random phone numbers call and leave no message?

[The motor guy]

Usually my phone never rings. People always text message me or if they do call they leave a voicemail. Am I supposed to always return someone's call whenever I get these random numbers call me? Everytime I do it ends up being a telemarketer.

 

[The motor guy]

Is it okay to send a text asking who the person is?

 

[Tdbo]

No. It is your right to decide whether or not you respond.
If I see repeated unknown numbers calling my phone, I block them.

 

[RitcheyRch]

I don't answer or respond to calls that I don't recognize

 

[Kestas]

I always google the phone number. More often that not, it's a telemarketer or scammer. Many times it's a new number with no known history.

If you happen to answer an unknown number, only say "hello" once. Friends and people that have business with you will start talking after hello. Telemarketers wait for the second hello. That way they know they're talking to a live person and not an answering machine, or their automated equipment switches to a live person on the second hello. I hang up if I get dead air after the first hello.

 

[VeryNoisyPoet]

If it's important, they will leave a message. Answering spam or telemarketers will tell them your number is active so they can sell it to other telemarketers and companies that will use it. Normally the caller ID number is spoofed to look like a local number. If you call it back, it will either be disconnected because it's not a real number, or you'll get some random person whose number was unlucky enough to be used by the spoofing process. Just ignore and go on with your day.

 

[Hall]

You have NO OBLIGATION WHATSOEVER to these callers.

You don't have to answer any call your phone gets ! You certainly don't have to return those calls either.

I pretty much never answer my mobile phone unless it's family or friends calling. Even if a business that I know calls, unless I've been in recent contact with them, it goes to voicemail. Reason for that is too many calls have "spoofed" caller-ID so often it's not actually that business calling me.

Do this: Start answering those calls and then you'll reconsider answering them in the future. As for calling them back, 99% chance it won't work anyway. It will be a fake number or the number of an actual business and they did NOT call you in the first place, their number was spoofed.

 

[28oz]

Originally Posted By: Richie
I don't answer or respond to calls that I don't recognize


+1 I choose who gets responded to. I own the phone. The phone doesn't own me.

*repeat to self as necessary*

 

[Rick505]

Similar tactics work for Spam e-mails you may receive. I often use gmail and it's good at identifying them as such. Most recently I'm receiving multiple messages like "Please stop emailing me...." and "If you'd like to stop receiving messages from me....." If you reply your address is immediately identified as active and it's worth $$ to others. Just delete them.....same with missed calls and Texts.

 

[Kira]

AND...that there's no active log for us to report bad numbers to, let alone a "strike force" in place to prosecute or, at least, shut 'em down is yet another deficiency of our society.

Big words, you say? I don't think so. The info world is so trackable and assignable there should be no way for phone scammers to work.

They invent a technology and they can't design a workable sub-set of that technology to keep it away from us?

 

[thooks]

Google “robo call”


These companies are spoofing your friends, family, neighbors and your number and using it to call others.

 

[jeepman3071]

Originally Posted By: 28oz
Originally Posted By: Richie
I don't answer or respond to calls that I don't recognize


+1 I choose who gets responded to. I own the phone. The phone doesn't own me.

*repeat to self as necessary*

This.

 

[Alfred_B]

Ignore + block is what I do.

 

[RF Overlord]

Originally Posted By: hallstevenson
You have NO OBLIGATION WHATSOEVER to these callers.

You don't have to answer any call your phone gets ! You certainly don't have to return those calls either.
Originally Posted By: 28oz
I choose who gets responded to. I own the phone. The phone doesn't own me.

+1000 to both these answers.

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman
Usually my phone never rings. People always text message me or if they do call they leave a voicemail. Am I supposed to always return someone's call whenever I get these random numbers call me? Everytime I do it ends up being a telemarketer.


If those random numbers don't display the name of a friend they just get deleted. People who want to hide their identity are worth bothering with.

 

[Nick1994]

I get calls from fake numbers that "look" like my number.

My phone number starts with (602) 616, and I'll get a call from numbers that start with that all the time, I block them. Probably have 30+ of those on my blocked list.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

It's usually car extended warranty scams or credit card interest rate scams.

 

[Hall]

I learned that blocking the number is a futile effort. Rarely is it the same number. I had 50+ numbers in my contact list under "Ignored numbers". I started that on Android which also allows you to send those calls straight to voicemail (and they never leave a message so it didn't fill my voicemail) but Apple doesn't seem to support that....

 

[Rand]

if its a number that is near your phone number

it is probably the "same number scam"

for example if your phone was 440 753-4999

you will get tons of spam/scam calls from 440 753-XXXX

where the xxxx is a random spoofed number.

 

[4wd]

Originally Posted By: Nick1994
I get calls from fake numbers that "look" like my number.

My phone number starts with (602) 616, and I'll get a call from numbers that start with that all the time, I block them. Probably have 30+ of those on my blocked list.


My town is only 11k population and they still do it that way … blocked many and it seemed hopeless on both my company and personal phone … and if trying to sleep in another time zone it’s ringing at 3 am …
Finally started turning off my personal phone overseas and my company phone off in the USA …
Looks like the long periods of being turned off took me off some of these Russian collusion lists …