A direct answer to your question, and depending on the cultures of where you live, you could say something like Hello, whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with? But that's very southern, so I could see many people not feeling that. I say Howdy, what may I do for you today?... Which I now recognize is also southern... But there's a lot of things you could say that distract from identifying yourself.

Along the topics others are replying with, I also don't answer calls usually, and have a call blocker so I'm only notified if someone from my contacts list is calling or if they are recognized by my network carrier as a verified business. Since businesses can also be spoofed, I still don't give any information and find out why they are calling, then politely hang up and call back myself, after first verifying the number in about to call is actually associated with the business.

My apartment has almost no phone signal so I started leaving my phone on airplane mode. Best decision I've ever made, it's been like this for 6 months now without issues. With friends and family I call through facetime/whatsapp/etc. anyway.

It also makes the battery last twice as long.

Doesn’t airplane mode also turn off the WiFi radio? Maybe it depends on the phone. But if it does, how can you use WhatsApp, etc.?

You can turn WiFi back on.

Haha. I actually knew that and have done it, but forgot that it was possible. Thanks.

Agreed - As a minimum if the caller has no caller ID I don't answer unless I'm expecting such a call. If I answer the phone and get a long pause or clicks before I'm talking to someone, I'm very dubious of who I'm talking to and get their name and phone number so I can do quick background check and call them back.

With that said, I almost got duped by a good samaritan debit card scam about 20 years ago in Toronto.

Yes, but then they do the same and it is endless phone tag which usually ends in "you can email me at blaa."

The telephone is broken.

Seriously, for the vast majority of people, the number of legitimately urgent calls from strangers is going to be vanishingly small. Why even bother answering?

Credit card fraud is not urgent unless maybe you know your card has been deactivated. They can leave a quick message if your relative is in the hospital or whatever.

Today, for sure, the phone is dead. But it could come back.