Latsok Loc: Recently moved to Washington State.

The French word "voila" is spelled with only one "l".

Alan1729 Loc: England UK, now New York State.

I'm with you, it is such an opportunity to practice one's skill with language and have fun with a real person. Sometimes you can get them so confused, I had one caller thank me for calling. Gradually making the call so ridiculous and sometimes outrageous. Making up entirely fictitious stories, the more often you do it the more you improve your own mind. It may even get your name/number removed from the call lists for wasting their time (time is money). And their reactions when the penny drops. Only had one who was abusive but mostly laughter when they realise they've been had. Go for it.

duane klipping Loc: Bristow iowa

Blocker apps are common. I block all calls with my app that are not in my contacts. Works good to send them on their Merry way. They need to pass laws fining companies who spoof their numbers to pretend they are local.

And what ever happened to the no call list anyway?

Alan1729 Loc: England UK, now New York State.

Be nice to have an app on my droid phone that did that, that requires the called to press # to get through.

tommyII Loc: Northern Illinois

Unfortunately most of these Robo Calls are not using the numbers that appear on you Caller ID. What they are doing is illegal, but who's going to stop them? A great majority these calls are coming from out of the Country. Who has any jurisdiction? Blocking thee numbers really does nothing. The number you are blocking isn't where they are calling from. A waste of time.

Flyerace Loc: Mt Pleasant, WI

I purchased a Call Blocker from Amazon ($100+-). They automatically block 2000 known spam numbers. You add your own by using a similar feature as previously mentioned but the code is #2 hangup. It doesn't matter if you block a real number or a spam number. You get one ring and it is gone. I have someone that calls every afternoon around 2pm. They are blocked, but they call again, immediately after the first one. That is also blocked. I bought this system based on a UHH recommendation and it is great. There is no way to have it not ring once unless you can intercept the call BEFORE it goes through your router. I've only added 297 numbers beyond the automatically known numbers. It cuts down the junk quickly.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

Almost as bad as the scam calls are UHH's who can't be bothered to read previous entries to see that somebody has already pulled up a UHH who made a spelling mistake thus obliging me to have to read many more entries than I need to.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

When there is an actual person on the line and they start their pitch, I will say to them "Before you get started, I need for you to give me your home phone number so I can call you at your house just as you are calling me at mine" Usually that will end it, but if they insist on going on with their efforts, I will tell them that I am serious about my request for their number, that I will not consider any of their requests until after I call their number and talk with them. I ask for their first and last name so I can know that I have reached them. When they say that they can't do that, I ask why not inasmuch as they have my name and number. I end up by saying that since they can't give me their name and number just as they have mine, then it would be best if they just removed my name and number from their calling list. There is probably a lot of reasons this is a bad idea, but it does fetch me a degree of satisfaction.
When the call is a robo call and there is no one on the line and just a message or more often than not just dead air, I simply hang up. This brings me to this question. Are some of these calling centers paid by the number of times phones are answered, never mind if a sale has been made or even if a person has been reached? Also does anyone actually answer questions by entering phone numbers for answer, press one for yes, etc.

Doug Waddington

I have success with the ap Robo Killer. It has ended nearly all my robo calls.

K.Cole

I just set my phone to block all calls not coming from my list of contacts. I go in occasionally and take a look at what numbers were blocked and add each one to my reject list. The number of calls per week is gradually decreasing. I guess once they don't get an answer enough times, they quit trying.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

This may or may not be true. I have a theory that their staff turnover must be high. There are only so many times that individual staff members can accept having f...off being yelled at them. So they leave and a new person takes over (at about the same level as the birth rate in some of the countries based on the accents). They are given the same call list so you get called again. My wife just hangs-up, I abuse them. Although the phone gets answered, in 8 years (about a total of 500 calls ) NOT ONE has given them the result they desire so why don't they just take your name off their list ? Especially as you can now take your number with you when you move so you are NEVER going to answer favorably. Or are they waiting until partial dementia takes over and you give in ?
These scams have been around for years and yet I still hear (in NZ) of people reporting them as if it only started happening last week. I have become convinced that people only hear things they want to hear. And will only listen to something new if it is accompanied by a slap around the head, twice.
The traffic police here always seem to be astonished that the car accident rate is so high in spite of their constant exhortations to slow down and stop at stop signs. Nobody listens until you make them.
I don't know what the answer to the scammers is. I cannot believe that bulk calling like this cannot be traced even from overseas. I can only think that the Telcos really are benefiting from this so don't want to shut it down. It all comes down to money.
Either that or it is a deliberate govt program done to try and get a feel for the average intelligence level of their population so that they can windup or slow down various nefarious plans of their own. Something like if the average level of answering goes up (thus indicating a lowering of the intelligence level and therefore the ability to think) they can up the tax rate and get way with it. 10 years ago I didn't believe in conspiracy theories but now I don't know.
Some of this is a little tongue-in-cheek but still food for thought.

cboysen Loc: Homewood, IL

What I do is speak some gibberish on the phone, for example: "No kinshasa pluborkin
cans." I don't know if it prevents them from calling again, but it gives me a hell of a lot of fun!

TColJeep Loc: Holbrook,NY

When the call is a real person, answer them in a hushed voice... "It's done, but there's blood everywhere..."

Tommy II Loc: Northern Illinois

Exactly. They don’t care. They’ve made the call, and get paid for it.

Tommy II Loc: Northern Illinois

“They” is not really a person, nor do they keep track of whether it’s answered. It’s all dialed by computer. The computer doesn’t care who does or doesn’t answer calls.