering it, listening to it ring, and then getting a missed call notification.

  • by pavel_lishin on 7/22/24, 5:03 PM

    Maybe, but there's no human behind that initial phone call. If it can redial once a second, I guess you're slowing them down by 30x by staying on the line for 30 seconds - but I'd wager that they're making enough money that even by having to spin up 30x more resources to auto-dial, it's still a profitable business.

    fwiw, I have my phone set to ignore "likely spam" calls, and to not notify me about new voicemails with a vibration. There's a non-zero chance I'll miss an important call about my child, but 99% of these calls originate from an area code we no longer live in, so the trade-off seems acceptable to me - and I check whether I have _legitimate_ voicemail every few hours or so in a tab on my laptop.

  • by talldayo on 7/22/24, 5:02 PM

    No, there is an automated system that flags you for extra spam if your number picks up or responds to the call in any way.