Attempted Scam

steingar said:
Not many. And they don't get that much jail time when they are caught, they save that for the violent types.
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That was my general assumption.
 
Ryanb said:
I tend to believe they target senior citizens over other demographics.
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“preying on the elderly”

If it happens to a relative, write your state Attorney General.

My wife wrote our AG when her late-80s grandmother kept getting pushy fundraising calls from a state-police-benevolent society. The callers tried to con her into thinking she had a ticket to pay. Big mistake. They got their ass kicked by the state AG, after my wife wrote to report they were “preying on the elderly.”
 
steingar said:
Not many. And they don't get that much jail time when they are caught, they save that for the violent types.
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Until you rip off enough people and the feds get involved. Look up Marc Pradel and Matthew Pisoni. They got 25 years for a classic sweepstakes scam.
 
I got one last week from an 800 number, it was "Verizon" to report an issue with my account, I knew it was a scam, so I played along. They asked for the billing zip code, which of course Verizon would know, so I gave them 5 random numbers, then they needed my account PIN, so I obliged with 9999 and waited for the operator to pick up and explain what was wrong with my account!! For some reason no one ever did!! I called the 800 number and it belonged to a legit company that had a recorded message about scammers spoofing their number!
 
The reality is these days, I could permanently forward my incoming phone calls to voice mail and miss maybe two legitimate phone calls per month.

The first carrier to come up with a blocking list that works by blocking all calls until a number is specifically authorized through, I’m in. I’d jump carriers for that.

All of them do it backward with a list of numbers to block.
 
denverpilot said:
The reality is these days, I could permanently forward my incoming phone calls to voice mail and miss maybe two legitimate phone calls per month.

The first carrier to come up with a blocking list that works by blocking all calls until a number is specifically authorized through, I’m in. I’d jump carriers for that.

All of them do it backward with a list of numbers to block.
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I tried blocking these numbers, but they are all spoofed numbers now, using my area code and first three of my number with the last 4 being random digits. My wife called one of them back and the lady that answered was genuinely surprised, she hadn't called anyone, they were just using her number to hide theirs. I just don't answer any number I don't recognize. We added an app called, Truecaller, it's supposed to warn you of spam calls, so far I am not impressed! One they offered up as spam was my wife's oncologist!
 
N747JB said:
I tried blocking these numbers, but they are all spoofed numbers now, using my area code and first three of my number with the last 4 being random digits. My wife called one of them back and the lady that answered was genuinely surprised, she hadn't called anyone, they were just using her number to hide theirs. I just don't answer any number I don't recognize. We added an app called, Truecaller, it's supposed to warn you of spam calls, so far I am not impressed! One they offered up as spam was my wife's oncologist!
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Understood. That’s why I want all numbers other than the handful of people who might call me, blocked, and I get to “opt in” to even receive a call. And by blocked I don’t mean a hard block, I mean “send all to voice mail by default”.

Yeah the scammers would still guess an allowed number once in a while, but I get easily 20 calls a week from numbers I don’t recognize and won’t answer. So why not give me a way to just stop all calls from unknown numbers.

Even for new real callers, prospective students, whatever, I can mention on the voice mail that I screen all calls and a legitimate voice mail will be returned promptly. Which is essentially what I am doing anyway, but I don’t even want the interruption of the phone ringing.

Seems like it’d be a win for the carrier too. They’re already giving away free voice almost across the board. If they can intercept 90% of my calls or more and keep them from having to tie up a time slot on their cellular sector that’s pointed at my phone, that means they can handle someone else’s real call or data needs better.

Telecoms are idiots when it comes to stuff like this. I know. I worked for a number of big ones. It’s an easy change in the phone software.

Heck, Apple or Android should do it right at the device if the carriers want to waste air time ringing the phones. “Send all calls to voice mail that are not marked as allowed in contact list...”
 
N747JB said:
We added an app called, Truecaller, it's supposed to warn you of spam calls, so far I am not impressed! One they offered up as spam was my wife's oncologist!
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My caller ID comes up with the phone number, town and state and name of company or person calling. It also comes up with either possible spam or spam. Numbers I have marked as spam doesn't even make the phone ring.

