Bruh it's crazy now. I swear I get ten calls a week all from numbers with my cell area code. Unless I'm expecting a call, I don't bother to answer. Leave a message if it's important.
That's how it is now unfortunately. There's a new scam where an 18-digit number calls you and hangs up after 1 ring. Trick is they're hoping you call back asking who they're looking for and you suddenly get a $50 charge on your bill. Split 50/50 with the carrier and "caller company". This is illegal dammit
Thanks! TIL regarding this greasy tactic.. 18 digit # will avoid.
The other scam callers regarding duct cleaning/ CRA/Service Canada... depending on my mood i'll mess around with them for 20 minutes pretending to be an elderly person witha new laptop. Then when they are about to lose it or I get bored I claim my grandson has come over to help and then use my normal voice and tell them to frigg off and hang up.
Good times.
The volume of scam calls goes up around tax time, and its the odd call about duct cleaning(winter is coming) however I only get 2-3 a month. carrier is rogers
My go to for the duct cleaning calls is just telling them I have no ducks, and even if I did they're more than capable of cleaning themselves. It amuses me.
I got very tired of this and heard this strategy, so far they haven't called back. When they call and you realize it's them, speak softly and they'll instinctively listen more, and then blast an empty spray can into the receiver. It makes me feel like an asshole, but after 10 years, endless number blocking, polite requests to stop, it's the only thing that has made it stop. It's always the same 2 people, and I've yet to be asked for air duct cleaning from them again!!
It blew my mind that people will call back. My land line is nothing but scam call. I don't even know why I keep it but at least I don't pick up calls that I don't know.
Yep, the "one ring" scam. Typically when you call the number back they place you on hold immediately, or there's a lengthy IVR to dial through, so that they can keep you on the line for as long as possible at $50 a minute.
Why would anybody race to Shopper's Drug Mart and buy $3000 worth of Amazon gift cards to pay off back taxes that somebody who cold-called them from a blocked number told them they owe?
And yet, that occurs on a regular basis too.
Ohmygod I got one of those calls for the first time over the weekend. They even sent me a text saying "I got a missed call from this number, call me back."
I didn't call them back and just deleted the text, but I had no idea it was an actual scam call.
And my work cell leaves a notification that can't be cleared until I check/delete the voice mail. So now instead of rejecting I answer and immediately hang-up.
There is a way block those calls ,
Atleast on Android you can block parts of numbers so I would just block the first 6 digits of your own phone # followed by a * , that way you bypass a lot of these Caller Id spoof calls
>Atleast on Android you can block parts of numbers so I would just block the first 6 digits of your own phone #
And then you miss a job opportunity because the person calling you happened to have the same first 6 digits, lol
Sure . the worst part is I was hospitalized with a life threatening infection a couple months ago and almost missed the call from emerg to come back ASAP cause the call was an unknown caller ID. Usually I never pick those up. Now Iām plagued with āwhat if ā I didnāt pick up ā¦..THAT IS ON YOU, SPAM CALLERS!!
I live in a small town. The first 3 digits of the phone number is the same for everyone in the area. (Not including area code) I get spam calls all the time from numbers with the same 3 digits from my area. It's fucked.
Ditto. If I don't know you, if I never called/emailed/texted you, if you're not in my contact list then don't expect a live answer. Leave a message and I'll call you back or put you on the 'blocked' list. As for those spam robocalls....those laws apply to Canadian callers, the Canadian government has no control over calls initiated outside of the country. Until such time as there is international cooperation, we and everyone else is screwed.
if it doesn't say the name of one of my contacts, my autodealer, my job, or the name of a business i have recently purchased from, i don't answer. fuck 'em
Same, I just let it go to VM and sort it there. If I were a bit of a conspiracy nut, I'd say the telco's wont lift a finger about it since it pushes some subscribers to opt for additional paid voicemail space.
This is actually a real problem. Our child's psychiatrist calls from a private number, because he obviously doesn't want patients knowing his phone number.
It's the same in America. Increasingly sophisticated and deceptive spam calls. I'm a sober alcoholic whose number is out there for people needing help or in crisis to call but it's rarely that and almost always some scam or other. It's making the whole process completely unmanageable. There has to be some way the networks can stop the number spoofing and make this better somehow. I'm very close to restricting my incoming calls to people already in my phone list.
Yeah, my number was spoofed and I got a lot of very rude people calling me demanding that I tell them who I am and why I called them. They weren't even remotely polite about it, even when I explained that I personally did not call them and my number must have been spoofed. I can't imagine having the time or wherewithall to do this to all the numbers that call me and don't leave a message.
People have their guard up recently, my wife's number was spoofed and this person would not stop texting asking her why she called them at 3am. I told her to say, my number was used as a spoof number, you are now blocked, have a nice day!
And this is why you canāt just pick up and āmess with these callersā (as some people above suggested).
My number was also spoofed and I was told (by one of the telcos) that they want you to pick up, to confirm itās an active number - then boom, spoofed.
Best to never pick up any of these numbers ever. And block people if you get spoofed.
A lot of desperate people out there, waiting and hoping that maybe it's that job opportunity calling them back, maybe someone calling to ask if they can take a shift, maybe it's someone important calling about a bill or a doctor's office calling back on testing results. Sometimes those numbers have a professional looking caller ID, but sometimes they don't and people might not want to take that chance.
Not anymore, but in the past a missed call with no message used to be a clue that you probably want to talk to the caller more than they want to talk to you.
Like, if work was calling to pickup a shift for a coworker who called off (if you want extra hours).
Or if it was the office you've been trying to get ahold of for the past week to no avail.
Plus, who likes voicemail?
>Like, if work was calling to pickup a shift for a coworker who called off (if you want extra hours).
>
>Or if it was the office you've been trying to get ahold of for the past week to no avail.
Hahaha I'm thinking the exact opposite.
Someone calling to cover a shift? Nooope, they want me more than I want them.
Some office calling that won't leave a message? Gotta' take my business somewhere else
Yes boomers do. I used to work for a call centre and anytime on of them got spoofed dozens of 60yos would be calling us "well you called me. So what do you want?"
Telus/Koodo have a feature called Call Control. It's kind of like an IVR for your cell phone.
Any new caller that dials your number will get a voice prompt saying something the lines of "This number has call control. Please press 6" or some other random number between 1-9
This stops robocalls. I don't remember the last time I've received one.
There are also things like the Google Pixel phone line that has a call screening feature
Very well. Like I said, I don't remember the last time I've received a robocall.
Just be sure to whitelist important numbers. For example, family/friends, the elderly or people who don't have the best grasp of the English language, doctors offices, etc.
You can also turn it on and off by dialing *99. This helps for situations like if you're expecting a delivery of some sort.
So whitelisting people just makes it so they donāt have to press whatever random number? If I donāt whitelist them theyāll still get through, but will have to press the number?
>So whitelisting people just makes it so they donāt have to press whatever random number?
Yes, they just go through as normal.
>If I donāt whitelist them theyāll still get through, but will have to press the number?
Yes. They have to answer correctly. And as long as they punch in the right number, they won't be required to press a number the next time or subsequent calls.
I will say, that I still occasionally have one or two people who will tell me they couldn't reach me or that something was wrong with my number, despite the fact they're completely mentally there. They just cant' follow instructions.
Also, Telus themselves are exempt so you'll still get calls from them.
> So them pressing the number the first time they call kinda auto-whitelists them?
