Apparently O2 have a scam-caller fighting AI bot, which spends its time tying up scam callers so they have less time to get through to actual people.
Amusing to listen to (scone and knitting chat….):
I F^"£@% hate these B$@@#%$.
My in head fantasy is of some special forces operative waiting in the shadows near their home ...
That’s quality!
That is absolute genius. I love tying scam callers up when I have the time , best one was a guy claiming to be from BT and after about 30 minutes starting calling me an f*** c and then put me through to his 'supervisor' when I complained and ask to speak to them.
I had someone from the conservative party call me once, I knew it was a scam when they said they cared about my opinion.
Not so much scam callers, just those really annoying call centres from abroad flogging utilities or card machines. Depending on how busy we are and whether we can be bothered to string them along. The best ones have been the utility ones, offering good deals on gas as you get them feeling quite confident when you ask about how the gas is delivered; are you going to build a pipeline or send it over on a tanker? Then going on to explain that we’re on an island with no mains gas…
And the other way around, web developers deploying tar pits on their sites to trap AI scrapers and feed it an infinite loop of junk data.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/ai-haters-build-tarpits-to-trap-and-trick-ai-scrapers-that-ignore-robots-txt/
With spam callers... Android /Google phones now have a call screening feature where the caller has to state thier name/company and reason for calling.. then that's relayed to your phone via text in real time within your phone app, before you decide to accept the call.
It's highly effective!
If they are genuine they will say why.. If not (99% of the time) they just hang up... Or if it's a 'robot' call you. Might just get a 'hello' followed by a hang up.
You can easily screen calls like that as any legitimate human caller would say 'hi it's Mike from the garage, your car has had its service and is ready to collect' or whatever.
With spam callers… Android /Google phones now have a call screening feature where the caller has to state thier name/company and reason for calling.. then that’s relayed to your phone via text in real time within your phone app, before you decide to accept the call.
just letting calls go to answerphone achieves the same goal 🙂
just letting calls go to answerphone achieves the same goal
Absolutley, but then if you are getting spammed a lot you have to listen to your phone ringing, look at the number, and get annoyed before you terminate the call.
You could just leave your phone on silent all the time, but then there is potential to miss an important call fom friends/family.
You could just leave your phone on silent all the time, but then there is potential to miss an important call fom friends/family.
They can leave a voicemail and a notification will pop up and the phone vibrate.
They can leave a voicemail and a notification will pop up and the phone vibrate.
Do whatever suits you... if it's important, as you say, they will leave a voice mail anyway...but I will say I've has some 'sus' calls from numbers foramatted like UK mobile numbers, so you it makes you think..is it a friend in trouble calling from a borrowed phone or whatever?
The number one golden rule is never ever answer a call from an unkown number, let it ring out or cancel it, or screen it, and see if they leave a voice mail.
just letting calls go to answerphone achieves the same goal
Now my landline is fully fibre, my handsets show ‘Nuisance?’ on the screen, which they almost inevitably are. I used to get several a day, but the frequency has dropped to one or two every week or two. I can’t remember the last time I had a spam call on my mobile.
The number one golden rule is never ever answer a call from an unkown number, let it ring out or cancel it, or screen it, and see if they leave a voice mail.
Exactly this.
just letting calls go to answerphone achieves the same goal 🙂
Not really, then you have to wait for them to leave a message, call your voicemail, listen to it, press 3 (or is it 2, better listen to the robot voice read the options as well) to delete it, wonder what the other 2 saved messages are, listen to those as well, etc. Then call them back and if it's a call center get stuck in the loop of options and queues trying to get through to the department that called you.
The brilliance of the google system is you just click <Screen>, it says "hi this is Brant calling about your trousers", you then pick up (or it just gives you the text of the message if they carry on talking and they hang up).
It's also great in meetings or out on the bike because you can see if the call is worth leaving the room or stopping for in real time.