Yeah this became apparent to me in the past month after a family emergency. I have gotten tons of spam calls and texts for a long time, which I usually just ignore. Now, I’ve started getting important, legitimate calls from unfamiliar numbers at any time of day and the weight of all the spam has become more apparent. The American telephone system is totally broken by this issue.

On this topic, I wish everyone would just leave a fucking voicemail if you don't pick up. Even spammers will leave a voicemail these days.

Why? I assume if someone I know calls and doesn't leave a message, I figure they just wanted to chat if I was available but don't have anything urgent. Leaving a voicemail just wastes both of our time. And Caller ID tells me they called.

Why? Because that only works if you are absolutely certain that person has your number saved in their contacts.

Otherwise, your call looks exactly like spam, so either you will get ignored, or that person has to answer all calls from unknown numbers.

Anyone who would probably call me out of the blue that I might actually care about talking to is almost certainly in my contacts list. And I assume the converse is true. There are very few people who I'll just ring up to chat with. It's not really a big deal in that I can get the sense of a voice mail from the phone transcription pretty easily. But if I didn't catch someone and actually want to communicate something I'll probably follow up with a text.

> I assume the converse is true

I've made the same assumption and been wrong. It might be a bigger assumption than you realize. Maybe they just got a new phone, and their contact list wasn't synced correctly.

My crappy voice mail can only hold 3 messages and is a pain to use :(

May I recommend you consider something like MetroPCS or similar MVNO-type service, which offers a pay-as-you-go no-contract plan for what I consider reasonable rates (cheap if only call/text).

There is no reason voice mail should be limited to 3 messages.

Agreed, but a text is better.

I notice this whenever I've been job hunting. All of the sudden I need to pick up for every "Unknown Caller" in the hopes that it's to set up an interview!

Sounds like terrorism yet it is treated like petty white collar crime.

Entire call centers are setup in certain countries to prey on the elderly in the West (particularly the US). This should absolutely be treated more seriously than it is. Probably not terrorism, but whatever is between that and elder abuse.

A couple years ago, I got people returning calls I never made for about a month. They were all elderly, and my phone number was being spoofed by people claiming to be Aetna (a health insurance company).

None of them knew it was possible to spoof your phone number. Some thought I was lying and that I had been leaving voicemails as a prank. I'm sure most of them would have fallen for whatever scams these people were peddling.

It's fun to imagine old cranks replying to Viagra spam and forwarding chain emails, but the reality is far darker.

Who is treating it like any sort of crime?