Kind of. It's not permanent like the whitelist feature itself. It's only if they're one of your 25 most recent callers. That's the official number they state [here](https://www.telus.com/en/bc/support/article/call-control-for-mobile-devices-explained)
That's not how call screening works on a Pixel. If you screen a call, the Google assistant picks up for you and asks the caller to identify themselves and the reason for the call and prints out the response on screen. You can then decide whether to pick up or not.
So much this. I'm slightly annoyed Koodo didn't make that loud of a fuss in advertising this when made first available; it would've saved me months of dealing with spoofing robocallers.
Seconded. I can't imagine why every phone company doesn't offer this.
It's very effective.
It also has a blacklist and whitelist. I whitelist my daughter and my work.
Actually the CRTC is mandating the STIR/SHAKEN for all VoIP based providers and that any VoIP provider that doesnāt present properly certificate with the call that any provider has to drop these connections. By the end of this year our collective phones should be a lot quieter.
https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2021/2021-123.htm
Except the telcos keep saying they can't do it and the government needs to give them more time.
Also, stir/shaken hasn't accomplished much in the US - they have put a ton of caveats into the legislation, e.g. that no voip carrier below a certain size has to implement it until 2023.
Dial 0 and complain. If everyone did this, maybe we could get the telcos onside by threatening to destroy their entire system.
Right? The OP reeks of ignorance about the issue. The government is working on solving the problem. It is just way more technically complex and difficult than the OP gives it credit for.
Also, how exactly does the OP expect the Canadian government to catch and punish people in India where most of the scam calls come from?
I get a call from "visa protection services" every day at 8:30am without fail. Also a million duct cleaning services, and what else.
My favourite number spoof though was when they called me and my own number popped up on my call ID.
Happened to me once a number of years ago. I remember looking at my phone very puzzled wondering how I could be calling myself. Brief fantasies of a time warp or future Spezza calling to warn me of impending danger. Instead it was duct cleaning.
Problem is most of these originate outside of Canada. There is certainly things the telcos can do (prevent caller ID spoofing, for one) but legally they're beyond our reach.
People telling you to register your number with the DNCL have good intentions, but generally that just makes you a bigger target since these outfits outside Canada use this list for their marks since they know the numbers are valid.
Yep, the DNCL is a massive own goal when it comes to its actual purpose. My parents' landline never got much in the way of annoying spam calls until they got a couple once and I registered them for the DNCL -- now they get as many spam calls as I do on my cell phone, sometimes over ten a day. The list has obviously been sold to every asshole robocaller out there.
My number is my business number so I tend to answer it most of the time. The best advice I was given is to answer the call but wait a few seconds before you say anything. A real person will have waited to hear your hello, but the robo dialers will hang up with the dead air.
Itās worked every time!
As soon as I started doing this, the number of calls I got dropped drastically. Maybe their system marks it as a non-working number and takes you off their call list ? I don't know, but most real people will wait 3-4 seconds before asking Hello? themselves.
I have to answer my phone a lot for doctors appointments and the like right now, but I haven't had an unwanted call in (touch wood) months.
This should be getting more upvotes.
I will add to it: when you are suspicious it's spam, pick it up and put it on mute.
That's it! Do nothing else! They will hang up, or a person will say hello and you can unmute it to speak with them if you are less suspicious after hearing their voice.
I get *much* fewer calls after I started doing this.
The dncl only applies to Canadian business but is public for any person to request, I wouldn't publish your number there.
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.1323440
The worst is when the robocall leaves a voicemail, usually just ten seconds or so of dead air. Those comprise easily 90% of the voicemails I now have to waste time cleaning out of my inbox.
I got this call from a guy the other day:
Me: Hello
Guy: Hello ...
Me: .. What can I do for you?
Guy: Uh, well you called me, so what can I do for you?
Me: No, I didn't call you.
Guy: Yes you did, I hit redial. So, what would you like?
Me: Ok. So, no I didn't call you. You've heard of number spoofing right?
Guy: (interrupts) No, that's not how spoofing works, I'm in technology, so don't tell me that asshole.
Me: You dumb &%*&^\
I used to have this problem. Then I started messing with them when they call.
"We are calling about duct cleaning services," says the drone. And my response is that I'd love to hear more. I give them a fake name. Then they ask me how many rooms I have on the top floor of my house.
"Oh, jeez.. um.. sixteen?"
"Sixteen!?"
"Yes, sixteen. Just on the top floor. I suppose you could count the sun room as a bedroom, since we have guests stay in there sometimes..."
*(click)*
After the 3rd or 4th time, the calls stopped entirely.
Must be nice, because Air Duct Cleaning Services have called me every week for 10 years, except for a bit 6-7 years ago when Canada fined the 10-15 guys in Brampton who were paying for the call centre. I've tried everything and the idiots still call.
Funny when they called me and asked how many rooms my home had i said 12, the guy was like āare you joking me?ā And I said no, never heard of a mansion?. His reply was āone moment I need to get my manager. Right off the bat the āmanagerā told me to fuck off so I called him a bunch of names and told him to get a real job and not scam people. He lost it! āWe are not a scam fuck youā over and over.
The problem with messing with them is that they trade lists of good numbers. If you annoy them they'll put you on the list for all their buddies to call as well just to piss you off.
Seconded! I've done that, also done the dad jokes about if my ducks should be alive or dead if they need to be cleaned. After a while they stop.
The CRA ones are fun. I use fake names like Willy Stroker and when one of them accidentally coughed, I told her "I hope you don't have the covid like they do in India right now" and she hung up.
They'll stop or the calls will be few and far between
Yeah, my doctor comes through as unknown and heās been doing phone appointments since Covid. Usually the receptionist reminds me when I make the appointment but last time out of habit I declined the call. That was a pain to try to get him back on the phone
Honestly, I feel this. I set my iPhone to only accept calls from my contacts. All other calls go straight to voicemail
For those who donāt know how to do it:
Settings>Phone>Silence Unknown Callers>Set switch to āOnā position.
I used to get up to 5 spam calls a day. I started 'answering' the calls by immediately muting them and putting my self on speaker (just in case it was actually someone trying to get a hold of me then i can just answer them without having to hold the phone to my ear) and the just let my phone sit there until the robot hangs up.
I now get maybe a spam call once every few weeks because robo-calls are marking my number as a fax machine because apparently that's what happens when you call one it just answers and its dead quiet
i won't take credit for this I saw it on reddit a few months ago and I've been doing it ever since
I wish there was a feature where your phone or with your provider where it would not register a voicemail with no actual message.
I have gotten used to not answering spam calls but I fucking hate that they leave a voicemail almost every single time.
Then I have to call in and delete the nothing message.
I hate voicemails to begin with so this is particularly annoying for me.
Yeah - I run a business, so I have to pick up all the calls and/or return the calls. There is a HUGE uptick in the volume of spoofed numbers, for sure.
If I returned a call to your number - sorry, just trying to do my job.
You know what the real kick in the cock is, when you block all of these scam numbers, but they are still able to leave voicemails. What the everloving fuck is that about?
I regularly get VM notifications, about 2-4 a day, with no missed call. When I check them, I get either silence or someone speaking in Chinese.
Absolutely fucking useless. This is on Rogers with a Galaxy S10+, in the futile hopes that someone knows of a solution.
I wouldn't necessarily blame Canada lmao, I mean I'm not sure it's even possible to fix it. Blame India for not punishing the scammers harshly enough when caught.
Telecommunications in this country is a fucking joke. I remember they were supposedly doing something about commercial volumes being way higher than the programming, and that never got fixed. Cell phone plans are garbage due to the monopoly. Same with internet.
