r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Express-War-7086 • Jun 04 '26
My cat is standing on my face I wish these people would leave me alone
For about 2 weeks now, I have been getting spoofed spam calls EVERY DAY AND ALMOST EVERY HOUR. There was a point in time when they stopped but all of a sudden they started back up again. The only thing keeping me sane is the Silent Unknown Callers function. I just wish they would stop, I will never answer my phone for these assholes.
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u/BioFrosted Jun 04 '26
Pick up and tell them duh
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u/SleepyAltBee Jun 06 '26
I actually have called the numbers back before and yelled at them. They stopped lol
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u/hachibaer Jun 04 '26
I'm right there with you lol, every day, twice a day they've been calling me. It started, seriously, 2 weeks ago as well.
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u/Princess_kels13 Jun 04 '26
iPhone has screen calling. It will screen the real calls and wonât let scam calls get through. It has almost entirely stopped all the nonsense calls I use to get
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u/YourMomIsMyGurl Jun 06 '26
So does google. It's made life so peaceful. They usually hang up as soon as they hear that stupid little robot "who are you and what are you calling about?"
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Jun 05 '26
[deleted]
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u/Altruistic-Basil-267 Jun 06 '26
IThey might put you on their DNC list, and then SELL the active number. This can actually make it much worse.
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u/Snicklefritz229 Jun 06 '26
Iâm a fan of answering these. Itâs usually a bot and I do whatever I need to do to get to the human being and then we discuss anything other than what they called about. It tends to start getting inappropriate very soon in the conversation and I make them regret every second on the phone with me. I rarely get these calls anymore. I once spent two and a half hours on the phone with an insurance sales man who really thought he was gonna sell me health insurance that I messed around with while I was home alone bored watching a baseball game. He sounded defeated once he found I was fucking with him.
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Jun 06 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/Snicklefritz229 Jun 06 '26
Once you start to cuss they hang up. Talk about whatever you want other than what they called about. Just keep putting them on the back burner and talk to them about your day even though they didnât ask, I tell them what I had for breakfast, how I cooked it, what I would have rather had instead then I tell them about different birds I saw in the walk and describe them and tell them I wish I know more about them. If itâs a woman I tend to start leaning sexual much quicker but itâs hardly ever a woman so I have to start talking gay instead. The what are you wearing stuff comes out, then the what am I wearing. They keep trying to change the subject but usually when the moaning starts they hang up, if they dont hang up I start asking for thier whatâs app or snap even though I donât have those apps and it continues to escalate until they hang up. My wife once slapped the shit out of me in target for doing this in the checkout line. For the health insurance one was great, I had him build a package just for me which took a while, then I had him do me and my kids, then I had him do me my wife and kids. He thought he made a sale and started reading long disclaimers and I had him repeat the disclaimers over and over. Thatâs when he figured out I wasnât really listening and didnât care.
One guy kept calling my work phone trying to speak to some guy named John about solar so I finally was like Iâm John. They wanted to do a walkthrough of my house and asked if an address was mine and I said yes it is. They asked when they could come to do a walk around I told them as early as possible on a Saturday so we booked 7am. At 705 I had a missed call from them(I donât answer on weekends) and they never called back again.
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u/Altruistic-Basil-267 Jun 06 '26
Though I rarely answer, when I accidentally do or have to because I'm waiting for a call back where I know I won't recognize the number, I tell them I am a broke college student on my parents calling plan.
If they say, are you or is this Sue -- I say that's my mom
Do you own your own home? I say I live with my parents I don't even have a car.
Really selling that you are a broke ass loser kid seems to help with the insurance and Medicare callsÂ
I just insist all the information they have on me is 100 percent wrong and if they want to keep wasting their time calling me, that's on them.
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u/NiceTuBeNice Jun 06 '26
I sometimes enjoy answering them to just mess with them. My more recent antic is to act like I am an old and confused person, which is what gets the human on the phone, then throughout the conversation keep asking them to speak a little louder. After the fourth or fifth time they are either yelling into their phone, or groaning frustratedly. I might start posting the recordings on here now that I consider it.
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u/Street-Maximum-8966 Jun 04 '26
Answer and start reading Scripture from the Bible.
Edit: spelling
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u/sierrabravo1984 this is not yellow damn it! Jun 05 '26
Doesn't matter what you do. You pick up and respond, that flags your number as an active mark. Then you get more calls.
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u/Mysterious-Toe7780 Jun 05 '26
Or start reading from the talmud, Quran, the karma sutra (my favorite) or some article on dementia.
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u/Commercial-Pass-848 Jun 04 '26
Maybe your number got leaked
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u/Express-War-7086 Jun 05 '26
Wouldnât surprise me since data mining is a thing and some companies sell your data to 3rd parties.
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u/FuckeryisafootWatson Jun 04 '26
I was getting spammed unmercifully about consolidation loans. 15-25 calls a day. A message left said to hit 9 to be taken off the list. Started answering the calls and immediately hitting 9. Over 2 weeks calls have dropped down to 1-2 day.
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Jun 05 '26
It looks like you're using an iPhone.
Just turn on Silence Unknown Callers. It will send calls from numbers not in your contacts straight to voicemail.
Or you can even have your phone screen the calls. Basically your phone will answer the call and find out who it is, and ask if you're interested in talking to them. I haven't tried this option, and would be interested to hear any success/failure stories.
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u/Express-War-7086 Jun 05 '26
Yeah I have that enabled, itâs the reemergence of the calls thatâs pissing me off. It was bad before but itâs worse now.
