this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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[–] CheeseAndCrepes 120 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Except that 90% of the time you answer and it just hangs up because it’s testing to see if the line is active to sell to telemarketers

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Good thing I don't answer my phone unless I get a voicemail from the person

[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's amazing how we've allowed a lack of regulation to completely destroy a fundamental form of modern communication. You basically can't call a stranger and expect them to answer the phone, everyone is screening all their calls because more than half are scams!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

phone calls are sus these days

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 year ago (3 children)

......you answer your phone? I literally only answer the phone for my spouse unless I am specifically expecting a call. everyone else can leave a message.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I let my voicemail fill up. Send me a text mofos.

[–] Bushwhack 3 points 1 year ago

This Is The Way

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Starts answering phone like an adult …

“Hello this is the law enforcement agency that does not exist in your county and we are about to arrest you for tax violations” hangs up “Hello company you have have never used before is chasing a bill” hangs up “Hello delivery company not operating in your country has a package for you” hangs up “Hello road toll company that does not exist in your country has outstanding toll” hangs up “Hello as a user of a service you have never used we just want to ask“ hangs up

Nah. I’ll keep letting these clowns go to voicemail.

[–] Lemmylefty 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just get voicemails in Chinese. If China’s planning on arresting me I’ll never know…

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“Years later on his death bed, Lemmylefty discovers he had a distant cousin with no other family connections who’s lawyers had been desperately trying to reach out to inform him that he was the sole recipient of his will … but you can only get access if you pay the legal fees to be paid in $5k of iTunes gift cards.”

[–] Lemmylefty 10 points 1 year ago

Coincidentally, the same amount in cash I just sent my newly found Nigerian cousin…

[–] voidMainVoid 49 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why would you answer it? If it's important, they'll leave a message. I'm not going to pick it up and risk having to deal with a scammer or something like that.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Same, I’ll just read the auto transcription of the scam call, bill collector, or my mother later when I have the energy

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You'd be crazy to answer your phone these days

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

I work in hospice and travel to patient's homes all day, but my scheduling is done over the phone from a work provided cell phone.

So either I have families/caregivers who never answer the phone and half don't have voicemail set up or the voicemail is full. On the other hand, I have people that answer every call and now and become targets at a vulnerable time. Scammers fucking suck.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I don't know who it is then I'm not answering shit. I don't even bother looking up the numbers anymore because they all come from spoofed caller IDs now, and if you answer you'll get 1000 more scam calls immediately because now they know you're dumb enough to pick up

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're getting ballsy these days too. I'm required to answer the phone at work because it's a business line, but as a result we get an absolute ton of spam or empty lines. I've had them spoof the local hospital's phone number several times. I got a call from the motherfuckin' USDA the other day (allegedly), like the government agency. Empty line. Once I got a call on my cell phone from my own phone number, that was interesting.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

When the scammers spoof numbers they usually just get a block of random numbers that are local to where they are calling, then they just try them one at a time. They pick numbers that look local because people are more likely to answer.

They never actually bother verifying whose number they're using though, so it frequently results in them calling from the persons own number who they are trying to scam, local businesses, and even local government numbers.

I work for the phone company and I've frequently gotten calls from people telling me someone just called them from their own number lol

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Shit, I don’t even answer my fucking door

[–] Jackcooper 6 points 1 year ago

Anyone who would knock on a door is clearly casing the joint

[–] Mignochrono 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

This is one of the reasons I got a pixel. To be able to get a bot to answer,of they are real they get recorded and it gets transcribed. So I can tell if I wanna pick up or not. I would legit pay for this feature on an app

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You’ll soon be able to do the same with an iPhone too with iOS 17.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not as smart as Pixel's though cause it won't be able to interrogate the caller for you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True, although I think it’s enough for most people.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Wait what? How do you do that?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

This is 100% my favorite feature. I've told so many others about it too. Just finally convinced my dad to get a pixel as well.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

I got a call from my area that woke me up in the morning. I've got doctors and shit so I answer it.
No sound. Me, hello? No sounds. Then like someone trying to move the phone.
Me, Who is this? Gruff annoyed voice: Who is this? Me, fuck you who are you? Annoyed voice: uh... This is the city police fund raiser ...

Rude as hell.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I do not answer numbers. If I know you, you are saved with a name. If you are a reputable business caller ID will show me a name.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

All my enemies are saved in my contacts to be damn sure I don’t answer.

The system only breaks down when my kids start dialing random contacts.

[–] d4rknusw1ld 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why has this ladies laptop been given military medals and seen the global war on terrorism and desert storm?

[–] hitmyspot 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Probably as she lives on coronation street, so she’s seen a lot of crazy stuff. Murders, rapes bombs etc. It’s not as safe popping into Rita’s shop for the newspaper and baked beans as it once was.

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[–] Savaran 12 points 1 year ago

If you know me you would have messaged in some format that is more reliable than calling on the phone.

If you called you either don’t know me or it’s important enough you can leave a message.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Doing this has gotten me off most spam call lists.

[–] TacoRaptor 11 points 1 year ago

Yep! Every single time if it isn't one of my contacts or my caller ID doesn't know who it is. If it's important they'll usually leave a voicemail.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Google has a screen call function. It reads a script and gives the caller a chance to respond all visible on screen so I can choose to answer actual humans.

It has been useful as the actual government called me and it wasn't a scam.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I have never really liked talking on the phone, even before the advent of cell phones. The fact that it seems to be fading more and more as a common communication tool is something I am honestly pretty happy about. Sure it means I have like 4 messaging apps on my phone, but I don't really mind. Even work is all text via Teams.

It has probably been at least a year since I have made/received an actual audio call on my phone.

[–] mindbender444 7 points 1 year ago

Sounds reasonable to me

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If it's a an expected country code, answer the phone.

If it's an unexpected country code, leave it alone.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Does this work somewhere? In Canada, spam calls are always my country code (which is shared with the US). Area code means little these days, too. Spammers will just spoof numbers.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it's a phone call, leave it alone. They'll leave a message if it's important.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

If it's important, there might not be time to wait 5 hours for you to check your messages, hence the phone call

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

/c/2meirl4meirl

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Yup, all the time.

[–] EqMinMax 4 points 1 year ago

I'm not a hardcore privacy follower. So I use truecaller.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Like an adult"

An adult does not let their tools control them. And I receive one good call for every ten my phone gets.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

With the growth of the internet… do we even need phone numbers anymore ? I mean my phone number exists just for spam. I’m mostly just paying for my cellular connection to access the internet and not because I need to have a phone number.

[–] mykl 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So sad that everyone’s talking about the phone calls rather than asking if Gail’s okay.

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