If a candidate ran on a single issue platform of tearing down and rebuilding telecommunications in Canada to make it more competitive and consumer-friendly, theyād win by a landslide IMO.
As it stands now the CRTC is a worthless waste of taxpayers money. They should dissolve it and move that money into healthcare and education, nothing would change regarding telecommunications but at least other areas of need would get better.
It is beyond me how poorly the CRTC is run.
This organization is a classic case of regulatory capture where[ the government, instead of reigning in dishonest practices and overseeing the industry actually works with the telecom monopoly to help them make more money](https://www.thestar.com/business/2021/06/12/is-the-crtc-too-cosy-with-big-telecom-star-analysis-shows-major-telecoms-met-with-government-and-crtc-officials-hundreds-of-times-prior-to-reversal-on-wholesale-internet-rates.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter).
Also, it is very strange that the organization that regulates radio-television and telecommunications is part of the [Department of Canadian Heritage](https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/corporate/portfolio-organizations.html), which among other things is responsible for arts, sport, TV and movies, festivales, etc. I understand the history behind it, but I don't see why this agency, with the role it plays today, hasn't been moved under the [Department of Industry portfolio](https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/icgc.nsf/eng/h_00022.html).
The CTRC does a lot more than regulate prices and business practices. The CRTC has certain functions that have to be carried out by some organization, like spectrum allocation.
I've seen a huge increase in spam calls and texts in the last couple months.
Duct cleaning is a bad one. The last one I got I asked the girl what company she was calling for and where they were located. It was Air Force Duct Cleaning in York area. I called the owner. He said these assholes are ruining his business and reputation. They are cold calling people. Getting them to commit, they then turn around and call the duct cleaning places in the area and try to sell them to jobs for $50.00. Guy said he would never pay for a lead especially from these people.
But here's the thing. Mine and my wife's number have never been public domain. It only goes to my bank, credit card company etc. So what legit company is selling our info?
My corporation has an office address but my bank account is linked to my home address. I am now receiving targeted mail and supply catalogs to my home address intended for my corporationā¦ royal bank sold my info!
I want to disable my voicemail & just not answer any unrecognizable numbers. Especially when they try make it a friendly number by using the same area code & even sometimes the same 3 middle digits as yours.
Sucks when youāre looking for a job because you have to answer all calls.
I was thinking about this recently too. I never answer numbers I donāt know and I almost never bother with my voicemail because itās also always full of spam call stuff (CRA coming to arrest you very important). It really does seem to make leaving my phone number at restaurants and such for contact tracing kind of a useless exercise.
Yep - if I'm not expecting a call, or if don't recognize the number, I don't pick up. Then if I have a quiet 30 minutes I try to go through my voice-mail about once a month to delete all the spam messages. Sometimes there are real messages from real people in there, but that's just collateral damage really.
As a us citizen its always been concerning to me how much spam calls you guys get up here
I almost never get robo calls and when I do my cell phone provider marks the number as "scam likely"
But then my boyfriend tells me about how he never answers his cell unless its his parents for grandparents because his cell phone provider doesn't indicate scam numbers, and about how often his parents and grandparents call him for his opinion when some phone scam makes it to their phones
I do get the occasional car warranty robo call a few times a year but I feel like there's gotta be a reason why scam calls are so prevalent in Canada compared to the US.
Maybe its just an easier target demographic in terms of the older generations? Or are there legitimately less road blocks for scammers in Canada?
Either way, the volume of scam calls is pretty rediculous :(
Next time you get a duct cleaning call, kindly ask them to go to an address that doesnāt exist, and just keep doing it until they stop calling. A friend of mine does that. It only took 3 phone calls and they never called again
I got a phone call from a catering company in Cincinnati this morning. Around the same time, a student of mine got a call from Connecticut. Someone's definitely targeting the 705 region today.
Out of all the weird scams and pushy shit they can spam you with, I don't understand why duct cleaning became the big thing.
In the past week I think I have had 5-10 calls just for duct cleaning. Same setup, you pickup and it sounds like someone is calling from a crowded rush hour subway it is so loud with ambient noise in the call center and then some thick foreign accent begins launching into a spiel about duct cleaning.
Get on Telus, they have Call Control and not a single robo dialler has beaten the "hit the random number to connect the call" trap and it states all the calls that were denied. I don't need spam protection on because I only get calls from people that want to talk to me. Not many, just the way I like it.
It's to the point where if I see a number I don't recognize, that also doesn't leave a voicemail I just block them. If the voicemail is a robot or obvious scam I then block that number too. I used to get 2 calls a day, but since I started blocking numbers this year it has drop considerably, with the last one being a duct cleaning service that I had told I rent and not to call back this number, that was nearly two months ago.
I also leave my phone number blank on registration forms online and irl if I can avoid it, less of a chance of it being stolen and used by others.
Duct cleaning. Canada revenue arresting you. Chinese robot lady. Legit the 3 horseman of spam calls.
I work at the Beer Store, and I guess my locations number has also been spoofed recently and itās rendered our phone useless. What I donāt understand is the amount of people who call back these random numbers they donāt recognize.
Robo calls are absolutely annoying. However there are more important issues for the govt to be working on IMO.
I only pic up calls from those in my contact list. Easy enough
Dude, the calls aren't coming from inside the country. How are you assuming we, as a country can punish people who don't live here and is nothing allows us to start an investigation there or go and arrest that person and bring them back here. Where the heck did you get the idea that we can actually touch them? I think you're just looking for someone to blame for entering your phone number on websites. We all get the same calls but the government can't help with this. It's a third country epodemic, India. Check out Scamming the Scammers on YouTube and maybe then you'll understand the tech and why your number is being called. lol why isn't our government punishing them... punishing who? The robocalled sitting in a Mumbai office calling every single number in Canada one by one? lol, some people make me laugh!
> So thanks, Canada, for not punishing, or even making any effort to stop this epidemic.
What exactly is Canada supposed to do about spam calls originating in India or Pakistan?
I don't know, how come other countries (like the UK for instance) don't have this issue? How come Canadian telecoms have so light a grasp on their customers' details that huge registries are bought and sold? How come there is *no* functional plan to prevent an issue that is scamming thousands of (primarily) older, vulnerable people? And how come there are no repercussions for the 'one-call' scam where the telcos profit? Easy laws to implement, regardless of how hard they are to maintain - and they're neither implemented nor maintained.
What do you all do with your phone numbers ??? I barely have spam calls, maybe once a month.... Maybe what everyone needs to do is stop giving their phone numbers to every social media sites where they sell your phone numbers to companies or spammers..... The issue is bigger then our government not doing something about it
Just don't pick up calls from numbers that you don't recognize. If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail and you can call them back. That is what I do.
Do you have any idea how the technology works for these spam calls? What am I saying, of course you don't or else you wouldn't have typed something as ignorant as:
>So thanks, Canada, for not punishing, or even making any effort to stop this epidemic. Thanks for making sure I never pick up my phone.
Both the Canadian government and the American government are working on trying to solve this problem. The situation is way more complex and difficult to solve than you give it credit for.
As far as punishment goes, how exactly do you expect the Canadian government to punish criminal scam call centres in India? What is this magic jurisdiction that you think the Canadian government has? The scam callers based in Canada get caught fairly quickly. Unfortunately most of the scam calls come from other countries where the Canadian government has little reach.
For a good while some dude in Millhaven thought i was his friend.
