Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, the ones that DO give you the option to be 'do not call' will forward your number to other spammers, actually increasing the spam calls you get. Do not ask them to put you on the d-n-c list!

Here's what does work (in my experience): answer the call, but say nothing, heck, mute your phone mic if you have to. Just give them silence. I'm not sure if there's some 'person on the other end' detection algorithm or what, but I went from 10-15 spam calls a day to 1 every few days. It took a little while, but it worked. Just don't answer strange numbers with a 'hello?', if someone's trying to reach you, they'll usually say it first.

I like to answer the phone, say “please hold” then put my headphones up to the phone. This is great because it triggers whatever automated system they have to get active callers on the line, and wastes the time of a real human, who might realize what’s going on and prevent the system from calling my number again to begin with.

> Here's what does work (in my experience): answer the call, but say nothing, heck, mute your phone mic if you have to. Just give them silence.

I don't get that many spam calls, but what I do when I get one varies from answering and immediately hanging up to doing what you suggested (which usually results in them disconnecting after about 5 seconds). Occasionally, I've done things like answering the call and snapping my fingers in the receiver instead of saying "hello" and that usually results in an immediate disconnect.

I'm not sure if any of those things have affected the volume of spam calls I receive though.

I used to work in tech at a call center and that would confuse the auto-dialer software. It's designed to know a person and designed to know voicemail. But just silence is a new one! Good strategy.

> Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, the ones that DO give you the option to be 'do not call' will forward your number to other spammers, actually increasing the spam calls you get. Do not ask them to put you on the d-n-c list!

Anybody legitimate that's not true. But it's so easy to spoof your number that there are a lot of bad actors.

Are you talking about internal Do Not Call lists or the actual Federal Do Not Call list? Because I used to have that issue with credit card companies, random loan spammers, and such with both mail and phone call spam. I signed up for the list with a 100% opt-out option and just like it promised, within 3 months, the offers stopped coming in.

That being said, I also try to be pretty careful about putting my phone number out there, taking time to judge when a real phone number is needed or not, and asking pretty specifically for what reason a company wants my phone number and often just ignoring the service if an adequate reason isn't given.

Since I've moved abroad, I have apparently been less careful and I occasionally get calls and texts on my foreign sim, and I must have given my email out as there are suddenly lots of hot-singles looking for me, but it is 100% related to my current region, whereas before my Spam folder sat untouched.

Both really. Companies face fines if they keep calling people after they request to be put on a do not call list so it's a big deal. That's how I remember my experience at a call center anyway.

Hey this is exactly what I do! Answer and then mute immediately. Any real person will just say "hello?" and the bots get confused and just hang up (and don't call back). I get 1 spam call every 2 months maybe.

You can file a complaint with the FTC but with the volume of calls and Caller ID spoofing it's probably more trouble than it's worth. Every now and then some operation gets taken down and fined but it's rare.

Consider yourself lucky to never gets calls of this type. Between the out and out scammers and pollsters/political calls/charities (the latter categories are protected from landline junk call bans), I routinely get 3 or 4 a day.

In theory there's the national do not call registry: https://www.donotcall.gov/

In practice... there's some groups who are still allowed to call you even if you're on the registry. Others will just ignore it, and filing a complaint is difficult.

I added all my numbers to this list a year or two ago and shortly after the spam calls started. Even on numbers that are not publicly used. (I have Google voice as my primary number and it calls my mobile number and a voip desk phone. Now all three get spam calls. I had them for years and the voip and mobile numbers were previously clean. )

There's only so many phone numbers. It's easy to iterate over them.

I posted this elsewhere in this topic, but my experience with the Federal Do Not Call list was the exact opposite - they promised "within 3 months the calls would stop" and sure enough, within 3 months I never got another call.

Fair, I just checked and it looks like my number was already in the registry when they started getting worse a few years ago. (so adding it again probably did not cause the increase) You can use the site to see if you are already in, and when you were added. one of my numbers was added long before I had it.

The internet myth is that it doesn't work but all you have to do is answer and ask them to put you on their do not call list.

Not give them a big tiresome speech about how they are breaking the law, just ask them not to call anymore ("Please put this number on your courtesy do not call list"). They actually don't want to waste their time...

It's interesting that you assume it's a myth. I can personally attest to answering spam calls, politely asking to be added to the do not call list, and still receiving calls from the same spammers over a period of months. Eventually I just downloaded a call blacklist app.

This depends on the caller.

A lot of the calls I used to get were the ones where they spoof a phone number that has the same first few digits as yours to make it seem like a local number and then the caller is a scammer “You owe money to the IRS”, “Your computer has a virus and you have to pay to fix it”.

Engaging these callers is probably not useful.

Which makes them easy to spot if you get a number from a far away area. The only calls I get from my phone's area code are misdials or spam, but my doctor's office stands out without a whitelist.

No, it is useful, they still don't want to waste time calling people that aren't going to take part in the scam.

Man i should get you to talk to my spam with that magic +5 robot charisma.

Unfortunately, it still won’t prevent my number from being spammed. There is no human to talk to. Any indication you are alive is a confirmation your phone number is worth calling. The only thing you can do to convince them is not answer or somehow communicate a likely disconnection from a human.

So have you tried the approach I am advocating for a meaningful amount of time, say a week or two, or are you just sure that it won't work and thus avoid it because you are worried that you will do things like confirm you are worth calling?

Honestly I haven’t collected enough sample attempts to be sure. However, not answering unknown phone numbers seems to have worked very well.

A lot of the spam calls I get are just recordings or they just hang up once I pick up. Hard to imagine it would help to just say "please add me to your do not call list" into the void...

I also receive a lot of those (around ~5 a day, for more than 5 months already). It is really annoying and makes me wish I could just block numbers on my phone.

Try listening to the end, there is often a number to press to have them stop calling.

The internet myth is that this marks you as someone to keep calling (because you listened), but really they will stop.

That you had some luck being removed from some legitimate call lists does not mean that you can dismiss these extremely common tactics as "Internet myths." There's a whole spectrum of spam callers that ranges from respectable businesses all the way to outright scammers. Some use illegal tactics like the ones you're trying to say are a myth and literally everyone I've ever talked to in person about the issue has had a similar experience.

The illegal tactics aren't what I am calling a myth. It's the idea that asking illegal callers to stop doesn't work that I am calling a myth. Even scammers are concerned with efficiency.

I mean, I get ~1 unwanted call a week across a couple of phone numbers (that I answer and ask to stop). Other people are saying that they get a dozen a day and giving up on their phones. My anecdotes work for me.

You probably have to stay on the phone while they do it though.

Many years ago I used to take the time to put the calling number into a ProComm script for a modem to dial repeatedly every 3 minutes for several hours, if they were toll free to me (expense to the original caller). I had way too much time on my hands then...

Just another reason why it sucks here.