We have a land line from Century Link and connected thru copper. We used to get a lot of Unknown Name or Not Provided calls. It got so bad that we changed our number. That was good for a while, but it slowly built back up to an annoying number of calls. The robo callers and scam callers fake the number that shows on the caller ID, so the Do Not Call list is totally useless. Some of the calls only ring 3 or 4 times and if you answer, there is no one there, just silence. I've read that there are companies that do that so they can sell a list of numbers where someone actually answered. They even go a step farther by calling the same target several different times during the day. Then they can improve their list of numbers where someone will answer by showing the best time to get them is between the hours of xx and yy. So I was a smart-a$$ and answered one of those calls where no one was there and just laid the receiver down for about 20 to 30 minutes. I figured since I didn't hang up, they couldn't call anyone else for that 20 to 30 minutes. And the worst thing you can do to an unsolicited caller is waste their time. The robo caller figured me out and just setup my number to be called a LOT more often. He probably thought, I'll teach that SOB a lesson! So... I just made my problem worse.
But I came up with a solution, but not everyone will be able to do this. I have a wireless printer/copier/fax. I silenced the ringers on all of the extensions except the one on my desk where I spend a lot of time. I then set my printer/fax to auto-answer after 3 rings. I tried 2 rings initially, but I couldn't always pick up the phone in that amount of time if needed. So now when the phone rings, I look at the caller ID and if it is someone/business/etc that I know, then I pick up the phone. Otherwise, I let the fax answer it. These robo callers are smart and I believe their software recognizes a fax and removes it from there call list because they don't want to waste that time. Our nuisance calls have dropped from 10/day down to 1 or 2, and I've only been doing this for less than a week. Of course, we've notified our family, close friends, and important professionals that they should call us on our cell phones. And yes, we've missed some calls we should have answered, but if it was really important, they'll call again. I plan this to be permanent and will put things back at some point.
Your thoughts?
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