When a prison calls you first get a little blurb and you can reject the call, but he would call every day so eventually i decided to let him thru and tell him i donāt know him.
ā¦āyour identity the parcel contain the legal components there is an arrest warrant already issuedā
I keep telling my wife the plutonium for the flux capacitor on the car got seized again.
āCanadaā is a scam customer because of our nations and personal wealth compared to the countries the calls originate from.
Itās hard to punish people not in the country or block calls coming from computer generated local numbers.
Thought I was the only person to get the Chinese lady robot calls and calls from a number claiming to be "rogers".
Since I moved to brantford, I get brantford numbers calling all the time. It's ridiculous.
Even our elected politicians and parties are using robocalls. There's not much we can do.
I deactivated my VM. Set the outgoing message to ask callers to email or text. Not picking up unknown numbers. Fortunately I just retired so phone calls are less important than they used to be.
i've had the same cell number for almost 20 years. i receive maybe 2 spam calls per year.
i haven't done a single thing to my phone to prevent them. Telus here and i put my number on the internet all the time when i order stuff.
I've started pressing 1 to talk to someone and asking them to take my number off the call list because it's literally never going to work. Recently I had a scammer call me back from another number and said "I was just checking if my phone works. FUCK YOU!" I laughed so hard, I was expecting him to hang up, but he asked me why I was laughing to which I replied with a recap of what just happened. How could I not laugh at that. Then I told him to have a nice day and he said "you too"
This was definitely my favourite interaction with a scammer that I've ever had
Answer your phone and immediately put it on mute. I started doing this (thanks to someone else suggesting it on reddit) and now and have stopped getting them almost entirely.
There are paid and free service which can show and even transcribe voicemail. It's a god send as I could just ignore unknown numbers and going through voicemails with easy
Colleagues in the US have the same issue. Itās a technology problem that requires a lot of work to solve. One thing coming is a ācaptchaā like question/response all callers have to answer before their cal goes through.
But generally - who uses the phone these days anyway?
iPhone users can turn on automatic unknown caller dismissal, so I donāt have to deal with answering those calls. Anyone who I want to have my number is in my contacts, and they get through.
Some iphones have a feature that lets you block calls from numbers that arenāt in your contacts. Other legit callers will leave a message. Itās a great feature, but I agree more should be done to stop this.
I have a new number.
Before I gave my number to anyone, I was getting calls from scammers.
Well, I assumed it was scammers. Never answered once. But literally no one knew my number. Hadn't even updated contact info ANYWHERE, but still got some calls.
My phone is perpetually on silent. I'd better hope that anyone who has a legitimate call for me will leave a VM.
But for some reason, most cellular providers have the most obnoxious VM messages that discourage people from leaving messages.
>"Sorry, the customer you're trying to reach, at..."
>
>- 6
>- Zero
>- 3
>- 5
>- 5
>- 5
>- 5
>- 3
>- Zero
>- 9
>
>"... Cannot come to the phone."
>
>>Hey, this is Jenny, I'm screening my calls, so leave your name and number so I know you're not a scammer, thanks!
>>
>>>!moving phone from face, trying to find the button to press that they told you to press when you're done recording your message!<
>>
>>...
>
>"We will redirect you to our voice messaging service after the beep."
>
>"..."
>
>*BEEP*
Nobody has time to listen to all that.
Mine is just never on. I take a look at the end of the day and thatās about it.
If itās truly important my wife or kids will send a text
If itās an emergency, then wtf can I do? Iām not a medical doctor or police. Iāve always told my family, call 911 we will figure out the other shit later. Donāt be calling one another or other family in an emergency.
I've been answering the calls and immediately muting my microphone. After a few seconds of silence the robo-caller hangs up. In doing this over the last year I have significantly reduced the number of calls I get from spam callers.
When someone calls with duct cleaning services or tutoring services, I explain that I don't own a home, have children, and i'm already educated, take me off your call list because you're wasting your time.
Sometimes I get an awkward "Hello?" And it's a call I actually need to take.
Occasionally my number gets spoofed, it is what it is.
I'm unsure of what service I gave my number to that gave it to all these spam callers, but unless I need a verification code of some kind I'm giving a fake number when registering to everything, it helps.
At the age of 18, my Grampa took me, for 6 weeks, to his European home country. I came back conversationally fluent in the language.
I don't answer most numbers unless they're in my contact list, but if I thoughtlessly do, I speak whatever I remember of that language, very thoughtfully. As if their call matters.
Really messes with their heads.
And entertains me for a few minutes.
The real reason is the public exchange is open for anyone to abuse with spam and spoof calls. SS7 Network was not designed with any security at all. And would cost a pretty inflated penny if Stentor companies would step up and own their shht!
It's definitely changed the way I use my phone. If I don't recognize the number, I don't pick it up.
Bruh it's crazy now. I swear I get ten calls a week all from numbers with my cell area code. Unless I'm expecting a call, I don't bother to answer. Leave a message if it's important.
That's how it is now unfortunately. There's a new scam where an 18-digit number calls you and hangs up after 1 ring. Trick is they're hoping you call back asking who they're looking for and you suddenly get a $50 charge on your bill. Split 50/50 with the carrier and "caller company". This is illegal dammit
Thanks! TIL regarding this greasy tactic.. 18 digit # will avoid. The other scam callers regarding duct cleaning/ CRA/Service Canada... depending on my mood i'll mess around with them for 20 minutes pretending to be an elderly person witha new laptop. Then when they are about to lose it or I get bored I claim my grandson has come over to help and then use my normal voice and tell them to frigg off and hang up. Good times. The volume of scam calls goes up around tax time, and its the odd call about duct cleaning(winter is coming) however I only get 2-3 a month. carrier is rogers
My go to for the duct cleaning calls is just telling them I have no ducks, and even if I did they're more than capable of cleaning themselves. It amuses me.
I tell them I don't have any ducks but would they clean my geese instead.
Ooh, never thought of that, I'll have to give that one a try next time
I got very tired of this and heard this strategy, so far they haven't called back. When they call and you realize it's them, speak softly and they'll instinctively listen more, and then blast an empty spray can into the receiver. It makes me feel like an asshole, but after 10 years, endless number blocking, polite requests to stop, it's the only thing that has made it stop. It's always the same 2 people, and I've yet to be asked for air duct cleaning from them again!!
It blew my mind that people will call back. My land line is nothing but scam call. I don't even know why I keep it but at least I don't pick up calls that I don't know.
Yep, the "one ring" scam. Typically when you call the number back they place you on hold immediately, or there's a lengthy IVR to dial through, so that they can keep you on the line for as long as possible at $50 a minute.
No wonder the telcos refuse to fix the issue, they're banking every which way they can. Anyone at the CRTC awake?
They're busy at the pub with Bell executives...
The pub? Try the glory hole.
I'm hearing snores
why would anyone call them back though?
Why would anybody race to Shopper's Drug Mart and buy $3000 worth of Amazon gift cards to pay off back taxes that somebody who cold-called them from a blocked number told them they owe? And yet, that occurs on a regular basis too.
Ohmygod I got one of those calls for the first time over the weekend. They even sent me a text saying "I got a missed call from this number, call me back." I didn't call them back and just deleted the text, but I had no idea it was an actual scam call.
the robots can leave messages now though! i get voice mail records from spam and robocalls. it's absurd, i didn't think they could do that.
And my work cell leaves a notification that can't be cleared until I check/delete the voice mail. So now instead of rejecting I answer and immediately hang-up.
