I tend to agree about the lists. I get a couple of spam calls and texts a week, which seems to be much, much less than what most of my friends get.
My father gets multiple spam calls every day. He lets them all go to voice mail, so nothing about his behavior encourages them to keep calling. Yet they keep coming.
I've had my cell number for about 15 years, and for another 10 years prior it was a land line, so 25 years in total. My father's cell number is only about 10 years old. So despite having a much older phone number, I get way less spam calls and texts than he does.
Part of that may be what lists we're on. Another reason may be that for the past 20 years, when ordering things online, 99% of the time I give a fake phone number. Companies claim they want it in case there is a problem delivering your order, but even before I started doing this, I never had a company call about an order they couldn't deliver. Once or twice they emailed me about an order they couldn't fulfill (out of stock, etc.), but I do give them a legit email. The 1% of the time I give a real phone number is when I'm dealing with a serious transaction, e.g. a bank or insurance or medical company.
That is really good, also because your tracking cookies get bound to your phone number and then market segmentation companies then use your phone number to direct ads to your tracking IDs. To them, your phone number is like your SSN.
> He lets them all go to voice mail, so nothing about his behavior encourages them to keep calling. Yet they keep coming.
I mean, he lets them go to voice mail. Pick up and set the phone down might use more time on their calls and get the line marked as worse target. But I still get several calls a week, so it's not perfect.
My father gets multiple spam calls every day. He lets them all go to voice mail, so nothing about his behavior encourages them to keep calling. Yet they keep coming.
I've had my cell number for about 15 years, and for another 10 years prior it was a land line, so 25 years in total. My father's cell number is only about 10 years old. So despite having a much older phone number, I get way less spam calls and texts than he does.
Part of that may be what lists we're on. Another reason may be that for the past 20 years, when ordering things online, 99% of the time I give a fake phone number. Companies claim they want it in case there is a problem delivering your order, but even before I started doing this, I never had a company call about an order they couldn't deliver. Once or twice they emailed me about an order they couldn't fulfill (out of stock, etc.), but I do give them a legit email. The 1% of the time I give a real phone number is when I'm dealing with a serious transaction, e.g. a bank or insurance or medical company.