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this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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[Migrated, see pinned post] Casual Conversation
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Never answer suspicious calls or texts .... delete them immediately and don't give any response. Any time I get things like this on SMS, social media, phone calls, whatever and I don't know who or what they are, or they are automated or digitally created - I delete them immediately, block the contact and report them (if you have this option) as quickly as possible.
By answering them and replying ... you've just confirmed to them or the bot that you are a real phone number, you are human and that you respond to texts.
You'll probably be getting more texts and calls in the future.
You didn't play the spam text bot ... the spam text bot played you.
I have a friend who at least used to answer calls from unknown numbers "hello, this is [their full name]." When I questioned them about it, they said something like "I don't think my identity is valuable enough to hide anything."
Even back then, when I was far less informed, I was taken aback by that.
His identity wasn't valuable before but it is now .... to someone else but not him
I used to be kind of indifferent to all this stuff a long time ago but I'm not any more. I've had weird stuff happen to my credit card, email, social media accounts that I know my identity, as boring and simple as it might be, is valuable .... it's valuable to me.
I only say "'lo?" if I don't recognise a number.
Even that seems excessive to me on a personal line. My voicemail exists. It's up to the caller if they wish to use it. If so, I will use the message they left to decide if I wish to speak to them. If they don't use it or the message doesn't sound like something with which I would like to engage, we will not speak.
Of course, this process changes if I'm doing something like looking for a job, in which case I might answer unknown numbers but only with "hello?" How the rest of the conversation goes depends on how they open. I've received calls from less reputable recruiters (and creditors) where the call started with "beep Please hold for the next available representative." The answer to that is no. If you called me, unless I expected it and needed something from you, I'm not holding for you. However, if the call starts with something like "hello, is this [my name]?" then we might talk.
In most cases, unknown numbers calling me want something from me. In many of those cases, I don't want to give them whatever it is. I don't owe them anything, so it's up to them to convince me it's worth talking.
However, if you are inclined to answer unknown calls, I agree that "'lo?" is far better than "hello, this is [your full name]."
Take this with a grain of salt, but there is one example of answering scam calls that was really effective for me. I had been getting spoofed calls that looked like they were coming from my bank. The first one I actually answered and got some real people on the phone (thankfully realized it was a scam before saying anything bad).
Anyway, these guys were calling me several times a day. I finally decided to start answering every call and just setting my phone down on the table and letting it run. The calls are probably automated, but when you answer it transfers it to a real person. By picking it up every time I was wasting that real person's time. They stopped calling very fast after I started doing it and haven't called since.
I still don't answer no matter who or what I may think it is ... even if I sorta suspect that it may be my bank, I still won't answer and usually I'll call my actual bank and ask them if they tried to call me about something.
I kind of did what you said for a while but it's too much of a waste of my time to deal with. I just don't bother any more and after about a year or two, I got fewer and fewer calls. I'm so bad with my phone that even my family and friends complain to me that they never hear from me and that they complain that I don't answer the majority of their calls.
I really don't like phones any more and I only ever use them if I really, absolutely need to talk to someone.
Well that's the thing, doing that technique I mentioned takes no time whatsoever for me but DOES take time for them. It's a nice petty little revenge.
restart your phone after deleting the msg from unknown numbers