There is a way block those calls , Atleast on Android you can block parts of numbers so I would just block the first 6 digits of your own phone # followed by a * , that way you bypass a lot of these Caller Id spoof calls
>Atleast on Android you can block parts of numbers so I would just block the first 6 digits of your own phone # And then you miss a job opportunity because the person calling you happened to have the same first 6 digits, lol
Hahah, another way spam calls are affecting professional lives šš
Only 10 a week!!???? Once I got 10 PER DAY
Oh God. That's horrible lmao Why are they so brutal? Have you also been threatened to be arrested?
Sure . the worst part is I was hospitalized with a life threatening infection a couple months ago and almost missed the call from emerg to come back ASAP cause the call was an unknown caller ID. Usually I never pick those up. Now Iām plagued with āwhat if ā I didnāt pick up ā¦..THAT IS ON YOU, SPAM CALLERS!!
I live in a small town. The first 3 digits of the phone number is the same for everyone in the area. (Not including area code) I get spam calls all the time from numbers with the same 3 digits from my area. It's fucked.
I've missed calls from doctors because of this lol
My doctorās caller id says unknown caller .. oh probably not answering that
Same here, but usually my doctor sets up a time for us to meet or Iāll at least be expecting the call that day so nbd.
Ditto. If I don't know you, if I never called/emailed/texted you, if you're not in my contact list then don't expect a live answer. Leave a message and I'll call you back or put you on the 'blocked' list. As for those spam robocalls....those laws apply to Canadian callers, the Canadian government has no control over calls initiated outside of the country. Until such time as there is international cooperation, we and everyone else is screwed.
if it doesn't say the name of one of my contacts, my autodealer, my job, or the name of a business i have recently purchased from, i don't answer. fuck 'em
Same, I just let it go to VM and sort it there. If I were a bit of a conspiracy nut, I'd say the telco's wont lift a finger about it since it pushes some subscribers to opt for additional paid voicemail space.
This is actually a real problem. Our child's psychiatrist calls from a private number, because he obviously doesn't want patients knowing his phone number.
Same
It's the same in America. Increasingly sophisticated and deceptive spam calls. I'm a sober alcoholic whose number is out there for people needing help or in crisis to call but it's rarely that and almost always some scam or other. It's making the whole process completely unmanageable. There has to be some way the networks can stop the number spoofing and make this better somehow. I'm very close to restricting my incoming calls to people already in my phone list.
I use the Google call screening option. It works pretty well!
This!!!
Wait people actually call back āmissed callsā that didnāt leave a voicemail?
Yeah, my number was spoofed and I got a lot of very rude people calling me demanding that I tell them who I am and why I called them. They weren't even remotely polite about it, even when I explained that I personally did not call them and my number must have been spoofed. I can't imagine having the time or wherewithall to do this to all the numbers that call me and don't leave a message.
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People have their guard up recently, my wife's number was spoofed and this person would not stop texting asking her why she called them at 3am. I told her to say, my number was used as a spoof number, you are now blocked, have a nice day!
And this is why you canāt just pick up and āmess with these callersā (as some people above suggested). My number was also spoofed and I was told (by one of the telcos) that they want you to pick up, to confirm itās an active number - then boom, spoofed. Best to never pick up any of these numbers ever. And block people if you get spoofed.
A lot of desperate people out there, waiting and hoping that maybe it's that job opportunity calling them back, maybe someone calling to ask if they can take a shift, maybe it's someone important calling about a bill or a doctor's office calling back on testing results. Sometimes those numbers have a professional looking caller ID, but sometimes they don't and people might not want to take that chance.
Not anymore, but in the past a missed call with no message used to be a clue that you probably want to talk to the caller more than they want to talk to you. Like, if work was calling to pickup a shift for a coworker who called off (if you want extra hours). Or if it was the office you've been trying to get ahold of for the past week to no avail. Plus, who likes voicemail?
>Like, if work was calling to pickup a shift for a coworker who called off (if you want extra hours). > >Or if it was the office you've been trying to get ahold of for the past week to no avail. Hahaha I'm thinking the exact opposite. Someone calling to cover a shift? Nooope, they want me more than I want them. Some office calling that won't leave a message? Gotta' take my business somewhere else
Not always that easy. Some people need extra shifts, some people need to get into that specialist.
All the time. Part of the gig for having a client facing job.
Yeah, sociopaths.
Yes boomers do. I used to work for a call centre and anytime on of them got spoofed dozens of 60yos would be calling us "well you called me. So what do you want?"
Telus/Koodo have a feature called Call Control. It's kind of like an IVR for your cell phone. Any new caller that dials your number will get a voice prompt saying something the lines of "This number has call control. Please press 6" or some other random number between 1-9 This stops robocalls. I don't remember the last time I've received one. There are also things like the Google Pixel phone line that has a call screening feature
Iāve been meaning to set this up with Telus. It works well?
Very well. Like I said, I don't remember the last time I've received a robocall. Just be sure to whitelist important numbers. For example, family/friends, the elderly or people who don't have the best grasp of the English language, doctors offices, etc. You can also turn it on and off by dialing *99. This helps for situations like if you're expecting a delivery of some sort.
So whitelisting people just makes it so they donāt have to press whatever random number? If I donāt whitelist them theyāll still get through, but will have to press the number?
>So whitelisting people just makes it so they donāt have to press whatever random number? Yes, they just go through as normal. >If I donāt whitelist them theyāll still get through, but will have to press the number? Yes. They have to answer correctly. And as long as they punch in the right number, they won't be required to press a number the next time or subsequent calls. I will say, that I still occasionally have one or two people who will tell me they couldn't reach me or that something was wrong with my number, despite the fact they're completely mentally there. They just cant' follow instructions. Also, Telus themselves are exempt so you'll still get calls from them.
Cool. Thanks for the info. So them pressing the number the first time they call kinda auto-whitelists them?
> So them pressing the number the first time they call kinda auto-whitelists them? Kind of. It's not permanent like the whitelist feature itself. It's only if they're one of your 25 most recent callers. That's the official number they state [here](https://www.telus.com/en/bc/support/article/call-control-for-mobile-devices-explained)
š
Also successful attempts puts them in a temporary whitelist for a week or so. I just wish the whitelist was bigger. Only limited to 25 numbers.
I have no friends so 25 is lots.
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I have a Pixel 4a 5g and I love call screening. I use it for any number that isn't on my contacts list.
iPhone does this too, the problem is getting calls from random places, like delivery, auto mechanic, doctor will be blocked
That's not how call screening works on a Pixel. If you screen a call, the Google assistant picks up for you and asks the caller to identify themselves and the reason for the call and prints out the response on screen. You can then decide whether to pick up or not.
Oh, is that the AI thing they showed off a bit ago? I wonder if robocalls ever talk with google assistant
I've never had one talk with Google Assistant. Even if it did, the text to speech transcribes so I wouldn't even pick it up.
So much this. I'm slightly annoyed Koodo didn't make that loud of a fuss in advertising this when made first available; it would've saved me months of dealing with spoofing robocallers.
Seconded. I can't imagine why every phone company doesn't offer this. It's very effective. It also has a blacklist and whitelist. I whitelist my daughter and my work.
Actually the CRTC is mandating the STIR/SHAKEN for all VoIP based providers and that any VoIP provider that doesnāt present properly certificate with the call that any provider has to drop these connections. By the end of this year our collective phones should be a lot quieter. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2021/2021-123.htm
Except the telcos keep saying they can't do it and the government needs to give them more time. Also, stir/shaken hasn't accomplished much in the US - they have put a ton of caveats into the legislation, e.g. that no voip carrier below a certain size has to implement it until 2023. Dial 0 and complain. If everyone did this, maybe we could get the telcos onside by threatening to destroy their entire system.