And yes, I usually don't answer numbers I am unfamiliar with.
 
Zeldman said:
My caller ID comes up with the phone number, town and state and name of company or person calling. It also comes up with either possible spam or spam. Numbers I have marked as spam doesn't even make the phone ring.

And yes, I usually don't answer numbers I am unfamiliar with.
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I don’t even want it to ring if it’s not an opted in number. Looking at the caller ID is a multiple time a day thing now with spam calls and interrupts life for no good reason. The carriers aren’t making money on that call from the call center in India to my phone, they’re losing money on it.

Might as well forcibly send it to the voice mail at the inbound local switch in the Central Office long before it has to do an SS7 request to the cell network to find my phone and transmit a ring message to it, wasting the most precious resource any cell carrier has... RF bandwidth.

I have no idea why the dumbass cellular carriers haven’t implemented this already.

But for that matter, the phone makers can do it. Receive ring announcement from the idiots running the cellular carrier, see the number is not in the approved ring list, toss back a “send to voice mail” packet and never notify the device user the call ever happened.

Either way would work for me.
 
denverpilot said:
I don’t even want it to ring if it’s not an opted in number. Looking at the caller ID is a multiple time a day thing now with spam calls and interrupts life for no good reason. The carriers aren’t making money on that call from the call center in India to my phone, they’re losing money on it.
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Ditto here. As I've posted before, I have my iPhone 7 in airplane mode + DND when I'm at work because spams come in all day long, sometimes more than one per hour. I don't want my phone ringing while I'm lecturing or teaching lab. (Only problem is I'm not sure that combo is 100% effective since I've found that neither measure is 100% effective alone. So I usually leave the phone in my office too.)

And I agree, I don't see why Apple can't supply this as an option. Instead of a blacklist consisting of blocked numbers like they do now, provide an "enable whitelist" option, which when on requires an incoming call to be from a number on the list or it gets blocked or sent to voicemail. I'm sure other phone makers can do similar things
 
azure said:
And I agree, I don't see why Apple can't supply this as an option.... I'm sure other phone makers can do similar things
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Nowadays it’s likely Samsung would beat Apple to it.

Apple would announce it as new breakthrough tech a year later. LOL.

Here’s hoping either way. Someone does it, I’m buying that device.
 
azure said:
Ditto here. As I've posted before, I have my iPhone 7 in airplane mode + DND when I'm at work because spams come in all day long, sometimes more than one per hour. I don't want my phone ringing while I'm lecturing or teaching lab. (Only problem is I'm not sure that combo is 100% effective since I've found that neither measure is 100% effective alone. So I usually leave the phone in my office too.)

And I agree, I don't see why Apple can't supply this as an option. Instead of a blacklist consisting of blocked numbers like they do now, provide an "enable whitelist" option, which when on requires an incoming call to be from a number on the list or it gets blocked or sent to voicemail. I'm sure other phone makers can do similar things
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Does the little mute switch on the edge of the phone not fully silence it?
 
Palmpilot said:
Does the little mute switch on the edge of the phone not fully silence it?
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Yes, but it's so easy to accidentally move that switch when handling the phone (or even pulling something else out of that pocket) that I'm never sure what position it's in.
 
denverpilot said:
The reality is these days, I could permanently forward my incoming phone calls to voice mail and miss maybe two legitimate phone calls per month.

The first carrier to come up with a blocking list that works by blocking all calls until a number is specifically authorized through, I’m in. I’d jump carriers for that.

All of them do it backward with a list of numbers to block.
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I know it’s not exactly what you’re looking for, but my landline (well, VOIP) provider does exactly this. I’ve got everything blocked except a few family members. It works perfectly, except when the family butt-dials us.
 
azure said:
Yes, but it's so easy to accidentally move that switch when handling the phone (or even pulling something else out of that pocket) that I'm never sure what position it's in.
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I see what you mean. (I have a protective cover on mine that results in the switch being recessed, so I hadn't realized that that issue existed without one.)
 
denverpilot said:
The reality is these days, I could permanently forward my incoming phone calls to voice mail and miss maybe two legitimate phone calls per month.

