I wish I could block all unknown numbers, but I'll miss the rescheduling call from the roofer who had to borrow his wife's cell because his fell out of his pocket, or I'll miss the "please confirm you're coming to your appointment tomorrow" and now I've lost a doctor's appointment I scheduled weeks in advance, etc.
Almost all spam calls now spoof the number to give it the same area code as your phone.
So I know any call coming from a local area code is probably legit. Most calls coming from the same area code as my number or from a random area code or even 800 number is usually spam.
Getting a new number is not a realistic "solution" for many people because they've had their old cellphone # for decades and it's already deeply entrenched with all their relatives, friends, doctors' emergency contact numbers, airlines notifications, bank fraud alerts vis SMS, etc, etc.
E.g. Most of my friends & family have had the same wireless phone numbers for more than 20 years which they've deliberately kept even when changing carriers.
People still want to keep their familiar number; they just want the spam robocalls to stop. Yes, buying a new area code # (which btw costs ~$40 admin charge with AT&T) ... and then expending a lot of effort to "propagate" the new number to all your contacts and website profiles is not impossible but it's a burden many don't want to tackle.
Some celebrities manage spam by always having at least 2 different cell phones. So a high-profile Hollywood actor would have:
(1) personal phone for spouse & kids & the agent that brings in the money. This number is a closely guarded secret and never shared with anyone or websites' account profiles. This phone's ringer can be set to "silence unknown callers not in the contact list".
(2) separate "burner" phone for everybody else.
The (2) business phone # is changed out monthly because it inevitably leaks out with all the people that have it. But (1) personal phone is only changed if it was leaked by a insider employee at AT&T or TMobile. But again, it's another unrealistic "solution" for most because regular people don't want to buy and carry around 2 separate phones. Yes, some phones can use dual SIMs but only the expensive models ... and it also requires paying extra for 2 numbers on the monthly bill.
Hopefully, an eventual solution that combines:
- more effective FCC crackdowns and penalties
- SHAKEN/STIR anti-spoofing,
- intelligent spam filters at the wireless carrier level,
- better call management tools in iOS/Android
... would be a more sane approach than buying new phone numbers to escape the spam.
* Only 7 were from my phone's area code
* 2 were from where I live now
* The other 18 were from all over the country
So.. you're lucky if your spam is so consistent. It's far from a guarantee.
Your roofer or doctor or whoever should have only a local area code. So out of those 27 spam calls, you only need to answer the 2 that came in from where you live now.
That's a 90%+ reduction! Not a bad strategy.
Presumably the 18 random area calls would have been ignored in any case.
So the real reduction is 7/9, which is is a 77% reduction. Not bad, but not 90%+.
Even the fairly small doctors office I use locally now texts instead of calling.
I watch the scam baiters on YouTube and on occasion you hear a victim crying while the perps laugh.
Truly bad people to be executing scams against some of the most vulnerable.
Of the 200-300 spam robocalls I receive every month, about 50-80 are blocked by my cell phone (the landline rings to my cell) and I also subscribe to nomorobo on the landline, which I assume blocks even more. Still, that’s some 200 calls that make it through even with two levels of blocking.
The scams are terrifying- serious sounding people on the line saying your social security number will be cancelled and you will be arrested unless you speak immediately to an officer; Medicare advantage scams; IRS and treasury scammers... and since my personal info is published by the phone company, many times the scammers have all my personal information as “proof”! It’s a sickening information asymmetry that can totally fool an unsuspecting older person who doesn’t entirely understand what’s going on.
If you’re curious about what these scams look like and how vigilantes actively work to combat them, I’d recommend two videos to start: Jim browning at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvjjpzyiig4 and mark rober at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VrKW58MS12g.