I’m Failing at Blocking Spam Calls

Remember the Do NOT Call list?  I loved that idea.  And I think it worked for a few weeks but it sure doesn’t seem to anymore.  Lots of people talk about how to combat Spam calls but I’m still losing badly to the Telemarketing industry.  There are a few things you can do but you give up a lot.  One is to ONLY allow calls to come through from people in your Contacts folder.  Well, that would be great but I get calls from a lot of people that are not yet in my trusted circle.  

I meet new people in my job and in my daily life that are not yet in my contacts.  I hand out business cards for that reason.  I’m OK with being contacted by these people.  Imagine giving someone a business card only to have them find out they’ve been blocked.  What are the business cards for if you are blocking the calls?  

While I haven’t found a way to make it better, I did find a way to make it worse.  I’ve asked a few Spam callers to take me off of their call list and as you probably know, they always agree and promise to take care of that right away.  They don’t, but they will gladly promise to do so.  After one persistent caller ignored my request to be removed from their call list, I got a little louder with my request to be removed from the list.  The results lead me to believe that he said, “Oh, it’s ON NOW pal” right after we hung up because I’ve been getting thousands of unwanted calls.  

My friends joke about me having the NFL record for the number of Spam calls in a day.  My phone screen says, “SPAM RISK” so I just ignore the call and immediately open the Details screen of the call and click Block this Contact.  I’d like to say that helps but it doesn’t seem to.  Spam Risk calls come in by the dozens.  I even got one this week from Iran.  Not sure who that is or why but I did.  One of my wife’s friends has a daughter who CALLS BACK any call she misses.  Even if she doesn’t know who it is.  FOMO is the fear of missing out and I guess that’s worse in her world than hundreds of unwanted calls.  

When I open the Recent Calls list on my phone, most days it is ALL Spam calls.  I’ve been invited to get hooked up with women my age, (but my wife frowns on me dating).  I’ve got invites for solar panels, car warranties, health insurance, financial advice and more.  If you know how to make the pain of all of these calls stop, please share.  And can we bring back the actual Do NOT Call list?