The first carrier to come up with a blocking list that works by blocking all calls until a number is specifically authorized through, I’m in. I’d jump carriers for that.

All of them do it backward with a list of numbers to block.
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Verizon did offer that at one point. For an extra fee of either $10 or $20 a month. Cause the problem, then charge people to solve the problem. Classic scam.

I know I can do what you want with my VoIP provider. They also do dual-ring (ring a second number at same time) which is great when traveling, and email voice mail to you.
 
Palmpilot said:
I see what you mean. (I have a protective cover on mine that results in the switch being recessed, so I hadn't realized that that issue existed without one.)
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Depending on the cover, the issue can still exist anyway -- I have a cover as well, though I don't recall what brand.
 
Palmpilot said:
Does the little mute switch on the edge of the phone not fully silence it?
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Silence is not the problem. I still have to take certain business and personal calls throughout the day, so even if silenced, it vibrates and I have to interrupt what I’m doing and look at it. It’s the interruption. I know who I want to talk to, I want a way to stop the ring cycle completely for every other phone number on the planet. They can leave a message or pound sand.

bluesky74656 said:
I know it’s not exactly what you’re looking for, but my landline (well, VOIP) provider does exactly this. I’ve got everything blocked except a few family members. It works perfectly, except when the family butt-dials us.
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Yeah, definitely don’t want a land line and for sure not in CenturyLink territory. Ha. Might be the worst of the Baby Bell spinoffs ever. But hey, I can get “Internet for Life” at the same price... if their 1.5Mb/sec service is what I wanted! LOL. They have to be the lamest RBOC left in existence.

wsuffa said:
Verizon did offer that at one point. For an extra fee of either $10 or $20 a month. Cause the problem, then charge people to solve the problem. Classic scam.

I know I can do what you want with my VoIP provider. They also do dual-ring (ring a second number at same time) which is great when traveling, and email voice mail to you.
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I vaguely recall them offering it. I also mess with a VoIP provider forwarded to the cell, also can do similar with a “free” Google Voice number. But it’s an unnecessary hassle.

I want it IN THE CELL either the phone or the network. Preferably network but the phones can clearly already do the necessary steps, they just need a link from the contacts database in the phone to “automatically send anything not in Contacts to voice mail”.

And the tech is certainly possible and it even benefits the cell carrier as I mentioned... no cell network bandwidth burnt for the millions of crap calls every day. Just let the recipient dump ALL calls and opt in to the few numbers they actually want to talk to. That’s all I’m really paying for anyway, why not harden your network and save a lot of bandwidth?

But really the carriers move too slow. It’ll happen first in the phones.
 
denverpilot said:
Silence is not the problem. I still have to take certain business and personal calls throughout the day, so even if silenced, it vibrates and I have to interrupt what I’m doing and look at it. It’s the interruption. I know who I want to talk to, I want a way to stop the ring cycle completely for every other phone number on the planet. They can leave a message or pound sand.
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Good point. I didn't mention it, but that's another factor -- I have it on vibrate so that I know it's ringing when I'm in a noisy environment, and will feel the vibration as well when (not if) it rings during class. Of course, I could *also* take it off vibrate, but that's yet another step to prepare my phone for class. Simpler to just put it in airplane mode/DND in the morning and leave it like that all day in my office. There's absolutely no reason I need to carry it with me to class anyway, since the computer clock is just as if not more accurate, and there are phones in most of the classrooms for emergency calls to IT in case the projector stops working or the HDMI interface craps out.
 
denverpilot said:
I vaguely recall them offering it. I also mess with a VoIP provider forwarded to the cell, also can do similar with a “free” Google Voice number. But it’s an unnecessary hassle.

I want it IN THE CELL either the phone or the network. Preferably network but the phones can clearly already do the necessary steps, they just need a link from the contacts database in the phone to “automatically send anything not in Contacts to voice mail”.

And the tech is certainly possible and it even benefits the cell carrier as I mentioned... no cell network bandwidth burnt for the millions of crap calls every day. Just let the recipient dump ALL calls and opt in to the few numbers they actually want to talk to. That’s all I’m really paying for anyway, why not harden your network and save a lot of bandwidth?