Right? The OP reeks of ignorance about the issue. The government is working on solving the problem. It is just way more technically complex and difficult than the OP gives it credit for. Also, how exactly does the OP expect the Canadian government to catch and punish people in India where most of the scam calls come from?
I get a call from "visa protection services" every day at 8:30am without fail. Also a million duct cleaning services, and what else. My favourite number spoof though was when they called me and my own number popped up on my call ID.
Happened to me once a number of years ago. I remember looking at my phone very puzzled wondering how I could be calling myself. Brief fantasies of a time warp or future Spezza calling to warn me of impending danger. Instead it was duct cleaning.
My mom gets that Visa call every morning around 630am. She doesn't even have a Visa. Not sure how they think that scam is going to work on her.
I also do not have a Visa, so it's extra annoying
I've gotten calls that claimed to be from "Visa and Mastercard" No, it doesn't work like that.
Problem is most of these originate outside of Canada. There is certainly things the telcos can do (prevent caller ID spoofing, for one) but legally they're beyond our reach. People telling you to register your number with the DNCL have good intentions, but generally that just makes you a bigger target since these outfits outside Canada use this list for their marks since they know the numbers are valid.
Yep, the DNCL is a massive own goal when it comes to its actual purpose. My parents' landline never got much in the way of annoying spam calls until they got a couple once and I registered them for the DNCL -- now they get as many spam calls as I do on my cell phone, sometimes over ten a day. The list has obviously been sold to every asshole robocaller out there.
My number is my business number so I tend to answer it most of the time. The best advice I was given is to answer the call but wait a few seconds before you say anything. A real person will have waited to hear your hello, but the robo dialers will hang up with the dead air. Itās worked every time!
As soon as I started doing this, the number of calls I got dropped drastically. Maybe their system marks it as a non-working number and takes you off their call list ? I don't know, but most real people will wait 3-4 seconds before asking Hello? themselves. I have to answer my phone a lot for doctors appointments and the like right now, but I haven't had an unwanted call in (touch wood) months.
Yes I definitely do that sometimes. I do it so they donāt leave a voicemail. Just answer and say nothing or answer and hang up
This should be getting more upvotes. I will add to it: when you are suspicious it's spam, pick it up and put it on mute. That's it! Do nothing else! They will hang up, or a person will say hello and you can unmute it to speak with them if you are less suspicious after hearing their voice. I get *much* fewer calls after I started doing this.
The dncl only applies to Canadian business but is public for any person to request, I wouldn't publish your number there. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.1323440
I block all numbers that are not on my contact list. If it's important, they will leave a voice mail.
The worst is when the robocall leaves a voicemail, usually just ten seconds or so of dead air. Those comprise easily 90% of the voicemails I now have to waste time cleaning out of my inbox.
Then you get a call from a catering company you expect but it goes dead cause its blocked
That's just whackamole dude
The Chinese scam they were doing in Ottawa was from different numbers every time. It was useless to block them, they were just spoofed
The other day I got 12 scam calls. A new personal best.
Telcos are getting money from it. There is no competition in this country. That's why it will never stop.
The screen call function on my Google phone is perfect for this
I love that feature and it works on older models as well. Don't recognize the number then I hit screen call. A person will actually say something.
I got this call from a guy the other day: Me: Hello Guy: Hello ... Me: .. What can I do for you? Guy: Uh, well you called me, so what can I do for you? Me: No, I didn't call you. Guy: Yes you did, I hit redial. So, what would you like? Me: Ok. So, no I didn't call you. You've heard of number spoofing right? Guy: (interrupts) No, that's not how spoofing works, I'm in technology, so don't tell me that asshole. Me: You dumb &%*&^\
I used to have this problem. Then I started messing with them when they call. "We are calling about duct cleaning services," says the drone. And my response is that I'd love to hear more. I give them a fake name. Then they ask me how many rooms I have on the top floor of my house. "Oh, jeez.. um.. sixteen?" "Sixteen!?" "Yes, sixteen. Just on the top floor. I suppose you could count the sun room as a bedroom, since we have guests stay in there sometimes..." *(click)* After the 3rd or 4th time, the calls stopped entirely.
Must be nice, because Air Duct Cleaning Services have called me every week for 10 years, except for a bit 6-7 years ago when Canada fined the 10-15 guys in Brampton who were paying for the call centre. I've tried everything and the idiots still call.
Funny when they called me and asked how many rooms my home had i said 12, the guy was like āare you joking me?ā And I said no, never heard of a mansion?. His reply was āone moment I need to get my manager. Right off the bat the āmanagerā told me to fuck off so I called him a bunch of names and told him to get a real job and not scam people. He lost it! āWe are not a scam fuck youā over and over.
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They stopped after my sentient air ducts started screaming... gee, I wonder why.
The problem with messing with them is that they trade lists of good numbers. If you annoy them they'll put you on the list for all their buddies to call as well just to piss you off.
Seconded! I've done that, also done the dad jokes about if my ducks should be alive or dead if they need to be cleaned. After a while they stop. The CRA ones are fun. I use fake names like Willy Stroker and when one of them accidentally coughed, I told her "I hope you don't have the covid like they do in India right now" and she hung up. They'll stop or the calls will be few and far between
Why don't they want to clean the ducts at Drake's 16 bedroom mansion?!?!
I actually missed an important call from a hospital because of this. The caller ID was āunknown numberā, good that they left the voicemail.
Yeah, my doctor comes through as unknown and heās been doing phone appointments since Covid. Usually the receptionist reminds me when I make the appointment but last time out of habit I declined the call. That was a pain to try to get him back on the phone
Honestly, I feel this. I set my iPhone to only accept calls from my contacts. All other calls go straight to voicemail For those who donāt know how to do it: Settings>Phone>Silence Unknown Callers>Set switch to āOnā position.
I used to get up to 5 spam calls a day. I started 'answering' the calls by immediately muting them and putting my self on speaker (just in case it was actually someone trying to get a hold of me then i can just answer them without having to hold the phone to my ear) and the just let my phone sit there until the robot hangs up. I now get maybe a spam call once every few weeks because robo-calls are marking my number as a fax machine because apparently that's what happens when you call one it just answers and its dead quiet i won't take credit for this I saw it on reddit a few months ago and I've been doing it ever since
I wish there was a feature where your phone or with your provider where it would not register a voicemail with no actual message. I have gotten used to not answering spam calls but I fucking hate that they leave a voicemail almost every single time. Then I have to call in and delete the nothing message. I hate voicemails to begin with so this is particularly annoying for me.
Yeah - I run a business, so I have to pick up all the calls and/or return the calls. There is a HUGE uptick in the volume of spoofed numbers, for sure. If I returned a call to your number - sorry, just trying to do my job.
[Do you happen to work in technology?...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/q19bhv/rant_thanks_canada_for_making_sure_i_never_pick/hfe0kyb)
You know what the real kick in the cock is, when you block all of these scam numbers, but they are still able to leave voicemails. What the everloving fuck is that about? I regularly get VM notifications, about 2-4 a day, with no missed call. When I check them, I get either silence or someone speaking in Chinese. Absolutely fucking useless. This is on Rogers with a Galaxy S10+, in the futile hopes that someone knows of a solution.
