There's a scam call going around at the minute where a recorded message says "Hello...can you hear me?" and if you reply "yes" then you have unwittingly given them voice permission to charge you huge fees via your phone bill. My girlfriend told me about this the other day and I had to come clean and admit that it had happened to me and I'd answered yes 
 
So I frantically went to check my phone bills to see if any of them were out of the ordinary - thankfully they were OK. 

serioz tho...
 
The best way to get rid of those precks (like ALL of them) is to NEVER answer the phone unless you KNOW who's calling.
 
I worked in those phone farms back as a teen (when you literally would be working off number lists from cut up phone books).
 
These days it's all done by computers but the principal is the same. If the number NEVER gets answered then it eventually goes to the "dead list". Essentially it no longer becomes worth it to keep trying that number (even for a computer) so it stops dialing it.
 
With a new phone number and following this procedure almost ALL calls seem to stop after 6 months.
 
If you give your # out to a company or some such (like an online order or whatever) expect to be back on the list (and that list to be passed around to other dillbirds who'll call ya). Usually if I do something like that I'll get a few calls for a few months but because I never pick up the # goes back into the dead file rather quickly before it spreads to other whoormongering pissbirds.
 
Even if you ONLY pick up the phone on one of these calls (not even engaging before hanging up) then that number will get tagged letting the phone list holders that a human actually may answer. That bumps you up the call list.
 
If you engage... even if you just cuss bloody murder at them... then you'll get bumped up further.
 
Dag help ya if you actually buy something or answer a survey.
 
 
tl;dr... NEVER answer your phone and if at ALL possible NEVER give your phone number to any private company.
 
;-)

Beepster

Ham N Egz
 
This number calls 10 times or more a day. There is a beep and I say hello and they hang up. Wtf????

I SWEAR!!! IT'S NOT ME!!!
 
I only do that to bapu.
 

I knew it.

Beepster
serioz tho...
 
The best way to get rid of those precks (like ALL of them) is to NEVER answer the phone unless you KNOW who's calling.
 
I worked in those phone farms back as a teen (when you literally would be working off number lists from cut up phone books).
 
These days it's all done by computers but the principal is the same. If the number NEVER gets answered then it eventually goes to the "dead list". Essentially it no longer becomes worth it to keep trying that number (even for a computer) so it stops dialing it.
 
With a new phone number and following this procedure almost ALL calls seem to stop after 6 months.
 
If you give your # out to a company or some such (like an online order or whatever) expect to be back on the list (and that list to be passed around to other dillbirds who'll call ya). Usually if I do something like that I'll get a few calls for a few months but because I never pick up the # goes back into the dead file rather quickly before it spreads to other whoormongering pissbirds.
 
Even if you ONLY pick up the phone on one of these calls (not even engaging before hanging up) then that number will get tagged letting the phone list holders that a human actually may answer. That bumps you up the call list.
 
If you engage... even if you just cuss bloody murder at them... then you'll get bumped up further.
 
Dag help ya if you actually buy something or answer a survey.
 
 
tl;dr... NEVER answer your phone and if at ALL possible NEVER give your phone number to any private company.
 
;-)

Because I have a business online I get a ton of these calls, there's nothing I can do about it really. I used to put each call's number on my block list in the hope that maybe it was to some extent the same few numbers, but apparently that didn't do anything to stop the flow. It's so annoying because they always seem to call at the most inopportune times. The good thing is that you can usually tell if it's a spam call within a fraction of a second because these idiots are terrible at hiding the fact. Even just from the word "hi!" you can tell it's spam - they have such an obviously cheesy speaking manner. Some of the morons have even started beginning the message with "Don't hang up!" which as you can imagine, makes you hang up immediately. 
 
I can't even go by the area code either because a lot of my customers have just moved to New York from other areas of the country and still have phones registered there. It would be cool if I could just ignore all calls from Florida (where a curiously large number of these scam artists seem to be based) but I'd be shooting myself in the foot. Getting on the "do not call" list doesn't help either. 

Beepster
serioz tho...
 
The best way to get rid of those precks (like ALL of them) is to NEVER answer the phone unless you KNOW who's calling.
 

I use my phone to take picture, transfer files and mixes, write down notes, to read e-mails, go on FB and such. I use it to mess with the cats when they're on the porch via the camera speaker. And once every few months, I use it to make a call. I hate phones (ironic considering that I've worked in call centres for so long). The only time I pick up the phone is when my wife is calling to say she's on her way back from work.
 
The rest of the time, I'll choose written over verbal communication every time. 
 
I also figure that if anyone has anything important to say, they will leave a message.
 
That one morning, I got up to find 2 or 3 messages, telling me in a very aggressive tone that I was accused of tax evasion and that I needed to call back this number.  Now, I hate to be threatened, especially before my morning cup of tea, so I figured that I needed a way to block those fellows.
 
Considering the number of calls that app blocked, it was not a bad idea. Plus, sometimes I'd see that I'd missed a call and look up the number on the internet, but now, Hiya does all the work for me - all incoming calls are not only screened but also identified and logged, whether by caller id or by call category (extortion, telemarketing, etc.) Time saver.
 

I wish my land line was able to run something like this.

Phone scammers and cold callers over here are getting smarter, they now use proxy numbers which allows a local area code to appear instead of the old 0845, 0843 etc numbers which everyone avoided like the plague.

Rain
 
I use my phone to take picture, transfer files and mixes, write down notes, to read e-mails, go on FB and such. I use it to mess with the cats when they're on the porch via the camera speaker. And once every few months, I use it to make a call. I hate phones (ironic considering that I've worked in call centres for so long). The only time I pick up the phone is when my wife is calling to say she's on her way back from work.
 

It's weird because I never used to mind talking on the phone back in the days before messaging became widely available, but now it feels kinda awkward to talk to someone without being able to see their face. When you're talking with someone in person you're getting all kinds of visual feedback which makes the flow of conversation a lot more civilized - you can see when someone's about to speak, and you feel much less inclined to interrupt them. Over the phone, you don't have that feedback and so I find that I'm constantly trying to talk at the same time as the other person and vice versa - it gets a little embarrassing. 

 
I once answered the phone.
 
It was a call from over the pond.
 
"Strummmmmmmmy!!" announced the distant friendly voice.
 
"What a coincidence!" I exclaimed, "That's my name too."
 
How we larfed and larfed until we were both Trojan hoarse.

sharke

Rain
 
I use my phone to take picture, transfer files and mixes, write down notes, to read e-mails, go on FB and such. I use it to mess with the cats when they're on the porch via the camera speaker. And once every few months, I use it to make a call. I hate phones (ironic considering that I've worked in call centres for so long). The only time I pick up the phone is when my wife is calling to say she's on her way back from work.
 

It's weird because I never used to mind talking on the phone back in the days before messaging became widely available, but now it feels kinda awkward to talk to someone without being able to see their face. When you're talking with someone in person you're getting all kinds of visual feedback which makes the flow of conversation a lot more civilized - you can see when someone's about to speak, and you feel much less inclined to interrupt them. Over the phone, you don't have that feedback and so I find that I'm constantly trying to talk at the same time as the other person and vice versa - it gets a little embarrassing.