This is the reason I almost never answer my phone anymore unless the caller is already in my contacts.

Spammers have rendered my phone useless for receiving calls from unknown numbers.

Hey Flux,

You are certainly not wrong about that!

By releasing this, I definitely could see the potential for abuse of a service like this. And I've incorporated a few scripts to check for specific types of abuse. It is something I'm still actively working on to prevent, but cannot fully predict every factor that might come into play.

I was working on a script to make it so that you could call the number back and block it permanently.

If I was a celebrity, I could see this being huge. I could only give out my virtual number even to friends and family. And then I could have my virtual number leaked but it wouldn't matter, bc I only whitelist my friends and family on that number (if I'm understanding this product correctly)

Haha, that is a great idea! It wouldn't matter if your number got leaked. You rent your numbers on a month-to-month basis, so you can easily lose the number next month and get another one. You can also blacklist callers if you wish. It is definitely a good to have throwaway number service.

Due to the spam and my move across the country I never answer numbers matching my area code and only answer calls from my contact list or from random area codes I am unfamiliar with.

If a number is like xyz--* where xyz is my area code odds are its not legit.

I've got a phone number from New Jersey, but moved across the country years ago, never changing my number. I get calls from New Jersey all the time.. I haven't lived there in over 5 years.. no business in NJ, why would they be calling me?

Call Me Private (https://callmeprivate.com) was intended for the purposes of actually receiving calls that I want to receive because I am the one giving out that virtual number. If someone is calling it, than I know someone else gave it out or I keep track of what website or who I gave it to.. and this way I have an idea of what and who the "leak" was.

Why is the phone-spam problem so hard to fix?

I get far more spam calls than non-spam calls. I wish my phone had a setting to ring only for callers in my address book and then give a busy signal to all other callers.

On Android (at least with Samsung Galaxy 6+) you can put your phone into do not disturb mode (settings, sounds & vibrations, do not disturb), then set up Custom Exceptions to allow calls and texts from Contacts Only.

I believe you can also do the above on an iPhone, but not 100% positive. My GF has it setup and I'll have to ask her how she did it.

As an added measure, under phone settings, you can block calls from unknown callers as well.

You should check out "Should I answer?" It's basically like a spam caller block subscription service for android.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mistergrou...

yea there was a change in law that allowed spammers to use your local area code for this precise reason. Not sure if you noticed, all spam calls lately are from your area code.

Yeah it was a rather amazing (and perverse) shift. The other day a spammer called me from a number less than 10 off of mine. They must have a bank of numbers they select from based on hamming distance, as I've seen near-permutations of my number as well.

They are usually spoofing the number when they're close to yours. Hoping you'll be curious and pickup.

citation? I belive that this local number spoofing is just a meme that's caught on within the junk calling industry. The people making these calls are already in violation of a pile of laws, but they don't care. Number spoofing was always something that was available to them, but not something they knew how to use effectively until recently. I highly doubt a change in the law changed their behavior that significantly.

Spammers can spoof numbers for half the price using a straight VoIP Service.