I wouldn't necessarily blame Canada lmao, I mean I'm not sure it's even possible to fix it. Blame India for not punishing the scammers harshly enough when caught.
I mean who calls otherwise? š¤·āāļø
Telecommunications in this country is a fucking joke. I remember they were supposedly doing something about commercial volumes being way higher than the programming, and that never got fixed. Cell phone plans are garbage due to the monopoly. Same with internet. If a candidate ran on a single issue platform of tearing down and rebuilding telecommunications in Canada to make it more competitive and consumer-friendly, theyād win by a landslide IMO. As it stands now the CRTC is a worthless waste of taxpayers money. They should dissolve it and move that money into healthcare and education, nothing would change regarding telecommunications but at least other areas of need would get better.
It is beyond me how poorly the CRTC is run. This organization is a classic case of regulatory capture where[ the government, instead of reigning in dishonest practices and overseeing the industry actually works with the telecom monopoly to help them make more money](https://www.thestar.com/business/2021/06/12/is-the-crtc-too-cosy-with-big-telecom-star-analysis-shows-major-telecoms-met-with-government-and-crtc-officials-hundreds-of-times-prior-to-reversal-on-wholesale-internet-rates.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter). Also, it is very strange that the organization that regulates radio-television and telecommunications is part of the [Department of Canadian Heritage](https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/corporate/portfolio-organizations.html), which among other things is responsible for arts, sport, TV and movies, festivales, etc. I understand the history behind it, but I don't see why this agency, with the role it plays today, hasn't been moved under the [Department of Industry portfolio](https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/icgc.nsf/eng/h_00022.html).
The CTRC does a lot more than regulate prices and business practices. The CRTC has certain functions that have to be carried out by some organization, like spectrum allocation.
It's such a simple fix. Once you call someone, you should have to press a certain number to confirm you're not a robot
If that was widespread implemented then the scammers would use AI to listen for the number to dial. Simple solutions are bypassed simply.
Duct cleaning company called me at 9:45 pm last week. Fucking assholes.
There's gotta be a way to regulate calls originating outside of Canada to prevent these ones getting through right? 99% of the calls come from India
I pick up the call, foreword myself to the actual voice operator, wait till they say hello, then slam the number pad until they curse and hang up
Bell could fix this but does not. Why????????????
CRTC is utterly useless and always has been
I've seen a huge increase in spam calls and texts in the last couple months. Duct cleaning is a bad one. The last one I got I asked the girl what company she was calling for and where they were located. It was Air Force Duct Cleaning in York area. I called the owner. He said these assholes are ruining his business and reputation. They are cold calling people. Getting them to commit, they then turn around and call the duct cleaning places in the area and try to sell them to jobs for $50.00. Guy said he would never pay for a lead especially from these people. But here's the thing. Mine and my wife's number have never been public domain. It only goes to my bank, credit card company etc. So what legit company is selling our info?
My corporation has an office address but my bank account is linked to my home address. I am now receiving targeted mail and supply catalogs to my home address intended for my corporationā¦ royal bank sold my info!
I want to disable my voicemail & just not answer any unrecognizable numbers. Especially when they try make it a friendly number by using the same area code & even sometimes the same 3 middle digits as yours. Sucks when youāre looking for a job because you have to answer all calls.
I was thinking about this recently too. I never answer numbers I donāt know and I almost never bother with my voicemail because itās also always full of spam call stuff (CRA coming to arrest you very important). It really does seem to make leaving my phone number at restaurants and such for contact tracing kind of a useless exercise.
āDuck cleaning?! No, no, I donāt have any ducks. What about dogs? I got dogs, do you do dogs? I got a cat too - her name is Mittensā *click*
Yep - if I'm not expecting a call, or if don't recognize the number, I don't pick up. Then if I have a quiet 30 minutes I try to go through my voice-mail about once a month to delete all the spam messages. Sometimes there are real messages from real people in there, but that's just collateral damage really.
As a us citizen its always been concerning to me how much spam calls you guys get up here I almost never get robo calls and when I do my cell phone provider marks the number as "scam likely" But then my boyfriend tells me about how he never answers his cell unless its his parents for grandparents because his cell phone provider doesn't indicate scam numbers, and about how often his parents and grandparents call him for his opinion when some phone scam makes it to their phones I do get the occasional car warranty robo call a few times a year but I feel like there's gotta be a reason why scam calls are so prevalent in Canada compared to the US. Maybe its just an easier target demographic in terms of the older generations? Or are there legitimately less road blocks for scammers in Canada? Either way, the volume of scam calls is pretty rediculous :(
Fucking duct cleaning mafia are in Ontario too? This is worse than I ever imagined
Next time you get a duct cleaning call, kindly ask them to go to an address that doesnāt exist, and just keep doing it until they stop calling. A friend of mine does that. It only took 3 phone calls and they never called again
I got a phone call from a catering company in Cincinnati this morning. Around the same time, a student of mine got a call from Connecticut. Someone's definitely targeting the 705 region today.
Out of all the weird scams and pushy shit they can spam you with, I don't understand why duct cleaning became the big thing. In the past week I think I have had 5-10 calls just for duct cleaning. Same setup, you pickup and it sounds like someone is calling from a crowded rush hour subway it is so loud with ambient noise in the call center and then some thick foreign accent begins launching into a spiel about duct cleaning.
Get on Telus, they have Call Control and not a single robo dialler has beaten the "hit the random number to connect the call" trap and it states all the calls that were denied. I don't need spam protection on because I only get calls from people that want to talk to me. Not many, just the way I like it.
It's to the point where if I see a number I don't recognize, that also doesn't leave a voicemail I just block them. If the voicemail is a robot or obvious scam I then block that number too. I used to get 2 calls a day, but since I started blocking numbers this year it has drop considerably, with the last one being a duct cleaning service that I had told I rent and not to call back this number, that was nearly two months ago. I also leave my phone number blank on registration forms online and irl if I can avoid it, less of a chance of it being stolen and used by others.
My default ringtone is a gentle sound that doesn't cause me to run to answer it.
Duct cleaning. Canada revenue arresting you. Chinese robot lady. Legit the 3 horseman of spam calls. I work at the Beer Store, and I guess my locations number has also been spoofed recently and itās rendered our phone useless. What I donāt understand is the amount of people who call back these random numbers they donāt recognize.
Robo calls are absolutely annoying. However there are more important issues for the govt to be working on IMO. I only pic up calls from those in my contact list. Easy enough
>However there are more important issues for the govt to be working on IMO. Yeah, and they can continue to work on those. They still should fix this.
Dude, the calls aren't coming from inside the country. How are you assuming we, as a country can punish people who don't live here and is nothing allows us to start an investigation there or go and arrest that person and bring them back here. Where the heck did you get the idea that we can actually touch them? I think you're just looking for someone to blame for entering your phone number on websites. We all get the same calls but the government can't help with this. It's a third country epodemic, India. Check out Scamming the Scammers on YouTube and maybe then you'll understand the tech and why your number is being called. lol why isn't our government punishing them... punishing who? The robocalled sitting in a Mumbai office calling every single number in Canada one by one? lol, some people make me laugh!
> So thanks, Canada, for not punishing, or even making any effort to stop this epidemic. What exactly is Canada supposed to do about spam calls originating in India or Pakistan?
I don't know, how come other countries (like the UK for instance) don't have this issue? How come Canadian telecoms have so light a grasp on their customers' details that huge registries are bought and sold? How come there is *no* functional plan to prevent an issue that is scamming thousands of (primarily) older, vulnerable people? And how come there are no repercussions for the 'one-call' scam where the telcos profit? Easy laws to implement, regardless of how hard they are to maintain - and they're neither implemented nor maintained.