But really the carriers move too slow. It’ll happen first in the phones.
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Different situations. I maintain a VoIP line for business (and home). Very few folks get my cell number. So the VoIP "in the cloud" blocking solution works for me.

I seem to recall of me of the cell companies offering it, too, but that might have been on the old ATT Blue network (TDMA). I haven't been on ATT for a decade so I don't know what they do now. It was extra cost, though. Which was, again, the classic scam: get paid for delivering the call and charge the subscriber more to block. And if it went to VM in those days, it came out of the bucket o' minutes.

Right now CVS is on my s***list because they continue to spam call/robocall on prescription refills, and there is apparently no way to get off the list. Local store says "call corporate at this number" and corporate says "that's handled at the local level". And there is no way to eliminate the phone number completely or get them to stop. I am glad to not use a cell number because folks that have also get barraged by text messages. Yes, it violates the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of the DNC law, but so far they've slipped around it. Worse, they auto-filled a script that they were explicitly told to NOT put on the auto-fill list. Which is a classic upsell scam. And probably fraud since some folks likely go ahead and accept the polls and CVS gets paid by insurance (and the copay). They are now on my block list.
 
Palmpilot said:
Does the little mute switch on the edge of the phone not fully silence it?
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It does not! Government "Notifications" for Amber Alerts or Emergency Alerts (Tornado nearby as one example) will get through anyway. For iPhones, these can be turned off in Settings --> Notifications --> then scroll down to the very bottom for Amber and Emergency on/off switches, but the default is "on". Once Apple did an update and set these two items back to "on". The next big weather front rolling through came through lit up the phones in the audience at a large classical music venue.

I called Apple and let them know in a string of four letter words what I thought of this practice. I kept demanding to speak with supervisors. Finally got up three levels. Called them every name I could think of! (Four years in the US Navy did improve my vocabulary in this regard!) I now check these settings after every update. It has been stable for a while... maybe my yelling (and I am sure many other people's too) got them to rethink this policy. Idiot software designers!

-Skip
 
I’ve stopped answering my office phone, it’s invariably a cold call or a phishing attempt. People who need to talk to me have my cell number. And even that’s not safe these days.
 
denverpilot said:
I don’t even want it to ring if it’s not an opted in number. Looking at the caller ID is a multiple time a day thing now with spam calls and interrupts life for no good reason. The carriers aren’t making money on that call from the call center in India to my phone, they’re losing money on it.

Might as well forcibly send it to the voice mail at the inbound local switch in the Central Office long before it has to do an SS7 request to the cell network to find my phone and transmit a ring message to it, wasting the most precious resource any cell carrier has... RF bandwidth.

I have no idea why the dumbass cellular carriers haven’t implemented this already.

But for that matter, the phone makers can do it. Receive ring announcement from the idiots running the cellular carrier, see the number is not in the approved ring list, toss back a “send to voice mail” packet and never notify the device user the call ever happened.

Either way would work for me.
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The galaxy s8 will allow you to turn on do not disturb mode and make it so all calls go directly to voicemail except contacts. I'm sure other android phones do as well.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
Catalo said:
The galaxy s8 will allow you to turn on do not disturb mode and make it so all calls go directly to voicemail except contacts. I'm sure other android phones do as well.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
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Sweet! Android has it!! Well I assume that’s a Samsung add on? Awesome.
 
iPhone has the same do not disturb mode. Was originally intended for sleeping time, but with all the robot calls, might be time to have it on 24/7
 
wsuffa said:
Right now CVS is on my s***list because they continue to spam call/robocall on prescription refills, and there is apparently no way to get off the list. Local store says "call corporate at this number" and corporate says "that's handled at the local level". And there is no way to eliminate the phone number completely or get them to stop. I am glad to not use a cell number because folks that have also get barraged by text messages. Yes, it violates the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of the DNC law, but so far they've slipped around it. Worse, they auto-filled a script that they were explicitly told to NOT put on the auto-fill list. Which is a classic upsell scam. And probably fraud since some folks likely go ahead and accept the polls and CVS gets paid by insurance (and the copay). They are now on my block list.
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Tell your local CVS pharmacy people that (1) you want your number taken OFF of their records (they can do this) and (2) that you do not want ANY of your scripts on auto-refill. I went through this with them for a couple of years, got the same line of BS, but finally the CVS here in central VT managed to set things up so that I don't get any robo-calls from them (or texts) and I (almost) never find scripts refilled that I haven't explicitly sent a request for. Rarely I still do find that they have put something on auto-refill, but I always remind them that NOTHING goes on auto-refill for me, and it's never happened twice with the same med.

