Spam Calls on Home Phone

Our home phones all died except for one. We haven't replaced them. We never use it or answer it.
 
For some reason my mother has been genetically incapable of passing up a ringing telephone her entire life. She used to get telemarketers calling her every single day about her amazon account or medicare or something or another. Sometimes the same people would call twice a day.

After she moved to assisted living a year or so ago and and nobody ever answers the phone at the house, I can stay there 3 or 4 days and the phone never rings. It really is preventative to not answer strange numbers.
 
Problem is if you get rid of your land lines in favor or cell phones, your cell phones will get them.

For your land line, call your provider and see if they have any assistance. For example, our local provider offers a situation where the caller has to press 8 to get through.
 
Years ago, I was bothered by spam calls every day. I had signed up for the national do not call registry, but it had expired, or something.

They were all the same, wanting to sell me a maintenance insurance policy on my cars, quoting how expensive repairs could be.

Weeks and weeks of ignoring, or answering and telling them to put me on the do not call list, were completely ineffective.

So, one night after dinner, when one of these jokers called me, I answered, and I asked questions.

Lots and lots of questions. Weirdly specific and detailed questions. “Is each brake subject to the same deductible? Or is it by pairs, or all four brakes?”. “Now, this is a four wheel drive, is the front driveshaft covered in addition to the rear driveshaft?” I kept asking questions until we had been on the phone for almost half an hour.

I asked for a quote on my 1990 4Runner, with 250,000 miles on it.

When he came back with a quote, he asked if he could have my credit card to start the policy.

I lowered my voice an octave or two, and spoke very clearly, and authoritatively, “I will never buy from you, but when I tell you to place me on your do not call list, it doesn’t work. How does it feel to have me waste your time, after you have been wasting mine? Put me on your do not call list and do not bother me again.”

I never got another call.
 
For some reason my mother has been genetically incapable of passing up a ringing telephone her entire life. She used to get telemarketers calling her every single day about her amazon account or medicare or something or another. Sometimes the same people would call twice a day.

After she moved to assisted living a year or so ago and and nobody ever answers the phone at the house, I can stay there 3 or 4 days and the phone never rings. It really is preventative to not answer strange numbers.
My dad was the same way, and would become enraged when it was a telemarketer-- which was probably 70% of incoming calls for him.

When people ask if I need to answer my ringing phone, I say no, that's what voicemail is for. If it's important, they can leave a VM, send a text or email. I don't call back missed calls ‐‐ even friends -- if they don't leave a message requesting a return call.
 
For some reason my mother has been genetically incapable of passing up a ringing telephone her entire life. She used to get telemarketers calling her every single day about her amazon account or medicare or something or another. Sometimes the same people would call twice a day.

After she moved to assisted living a year or so ago and and nobody ever answers the phone at the house, I can stay there 3 or 4 days and the phone never rings. It really is preventative to not answer strange numbers.

My Mom is the same way, every time the phone rings my dad looks at the Caller ID and screams No. Now this on the Landline, they both have cell phones, my Dad has his cell phone turned off and keeps it down on the 1st floor, my Mom keeps her cell phone down on the 1st floor also.

1 morning I came over and the phone rang, the house phone, she answered it and was walking towards the computer, I said what are you doing, she said I just got a call there is a problem with the computer and I need to turn the computer on. I grabbed the phone from my Mom and prevented her from going to the computer, she screams up to my Dad and I yell back what was going on, he yells down it is a Scam. There are a lot of Scammers out there, and sometimes the kid has to become a parent.

My Mom was not happy with what I did and she yelled at me. It was all fine since I knew I was right.
 
Turned of the ringers on home phones. Anyone else do the same or even gotten rid of them.
What home phone service do you have? I have a few older relatives with Comcast Xfinity phone and you can add a service (for free) called NoMoRobo in the admin panel. It routes all calls through a spam filter which is pretty good at stopping the majority of annoying calls.

If you do answer and it is a person with an Indian or foreign accent it is 100% a scam, no reason to be PC or nice, these people called you and are wasting your time. Screw around with them. For a while spam calls have decreased with the Shaken / Stir call verification method and with the FCC shutting down spam enabling carrier licenses, but it appears the spammers have found work arounds. It's a game of whack-a-mole.

My solution would be having a presidential campaign run on the "I will get rid of spam calls" ticket. This would have the most obvious impact on Americans lives lol.
 
Turned of the ringers on home phones. Anyone else do the same or even gotten rid of them.
Yes, we never pick up our home phone line. we do have an answering machine pick up and maybe we listen to the messages a couple times a year if that. Most times just delete them.

The reason we keep a home line is we give out the home line number when we do not want a business or whatever calling us.
An example would be when you’re buying something online or in general, when you need to supply a phone number.
We give out the home line that we never pick up. Our home line is Ooma, same technology as what your cable TV provider would give you. You buy the device one time for 100 bucks and plug it into your router from there you can plug your whole house into it or just plug the phone directly into the router.

You can subscribe and get your phone number for free and all you do is pay the tax every month for a home phone line which will vary depending on your municipality.
Our monthly cost is less than seven dollars in taxes actual payment.
What was even more cool when we moved from our home of 16 years just over year ago, I unplugged the device and plugged it into my new router in our new home and everything works as it always has with the same phone number because the device goes with you.

Of course, being a business, when signing up online, they will offer you a multitude of other options to increase their monthly income however, you do not have to subscribe to any of their services to get the basic service for free by just paying the tax every month. It’s really fantastic and it’s unlimited nationwide calling at no charge. if you make international calls. Their international rate is not that bad either.
 
In my household, other than English, my wife speaks Native French, and I speak Italian and Sicilian. (Different). Very seldom answer but when I do, inALWAYS answer in Italian. “Pronto” after they see I don’t speak English or Spanish, they hang up.
Wife does the same with French.
 
Anyone else do the same or even gotten rid of them.
I disconnected mine in 2017, but should have years before that. I called my Mom a couple weeks ago on her landline just to see if it was still connected. I was surprised when she answered my call. I haven't called that number in many years. She keeps it connected because they have had that number since 1974 and will use it a couple times/month.
 
Panasonic Link2Cell folks. You can pair two different cellphones to it your wife's phone and yours too, if wanted. No thought needed as long as you have your Bluetooth turned on your phone, it connects automatically when you keep your cellphone close enough to the base.
 
Yes, we still maintain a landline through Spectrum. Don't ask me why. It's $20.00 a month we don"t really need to spend.
Anyway, the large bulk of the calls are scams. And the largest number, and most consistent are the Fraternal Order of Police!
 
What's a "home phone" ?
It's this thing a little funny looking alien used back in the early 80's. He was stranded here on Earth and Drew Barrymore turned him into a pet or a D&D character and flew him away on a bicycle. Something like that......
 
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