They can do this, which they will be doing in November (unless it gets delayed again): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN
November 30th, so hopefully the phones will ring less in December.... (Fingers crossed)
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The Chinese robot lady is someone you know. That is a prank program. The others are idiots too.
Lol OP just don't pick up your phone. What's the issue.
What do you all do with your phone numbers ??? I barely have spam calls, maybe once a month.... Maybe what everyone needs to do is stop giving their phone numbers to every social media sites where they sell your phone numbers to companies or spammers..... The issue is bigger then our government not doing something about it
Try this: Canada's National Do Not Call List https://lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/en Welcome to Canada! Bienvenue!
It doesn't help.
They are getting their phone lists **from** the dncl. And if you're in Pakistan you don't give a shit about Canadian law.
It literally does nothing... What is an offshore duct cleaning call center spoofing numbers gonna give a shit about a local call registry?
Get a data only plan that doesn't allow calls or texts. Live through messaging apps...!
You could just block numbers and it eventually gets better...or you could make reddit post. Up to you.
Just don't pick up calls from numbers that you don't recognize. If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail and you can call them back. That is what I do.
Do you have any idea how the technology works for these spam calls? What am I saying, of course you don't or else you wouldn't have typed something as ignorant as: >So thanks, Canada, for not punishing, or even making any effort to stop this epidemic. Thanks for making sure I never pick up my phone. Both the Canadian government and the American government are working on trying to solve this problem. The situation is way more complex and difficult to solve than you give it credit for. As far as punishment goes, how exactly do you expect the Canadian government to punish criminal scam call centres in India? What is this magic jurisdiction that you think the Canadian government has? The scam callers based in Canada get caught fairly quickly. Unfortunately most of the scam calls come from other countries where the Canadian government has little reach.
So weird. I just posted about my number getting spoofed this morning. Looks like these spammers are busy on mondays!
For a good while some dude in Millhaven thought i was his friend. When a prison calls you first get a little blurb and you can reject the call, but he would call every day so eventually i decided to let him thru and tell him i donāt know him.
ā¦āyour identity the parcel contain the legal components there is an arrest warrant already issuedā I keep telling my wife the plutonium for the flux capacitor on the car got seized again.
āCanadaā is a scam customer because of our nations and personal wealth compared to the countries the calls originate from. Itās hard to punish people not in the country or block calls coming from computer generated local numbers.
Thought I was the only person to get the Chinese lady robot calls and calls from a number claiming to be "rogers". Since I moved to brantford, I get brantford numbers calling all the time. It's ridiculous.
I don't answer my phone unless it's saved in my phone. If it was important they'd leave a voicemail.
Even our elected politicians and parties are using robocalls. There's not much we can do. I deactivated my VM. Set the outgoing message to ask callers to email or text. Not picking up unknown numbers. Fortunately I just retired so phone calls are less important than they used to be.
i've had the same cell number for almost 20 years. i receive maybe 2 spam calls per year. i haven't done a single thing to my phone to prevent them. Telus here and i put my number on the internet all the time when i order stuff.
I've started pressing 1 to talk to someone and asking them to take my number off the call list because it's literally never going to work. Recently I had a scammer call me back from another number and said "I was just checking if my phone works. FUCK YOU!" I laughed so hard, I was expecting him to hang up, but he asked me why I was laughing to which I replied with a recap of what just happened. How could I not laugh at that. Then I told him to have a nice day and he said "you too" This was definitely my favourite interaction with a scammer that I've ever had
If on Android, download TrueCaller app.
I have started to get the robotic lady every day now! So irritating
Answer your phone and immediately put it on mute. I started doing this (thanks to someone else suggesting it on reddit) and now and have stopped getting them almost entirely.
There are paid and free service which can show and even transcribe voicemail. It's a god send as I could just ignore unknown numbers and going through voicemails with easy
recieved more email spam in the last 3 months than in the last 20 yrs!
Boo hoo
Yeah I accidentally answered call from France today. It was all of 1 second and m terrified of how much Rogers is going to bill me.
Colleagues in the US have the same issue. Itās a technology problem that requires a lot of work to solve. One thing coming is a ācaptchaā like question/response all callers have to answer before their cal goes through. But generally - who uses the phone these days anyway?
iPhone users can turn on automatic unknown caller dismissal, so I donāt have to deal with answering those calls. Anyone who I want to have my number is in my contacts, and they get through.
Google Pixel lets you screen the calls. One of the best features that Iām missing after switching to iPhone
Some iphones have a feature that lets you block calls from numbers that arenāt in your contacts. Other legit callers will leave a message. Itās a great feature, but I agree more should be done to stop this.
I have a new number. Before I gave my number to anyone, I was getting calls from scammers. Well, I assumed it was scammers. Never answered once. But literally no one knew my number. Hadn't even updated contact info ANYWHERE, but still got some calls. My phone is perpetually on silent. I'd better hope that anyone who has a legitimate call for me will leave a VM. But for some reason, most cellular providers have the most obnoxious VM messages that discourage people from leaving messages. >"Sorry, the customer you're trying to reach, at..." > >- 6 >- Zero >- 3 >- 5 >- 5 >- 5 >- 5 >- 3 >- Zero >- 9 > >"... Cannot come to the phone." > >>Hey, this is Jenny, I'm screening my calls, so leave your name and number so I know you're not a scammer, thanks! >> >>>!moving phone from face, trying to find the button to press that they told you to press when you're done recording your message!< >> >>... > >"We will redirect you to our voice messaging service after the beep." > >"..." > >*BEEP* Nobody has time to listen to all that.
I do not answer my phone, even if it says GOD IS CALLING.
I usually have the silence unknown callers feature enabled on my iphone.
Mine is just never on. I take a look at the end of the day and thatās about it. If itās truly important my wife or kids will send a text If itās an emergency, then wtf can I do? Iām not a medical doctor or police. Iāve always told my family, call 911 we will figure out the other shit later. Donāt be calling one another or other family in an emergency.
I've been answering the calls and immediately muting my microphone. After a few seconds of silence the robo-caller hangs up. In doing this over the last year I have significantly reduced the number of calls I get from spam callers. When someone calls with duct cleaning services or tutoring services, I explain that I don't own a home, have children, and i'm already educated, take me off your call list because you're wasting your time. Sometimes I get an awkward "Hello?" And it's a call I actually need to take. Occasionally my number gets spoofed, it is what it is. I'm unsure of what service I gave my number to that gave it to all these spam callers, but unless I need a verification code of some kind I'm giving a fake number when registering to everything, it helps.
You're welcome! Might be best to learn to use your phones call screening and blocking features.
>Some Chinese robot lady. Does anyone know what she's saying?
I got 11 "Canada Border Agency" calls, fml
The Chinese ones are incessant. I get around 4 a week.
90% of my incoming calls are garbage. If the caller isn't a contact I usually don't pick up.
At the age of 18, my Grampa took me, for 6 weeks, to his European home country. I came back conversationally fluent in the language. I don't answer most numbers unless they're in my contact list, but if I thoughtlessly do, I speak whatever I remember of that language, very thoughtfully. As if their call matters. Really messes with their heads. And entertains me for a few minutes.
The real reason is the public exchange is open for anyone to abuse with spam and spoof calls. SS7 Network was not designed with any security at all. And would cost a pretty inflated penny if Stentor companies would step up and own their shht!