My only remaining beef with CVS is the barrage of spam emails that come through literally every day advertising stuff I've never bought from them and have no interest in buying from them, like teeth whitening kits and cosmetics. But I do have one of their loyalty cards, and I guess that's what you have to live with to get "extrabucks" and other useful coupons for things that I actually *do* buy.
 
Hang 4 said:
iPhone has the same do not disturb mode. Was originally intended for sleeping time, but with all the robot calls, might be time to have it on 24/7
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Unfortunately, at least on the iPhone 7, DND does not stop ALL calls from getting through, and I have had spams get through while in DND mode. Besides, there is no whitelist to allow calls from certain numbers through, which is what I thought Nate was talking about.
 
Relook at the settings. You can use a “favorites list” as a whitelist and you also need to specify whether it’s DND when locked only or unlocked too. That might be how some calls are getting through
 
kyleb said:
Someone tried to scam my 80 something Father today. He didn't feel quite right about what he was asked to do, so touched base with me first and saved himself a good amount of $$$.

The perp called Dad's cell phone pretending to be my cousin(who lives 2,000 miles from here and we don't hear from often), who was in jail and needed $9k in cash to get out of jail. Either the perp had my cousin's name or social engineered the name from my Dad, then told Dad a story about a wreck (therefore the not-quite-right voice), jail, and $9k in bail/bond.

Obviously, none of it was true, but Dad didn't immediately dismiss it. However, he did call me and talk through it, which put an end to it.

The question I had was how someone got Dad's information and made a connection to my cousin in California, since Dad isn't on social media and my cousin hasn't left a e-trail that leads to my Dad. The other possibility is that the person social engineered a cousin's name from Dad. "Hey Mr. XYZ, it's muuuumble, your nephew, how are you doing?" "Mmmumble? Is this Mike??" "Yeah, it's your nephew Mike and..."
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You'd be absolutely amazed at the amount of information that is available about absolutely everyone nowadays.
 
denverpilot said:
The reality is these days, I could permanently forward my incoming phone calls to voice mail and miss maybe two legitimate phone calls per month.

The first carrier to come up with a blocking list that works by blocking all calls until a number is specifically authorized through, I’m in. I’d jump carriers for that.

All of them do it backward with a list of numbers to block.
Click to expand...

I think much of it depends on what your phone is used for. If it's normal personal use only, then I think you could probably do that. These days, a large percentage of people have their phones for dual use, business (which often includes phone calls from numbers you don't know) and also personal. For me, it wouldn't work, but I have a pretty good idea which numbers to ignore. It would be nice if carriers offered the option.
 
azure said:
Tell your local CVS pharmacy people that (1) you want your number taken OFF of their records (they can do this) and (2) that you do not want ANY of your scripts on auto-refill. I went through this with them for a couple of years, got the same line of BS, but finally the CVS here in central VT managed to set things up so that I don't get any robo-calls from them (or texts) and I (almost) never find scripts refilled that I haven't explicitly sent a request for. Rarely I still do find that they have put something on auto-refill, but I always remind them that NOTHING goes on auto-refill for me, and it's never happened twice with the same med.

My only remaining beef with CVS is the barrage of spam emails that come through literally every day advertising stuff I've never bought from them and have no interest in buying from them, like teeth whitening kits and cosmetics. But I do have one of their loyalty cards, and I guess that's what you have to live with to get "extrabucks" and other useful coupons for things that I actually *do* buy.
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I solved my CVS issues by dropping them, going with a Mom and Pop pharmacy. The calls, the wait times, their gacked up point of sale that didn't talk to their pharmacy system. Anyway, I went with the local pharmacy, and found out the CVS refers to THEM for compounding. . .
 
