I sucks even worse for those of us on organ transplant lists. We don't know if the random number that calls us is the call we are expecting. Though mostly I just answer the call and don't say anything because most recorded scripts don't start unless you say something first.

Sorry to hear that. I'm sure this adds another pointless layer of exhaustion to your life.

I quit voice mail. It is absolutely horrible.

Maybe it does not have to be. Someone should take a swing at that.

The message they get is "you have reached [name] phone, please use SMS or email. This message box is not monitored."

Best thing I have done.

Not everyone can. I wish it were otherwise.

I do answer most calls, and all calls when I am waiting on something critical.

Robocalls got bad this year.

Sadly, they are all recordings. I used to have great fun with the live ones!

You can see that scene in "Boiler Room" where the guy gets a call from someone pitching a local paper to get a good idea of the fun.

I used to pick a rando goal based on my first impression. These ranged from a friendly exchange, pep talk, stall or troll, up through encouraging them to quit and walk out while I keep the line hot... (That guy from Vonage who I had on the ropes? Sorry in hindsight man. I really, really did want to just cancel, and... well, you were the lucky draw that day. Nothing personal.)

My iPhones started transcribing voicemails at some point? Best feature

Spam calls were very active at the start of this year, but I don't answer calls and spammers fairly quickly gave up.

I stopped getting voicemails too. Someone told me it said my voicemail box was full. No notifications to me. So I was unaware unless someone told me or I call my own number. Using visual voicemail on a iPhone with prepaid service.

my text messages recently surpassed 5 spam messages per day. In the not too distant future my phone will cease to serve any useful function related to being a "phone".

my phone did that when the phone became just an app on a device in my pocket. the only reason i have a phone number is you can't get a cell signal to a phone like device without one.

I haven’t gotten spam sfuff on tablet SIM card numbers. Not sure if calls even work on those. You could try that. Don’t need to have the sim in a tablet of course.

hmmmmm, now that is interesting. However, my luck, I'd get flagged as not abiding by some agreed to, by use, contract/ToS for using a tablet SIM in a non-tablet device as defined by some lawyer to avoid this very thing.

Yeah it’s not supposed to be allowed. I’ve been told by a T-Mobile employee on Reddit and discord (big community for T-Mobile lol) that they aren’t going to do anything usually.

My cousin in HS runs her family’s tablet SIM card in an old iPhone and runs ads to make a dollar a day. They end up using close to 100 GB a month.

The other carriers could be stricter.

Maybe something to check up on a bit. But not a big deal regardlsss hah.

I get you about the bad luck

I don't have this problem on my personal phone, but my work phone the voicemail is garbage and so are my text messages. I just look at exchange and skype, ignoring the rest. My personal phone shows as a landline if you look it up, maybe that is why?

Another approach if you're getting a new phone/number is to just not set up voicemail in the first place. Then the spammers' calls go nowhere.

My Polish cell provider has an option for disabling voicemails altogether, is that not the case in the US?

Most people don't know you can just dial ##004# to remove all conditional call forwards that normally default to voicemail. Or if the network doesn't unset it, you can set it to a deadend like * 004 *0000000000# - or some other fun automated line...

For Verizon at least, it is an option, but stupidly it is a paid option. I had checked 2 years ago and they wanted ~$3/month for the privilege of not providing voicemail.

Turns out it was easier to borrow a friend's phone and leave myself a bunch of voicemail to fill up the storage.

My voice mail message just says that no voicemail will be listened or responded to.