We didn’t have SMS in the past
Yeah, there’s numerous silent methods of getting in touch with me that don’t distract from whatever I have going on in the moment. If you’re going to ring my phone and screw up my flow you better have a pretty damn good reason.
These days, we all have a phone in our hands every second, and the Internet connects us directly to the entire world. Back then we were isolated in our little bubbles, and a ringing phone meant the potential for a connection outside of our home. It may not be a big deal now, but it felt like it was back then: “The WORLD is calling!”
In the past, it used to feel like if someone who called you was a scammer that you could maybe do something about it.
These days there seem to be no consequences for robocalls, scam calls, spam emails, scam ads, privacy invasion, even successful hacks.
The local news is always warning about the latest scam, and tells us to contact the authorities if the scammers contact you.
Ever do that? They can’t get you off the phone fast enough. My mom got called with the old scam that I’d been in a car accident, and they were holding me hostage until my mom sent them money for the repairs. She called me, and I told her I was fine, laying in bed.
The scammers had given my mom a phone number to call them when she had the money, so I figured that gave the cops a chance to close on on them. So I called the cops, but since I was in one county, they said I had to call my mom’s county, since they called her. So I called that county, and they claimed the crime was in my country, since I was the victim somehow.
Bottom line, both police department s were far more interested in making it the other guys problem, and it was perfectly clear that neither one was interested in following up, even though I had an actual lead they could follow.
ACAB
This isn’t even a slight exaggeration.
Enshitification of phones started shortly after
You guys take unknown numbers?
I just put my phone on do not disturb and allow my entire contact list to get through.
That way it blocks unknown numbers
I unfortunately need to take calls from 7nonown numbers fairly often. My goto for scammed is to pretend tonhave trouble hearing them for a few seconds, then just mute the phone and leave the call going instead of hanging up. I figure the extra minute they spend trying to get me to talk back is a minute they’re not targeting someone else.
You wait for it to stop ringing before googling? I’m so offended I google it as it’s ringing
Usually it’s just a scam/robocall, and answering will register your number as “active” causing them to bombard you with even more calls. It’s not worth the risk when most people I know know to text me, not call me.
This.
I actually screen all unknown numbers and ignore them. I’ve been suffering so many automated social engineering attempts that this is the only option. If you want to contact me, email me or text me first.
It used to be expensive to call you. That’s why it was a pleasure to pick up the phone.
Now it’s so cheap that it’s more expensive to pick up a call in terms of your wasted time.
Those dudes at Sweetwater must be rich.
That is also because the only unknown numbers who call you these days are 99% scammers and 1 % advertisers.
And 0.1% important calls you weren’t expecting but which will be a 3 hour wait on hold to return the call.
Lately I’ve been getting marketing calls with recorded messages.
And it’s absurd to even wish I didn’t need to have a phone.
I had one, didn’t know what it said so i replied with something like “uhh, what?” And then immediately the audio quality changed and the voice was different as a human took over and what they said seemingly had nothing to do with the original message so i just cut them off with “not interested” and hung up
Robocalls
I “torture” them for fun. And then torture John with a thick accent afterwards. Just a hobby.
I dont even wait for it to stop. Ill answer, place myself on mute so they hear dead air, and then wait for them to disconnect on their own. Same number for nearly 20 years and only get spam calls about once a year when they try to probe my number again.