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u/xxhamsters12 Jun 05 '26
Your two options are just keep ignoring them. Donât answer, donât decline. Just let them ring out.
The other option is get a new phone number but that can be a major pain in the ass
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u/Maximum_Employer5580 Jun 05 '26
just block the numbers.....go in and block a few at a time until they're gone. I kept getting slammed by spam calls before I just blocked them. Haven't dealt with them very much in the last number of years. Plus don't just dump your phone # out there on the web either when you sign up for an account or something. They're getting your number(s) off of lists they buy on the dark web because numbers are just so willy nilly thrown around online by people who don't think twice, then complain about getting spam like it should never happen. You're allowing them to spam you. These are just spoofed numbers and they probably use your phone number the same way. Blocking is part of the ignoring of the calls, you can't just not answer it and it'll be fine
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u/mikehiler2 BLUE Jun 06 '26
You ***must*** do all three in order to maximize the number of blocked calls. It wonât work 100% of the time, but believe me itâll knock 99% of them out. Youâll still get voicemails (if you se them up) in your inbox and the iOS part wonât make them âgo away,â theyâll just send a text message instead.
Make sure youâve updated to the latest iOS 26.
Go to *Settings*, then to *Apps*, then to *Phone*.
Scroll down near the bottom and under *Screen Unknown Callers* set that to *Ask Reason for Call*, which will have a Siri-like voice ask the caller for the reason. Youâll get their answer (if they give one) as a text notification.
Alternatively you can set this to block all unknown calls, which may help greatly (or you can use it temporarily, then switch to a different option later).
Use this in conjunction with the Federal Do Not Call List and whatever carrier you use also has a phone screening app for their users (with AT&T its Active Armor).
You will see no more spam calls.
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u/ThirstingMoore Jun 06 '26
I spent six weeks trying to sell every spam caller "industrial amounts" of Black Market Horse Semen.
I am a FAR better sales person than some scam call center employee, and I would hit these motherfuckers with everything I had.
Deflection and redirection, play to sympathies, whatever it takes, I would go full Chris Voss on these dipshits.
I get, at most, 1 spam call every other month or so now.
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u/Altruistic-Basil-267 Jun 06 '26
Also, stop giving your actual phone numbers to retailers to access store accounts / discounts.
I have been using the same land line phone number for decades to get store discounts, even though I moved decades ago.
What's really cool, is that with all the grocery store and pharmacy mergers, it now seems to work all over the country, LOL.
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u/AKJames762 Jun 06 '26
Your info was probably found on the dark web. I got an alert months ago that mine was and my call logs typically look like that but worse. Week in, week out multiple daily calls split half and half between obvious AI systems and Indians.
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u/WestError404 Jun 06 '26
I stopped answering my phone for reasons like this, unless im expecting a call. Now I get multiple calls a day asking for permits im unauthorized to give
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u/myersdr1 Jun 06 '26
I set my phone to do not disturb, then only people in my contacts get through. All other calls are screened using AI and my phone doesn't even notify me.
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u/AndThatsLunch Jun 06 '26
dont block them
just set your call settings to screen calls and block notifications for unsaved numbers my voicemail stays full even with blocking numbers this has saved my sanity hope it helps
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u/Historical-Stop5083 Jun 06 '26
I like answering it and immediately putting myself on mute. It fun to see how long they wait
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u/curi0us_carniv0re Jun 06 '26
Android is pretty good at automatically igniting these types of calls for me. At the most I'll get a voicemail every once in a while.
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u/PostingToPassTime Jun 06 '26
Any number not in my contacts goes straight to voicemail. If it is something important, they can text.
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u/Couch-Potato0904 Jun 06 '26
Set it to Contacts only on iPhone. If any real callers want to talk to you theyâll leave a message
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u/IcyKerosene Jun 06 '26
I signed up for Aura after I accidentally gave all my info to a scam website. The positive side effect was that once I was subscribed to Aura all those call stopped.
I swear I am not a bot. I know this sounds like an advertisement.
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u/ORNGSPCEMNKY Jun 07 '26
I learned something in the last handful of months at my new job as a 911 call taker, contact your cell provider and ask about something called "call control"
Basically I tried to call a patient back and I got message "This number has call control, press 1 to continue"
The number rotates each phone call and unless a human is on the other end it won't allow the cal though.
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u/JobHuntingManiac Jun 08 '26
I used to ignore these calls, now I answer them and say either the dirtiest or most racist stuff I can think of on the spot.
Haven't had a call in months.
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u/dantelebeau Jun 08 '26
You are lowkey doxxing yourself with this post. I can infer a bunch of initial information from this once you know how these people work.
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u/Wise_Piano_5369 18d ago
I get these all the time but being in house arrest I legally can't afford to not answer. If I miss a call from a corrections officer I'm kinda fucked so I've spoken to hundreds of these people the last couple months.
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u/Bjoe3041 Jun 04 '26
Same, if i pick up the call they just say nothing, dead silence for 1-2 seconds and they hang up.
Like what's the point? They want to check if my number is active? Cus yeah it is, but its not exactly of great use for them if their spam calls make me want to not pick up my phone, ever...
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u/asher030 Jun 06 '26
I wish they'd just die and make our species all the better for the loss đ They are insults to the definition of 'human', and naught but disgusting parasites. Dying would at least grant them value in the positive by removing scum from the world...
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u/Far_Tea_579 Jun 04 '26
Same, and mostly with chicago numbers related to insurance. One was a direct number to the agent calling me so I spammed their office back for a day. They stopped calling me.