On Fri, 20 Jul 2018 13:02:07 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Ed Cryer wrote:

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Mayayana
writes:
"Ken Blake" wrote

| There are many "poor sods trying to make a living" with whom I don't
| sympathize--bank robbers, hired killers, mafia members, and so on.

Â*This is really only a UK problem. The majority of the
calls I get are scams. Both state and federal gov't
have stopped enforcing DoNotCall lists. But CallerID
means I never have to answer scam calls in the first
place. In the UK they don't seem to have a CallerID
function.

We've had one for years. There are even 'phones you can buy that screen
calls based on them (you press a button to add them to your blocklist).
We call it CLI - calling line identification. (Not sure why - maybe
CallerID might be confused with the criminal investigation department!)
I don't see why _I_ should pay out for such a 'phone, though.

The CLIs are often spoofed though - for example, calls obviously from
Asia show as UK ones, or they show as ones which if called back are
non-existent. I've tried to argue that the telecomm.s companies are
participating in the deception by passing on these faked CLIs (which
ought to be detectable), but unsurprisingly I haven't got anywhere.

Â*But I agree with you. I always hang up on bank
robbers without so much as a how do you do.

(-:

I'll repeat it in case the thread wander has diverted attention from it,
but I still suspect the answer's no (as I can't think how it would
work), but: anyone think of a way we could upload something to their
systems? (If only a list of numbers to call - including the private
lines of their prime minister and the heads of crime families, and every
police station in their country ...)

Have some harmless fun.
Do you remember the old dial-up connection sound?
Record this;
https://youtu.be/PDE9b5iU8vI
and keep it handy on a phone or tablet.
Next time you get a call, just give a whistle and play it into the mic.

Ed (:-

If you have an answering machine (where you can listen to new calls to
screen them by waiting for someone to start leaving a message and then
pick up the handset if you want to talk to them), you could add the
"service disconnected" tone to the beginning of your outgoing voicemail
message.


I recommend that instead you use the free NoMoRoBo
(https://www.nomorobo.com/). It works very well.