A lot of people deal with robocalls incorrectly by declining calls from unknown numbers. Don't do this.

The correct solution is to answer the call, say nothing and hang up after 3 seconds.

If it's a real call you'll hear background noise most of the time or the caller will say "hello?" Or they'll call back thinking something went wrong. Most robocallers are programmed to do nothing until they hear a voice.

But the critical part of all this is hanging up within 6 seconds. This is the one thing that hurts the telco knowingly supporting this. If a telco has too many such calls they essentially get punished as a bad actor, which is why they need legitimate traffic. I think robocallers and their telcos have wished up to this as I suspect they'll stop calling you if you do this.

When I started this I got 2-3 robocalls a week. Not a huge amount but annoying. Now I think it's been at least 2 months since I've gotten one. It could be that crackdowns on robocalls are yielding results but I'm not convinced.

You should explain why that number is critical, what happens before, what happens after.

All kinds or rules here https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0198-telemarketing-sal...

The robodialers are so stupid, though. They don't want to pay for the second 6 seconds, and will hang up quickly. So intermediary companies keep the calls open to keep their stats good, then charge the dialer guys more.

Telecom is filled with actors that can't handle basic algebra.

Source: I've run billions of calls as a VoIP network and consulted for folks doing dialer.

I see things like this in telecom too much. Where people are mathematically going to lose, guaranteed, but prefer a certain billing because it's easier to understand, or looks cheaper. While this is understandable for an SMB that isn't in the telecom business, I've seen big names take these same deals. And I've seen the other end: they 100% are losing a few % in doing so.

The "say nothing" is the important part here I think. Most robocall systems would wait for some kind of voice before starting their spam and that's the point where they probably mark the number as 'legit', not as soon as you pick up as they don't know if it's an actual person that picked up.

It might just be a trick that people pass along regardless of effectiveness.

Actually I like the idea of fining people into bankruptcy so I don't have to deal with their nonsense. This is literally the basis for paying taxes. If I have to do my own guerilla defense against robocalls it's literally a waste of my time, so I typically let calls go to voicemail instead.

Fwiw this hasn't worked with the calls that I get (landline) which start out with what sounds like a fax tone at the start (but is definitely not a fax machine).

If a business wants to damage their competitor, they can just start making robocalls on their behalf.

I like your idea and would like it to happen for pretty much all advertising, but it seems like it can be easily abused.

In my iPhone I have "do not disturb" setup and it only allows people in my address book through.

However I have not received any spam from "Unknown Number" due to this herd immunity to unknown number spam, which I am grateful for.

Given my area codes are no longer where I live, I just assume numbers close to mine are accidents and don't bother answering them. Voicemail seems to validate this when a message is left.

I just wish there was an easier way to report them. At this point I've given up on the going online and filling out a form which basically requires me to have listened to the whole spiel to answer fully. I block the number but it's pretty pointless as they rotate at least the last four digits.

I have noticed spoofing of 8 numbers as well. how do these get through the phone system, can't they detect ANI being bad at the source? I used to work for a company where we logged our workers on and off shift; rent a cop; based on the ANI data from the phone call. So I am really curious how this isn't blocked by entry into the system.

Cell phone is actually easier because it's not a very local number anymore. But it also means I have to set it to Do Not Disturb while traveling across time zones. So no one can get me in the middle of the night in a legitimate emergency.

Or another approach that Google does with Google Voice is to ask the caller to identify before the call goes through. Then the phone rings on your side and you hear the name of the caller before you decide to answer.

Whitelisted numbers ring my line. Blacklisted numbers are hung up immediately. Everyone else gets a message saying "Press 1 to be connected." If they don't, they go to voicemail.

I've seen a ton of these complaints come through. They're basically ignored or given a useless "that caller ID has been blocked" response just to say something was done. At the end of the day, sales wants these calls to keep flowing so they're not gonna get too hard on customers unless they're really abusing the betiejr (placing tons of no-answer or short-duration traffic).

Here's how to do it with the open source asterisk pbx: http://allanfeid.com/content/caller-id-spoofing-w-asterisk

Or, just find a cheap VoIP provider that doesn't verify control of a number before allowing it to be used as CID. Voip.ms lets you spoof CID right from their web based config: https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Caller_ID

The legit use cases are where you spoof a different number that's still your number. Like your landline presenting your cell number. Or a business presenting the main number for all phones.

I have a Miami area code and robocalls were a constant problem until I installed Nomorobo.

All others I’ve found so far harvest and resell your call network.

IMO this is nearly as bad as a stranger insulting you in the street: they're at least a live person taking your time.

It's far from ideal, and people might give up and not try to pursue getting to you but the situation with robocalls has got so much out of hand that drastic measures are needed.