Sundancer said:
I solved my CVS issues by dropping them, going with a Mom and Pop pharmacy. The calls, the wait times, their gacked up point of sale that didn't talk to their pharmacy system. Anyway, I went with the local pharmacy, and found out the CVS refers to THEM for compounding. . .
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True, CVS doesn't do compounding. The advantage of using them vs. a local pharmacy for everything else is if you are moving around the country, it's easier to transfer your scripts within the CVS chain. Also, at least here in VT, the prices at the local pharmacy are WAY higher than CVS.
 
Zeldman said:
Funny, I don't get any calls when my phone is in the O.F.F. mode....
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On an iPhone, that means actually shutting the thing down. Just hitting the power switch won't stop calls from coming in. Not sure about other companies' phones.
 
azure said:
True, CVS doesn't do compounding. The advantage of using them vs. a local pharmacy for everything else is if you are moving around the country, it's easier to transfer your scripts within the CVS chain. Also, at least here in VT, the prices at the local pharmacy are WAY higher than CVS.
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azure said:
Tell your local CVS pharmacy people that (1) you want your number taken OFF of their records (they can do this) and (2) that you do not want ANY of your scripts on auto-refill. I went through this with them for a couple of years, got the same line of BS, but finally the CVS here in central VT managed to set things up so that I don't get any robo-calls from them (or texts) and I (almost) never find scripts refilled that I haven't explicitly sent a request for. Rarely I still do find that they have put something on auto-refill, but I always remind them that NOTHING goes on auto-refill for me, and it's never happened twice with the same med.

My only remaining beef with CVS is the barrage of spam emails that come through literally every day advertising stuff I've never bought from them and have no interest in buying from them, like teeth whitening kits and cosmetics. But I do have one of their loyalty cards, and I guess that's what you have to live with to get "extrabucks" and other useful coupons for things that I actually *do* buy.
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The local CVS folks deny that it's possible. Even the head pharmacist shrugs his shoulders when I complain. And since my health plan requires using their mail order pharma (NOT Caremark, which is the CVS version) after 2-3 fills, I never want it auto-filled. For this one, I specifically told them not to auto fill. And after refusing the pickup, I started getting calls this weekend that it's due for refill. *plonk*, I've put them on my block list.

Because of the need to send it to mail order, the only reason I need the local pharma is when things change (or if the mail order version gets lost). I can't think of any real local pharmacy around here any more. THey're all CVG, Walgreens, RiteAid, or the grocery chains. I am looking, though.

I suspect that the CVS problem is going to get worse when they buy Aetna.
 
N747JB said:
I tried blocking these numbers, but they are all spoofed numbers now, using my area code and first three of my number with the last 4 being random digits. My wife called one of them back and the lady that answered was genuinely surprised, she hadn't called anyone, they were just using her number to hide theirs.
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This one has been getting me a lot the last several months. Sometimes 3-4 times a day. Always a robo-call, and the first few months it was annoying: When I'd say hello, "she" would act like she couldn't hear me before blaming her headset, then let me know that since I stayed at one of their resorts, I'd won a free trip! "Doesn't that sound great?" she'd ask? They eventually changed the script. Now I just block all numbers starting with my area code and exchange. I don't know anyone with those digits, so it's all good. Unfortunately, it apparently works both ways--I've also gotten 3-4 call-backs from people saying they got a call from MY number.

Another new one, which may only affect new homeowner (which I recently became): Parcel delivery notices. I've gotten one on the door and about a dozen in the mail saying "Sorry we missed you" and to call the number for information on where to pick up the package they tried to deliver. The one on the door had small print on the back that said to the effect "If you call and give the confirmation number printed on the other side, you hereby agree to share your contact information with our partners".
 
Kevin Brown said:
When I'd say hello, "she" would act like she couldn't hear me before blaming her headset,
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One time when I got a robo call that started like that, and then the voice said can you hear me Ok? I answered back, I can't hear you, I am having trouble with my headset.....and the caller hung up....

Sometimes when I feel like messing with a spam call, I use my very deep and authoritive sounding voice and answer, "Police Department". Then the person will start talking, and I'll interrupt. "Ma'am/sir you have called the police department, is there someone specific you are wanting to speak with?" So far everytime the caller hangs up.
 
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