So I amused myself half the afternoon with learning how to block fake phone numbers used by the bastard phone solicitors’ bastard spoofing software. It’s an exercise in futility, of course, because their machines simply generate fake numbers ad infinitum.
Not altogether futile, though. Because I’m fortunate enough to have an extremely limited social life, I found myself in the convenient position of feeling free to block a pile of area codes and a pile of exchanges from which no legitimate human on this planet is ever likely to call me.
Area code 213, for example. Very popular with scam software for scam callers. I no longer know a soul who lives in Southern California, leastwise not any who want to chat with me. Blocked every phone number that starts with 1-213.
Nor do I now anyone who lives in Tucson. Or Yuma. Or Flagstaff. Or southeastern Massachusetts. Or Macau. Or…waypoints.
Blocked 25 fake numbers from nuisance callers, as recorded by the phone’s Caller ID before it filled right up. Got at least a dozen nuisance calls today.
And now am seriously thinking that if this current effort doesn’t stem the tide, it will be time to simply cancel Cox’s phone line. And have no incoming telephone number at all. If anyone wants to talk with me, they’ll have to email me. Otherwise: unreachable. I can use a cell phone to call people I wish to speak with. Otherwise: don’t call me….I’ll call you.
It’s a shame. The telephone is a fantastic and wonderful invention. And an instrument of torture. If phone providers refuse to control the use of their service as a device to pester and scam their customers, then all that is left for their customers is…to become former customers: to cancel phone service. Find some other way to keep in touch with family and friends.
I went rummaging around in my cable/internet/phone provider’s site the other day, and note that they now offer an option of blocking ALL calls EXCEPT for numbers you input into a white list. That is appealing – I can’t do it, because I use my phone for work occasionally, but if you know the list of people who you wish to receive calls from, it could work!
Yes. I very much doubt Cox will do this, simply because when you call to inquire as to what you can do, their attitude is “screw-you-very-much.” They are offering NoMoRobo, which is just an enormous hassle and does effectively nothing to protect you (for every nuisance call, you have to fire up your computer, go to the NoMoRobo website, and manually input the fake number and describe the nuisance!). However, the CPR 5000 people now have a new device called, cleverly, the CPR 10,000, which will block ALL incoming except numbers on a white list. This means you’d have manually input phone numbers of every new doctor, every new dentist, every new vet, every new plumber, every new whatnot. And some of these numbers, you’re not likely to know — when you get a mammogram, do you know the number of the back-office technician or doctor who’s supposed to call you with the results? You have every phone number used by staff at your kid’s school or Boy Scout troop or soccer coach? How about your car mechanic? Your AAA office? Your air-conditioning technician, calling to let you know he’s on the way?
What’s needed is technology (and laws with some teeth) to spot robocallers and disable them so they CAN’T operate over phone lines or cell phone devices.