After repeated data breaches that no company really seems to give a s— about my phone is blowing up with literally hundreds of spam calls and texts month. I get and make MAAAAYBE 2 or 3 important calls per month, 180-200 of the rest are literally all spam. Anyone have any suggestions, apps ect that they have found refuge with? I really don’t use SMS that much either, mostly it’s via signal, discord whats app, ect…
Just to put it out there I run CalyxOS on a Pixel 5a.
I added the phone number disconnected sound effect to the beginning of my voicemail outgoing message, set my ringer to silent, and set a personalized ringtone to anyone I actually wanted to speak with. That worked okay to get me off most of the lists. When that wasn’t enough to drive all of them away I started answering unknown numbers and fucking with the people on the other end, saying anything to string them along and waste their time with bullshit and lies. That actually worked better than anything else.
My wife and I used to take care of her grandmother. After a while, this old lady got excited to get a scam call or telemarketer, because she would hand the phone to me and I’d just pick a persona:
There were others, but those were her favorites.
I had a stoner friend who would drop everything in any given evening to do exactly this, specifically for his own entertainment and derision.
Ah, to be young and with plenty of spare time on hand, those were the days and we didn’t even realize it.
I find if you answer their calls and fuck with them for a bit they tend to stop calling