We text now, stop calling me.

The only time I've answered an unknown number in the last decade plus is when I was applying for jobs. Everything else goes to voicemail.
- Voicemail is dead too. It just gets filled with a hundred 1 seconds hangups from spam calls being sent straight to it. Every legit person and business will either show up on your ID, sent an appointment text, or an email.
  
  Í found an option at the phone provider to just ignore all unknown numbers. My phone doesn't even ring.

If I don't recognize the number (meaning it's not already in my contacts), then you can leave a message. 98% of the time it's a scam anyways, and the other 2% of the time it's a doctor's office confirming your appointment.

Call me cynical but if someone doesn't send a message after trying to call it's either because it's not important or because they want you on the line so they can do 'objection handling' to you.
This applies to people you actually know as well as sales people.
- indeed

At work we are required to call customers with a non trackable phone number. So everytime we call someone, it only shows "unnknown number". I don't get it how most people would answer that. I would never do that.
- The hospital recently started calling with hidden numbers. So now im back to picking up those calls again because those are calls I can't really miss.
  
  Why would the hospital do that? Don't they realize nobody answers calls that can't be identified?
- I don't, 'google screen' answers it and transcribes the call. Funnily enough I've not had a single call transcribed. So that's a search and block/report.
  
  Community Blood Center. The very polite vampires are the only ones who put up with Google screen for me. They really like my blood.
- Yeah it just looks shady.

Googling just gives pages and pages of SEO crap and scams. Any actual decent site to look up a number on?
- It used to give good info, maybe 10 years ago. And remember when everyone's number was in the phone book? Why isn't there an online version of that anymore? Not this "buy now" scam stuff.
  
  There really ought to be a crowdsourced database. It could even use AP.
- Yeah Google actually. If it's a legit number a business name will pop up the seo pages are all scam numbers
- I believe Google and others purposely broke searching by a phone number. Many years ago I was able to even search by email. I don't think it is SEO, but after they blocked it, SEO is the only thing that remained.

Sorry OP, but we're urgently trying to contact you about your cars extended warranty! We save car owners major money from the shock of expensive repairs with affordable extended coverage! For as low as a cup of coffee a day you can have the peace of mind when it comes to car repairs.
- "Dang man, wish you had called a month ago. Just totaled my car when I got a DUI and I've lost my license. Do you insure bicycles by chance?"

I can't stop thinking about that keyboard. What is it?
- Kinesis advantge.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/27vkcg/keyboard_spotting_i_was_just_watching_men_in/
  
  https://kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage2/
- As others have replied it's a kinesis. If you want to build one look into dactyl shells, amoeba single switch PCBs, and a therapist for your sadism
- Just realized he is using that lol. It is a fantastic keyboard. A good way to get sucked in to the custom keyboard hobby 😭

Me not even Googling it because every number is fake anyway.
- Funnily enough, I was returning a call the other day from an 800 number I was mostly expecting that lead to a Philippine call center and thought "If it was a scammer it'd just be pretending to be America"
  Even ending up being legitimate. Wild times. Effective government, yay.

- You also can't easily reverse directory anymore. Now you end up with 30 pages of links to places that will charge you $40 to say that it's an unlisted cell number.
- Well they better start spoofing numbers I might actually answer otherwise they've accomplished nothing

My job requires phone calls (which people asked for!) it is frustrating how many unanswered voicemails I leave every day.
And it'll be a cold day in hell when I give out my cellphone number to a customer.
- never give your personal cell number to any customer, ever. especially if you're IT.

What I'd really like is a complicated menu system where their call can get put through but only after they've proven a high degree of commitment and dedication to it. Like what captchas do.
- yeah kinda like every doctor office or credit card company we ever call. Imagine if everyone who called us had to go through all these hoops.
  Hello thank you for calling [insert your name here]. Please listen closely as our menu options have changed. For questions, press 1. For a one-sided conversation, press 2. To leave a sarcastic jab, press 3. To leave a message with our secretary, press 4. To speak directly with [name], please catch me in person most likely wherever you met me or saw me last. Thank you. Goodbye.
  
  'Are you aware that our website now has an AI assistant who can handle all of your requests? Just visit www.leavemealone.co.uk for information, rewards and to manage your account. Have a nice day!...'
  
  90% of the time whenever you get one of those menus, you can just press 0 to get a real person on the line.
  
  There must be a way for us to implement an IVR right? Just forward our calls somewhere first?
- Pixel kind of has this. Seems to be working since I haven't gotten a voicemail in months 🤷‍♂️...filters out most non contacts calls before they bother getting screened.

Imagine having your desk at work setup like this. Who the hell puts the monitor off to the side like that? My neck would kill me after 5 mins
- I could see it happening if your job primarily involves talking to people sat on the other side of the desk.
- It's for people who always work in front of a film crew so the camera can see their faces

I got a Pixel 8 recently and it can have AI answer and screen the call for you. I just do that.
- Doesn't work on grapheneos unfortunately. Unless I'm doing something wrong
- As far as I'm aware it's just a normal program, not "AI"
  
  The feature itself advertised that it uses Bard when it was walking through all the first time popups. That's Google's AI isn't it?
  
  It uses Google's speech to text. As far as you can tell it is a recorded message saying that it's Google's call screening system and to give your name and why you're calling and voice to text to tell you what they say
  Then when you hang up it says goodbye to them.
  I think the product that was supposed to be AI was the booking assistant

yall been googling phone numbers? i just press the power button once.
- It trickier when you're actually expecting a call but you don't know what number they will call from, like a job recruiter.
  
  Honestly I just screen these calls as well, call them back immediately if they leave a relevant voicemail, and apologize for not picking up as “the spam and scam calls have got so prevalent that I screen literally every call these days.”
  I had a recruiter just today laugh and say “yeah, it’s gotten pretty bad, I do the same thing.” So it’s not like they are going to hold it against you these days.

Me wearing a suit to use Google.

I'd prefer to talk on the phone, you get through way more like that

My sister is aggressively extroverted, and I am about as introverted. She insists on talking over the phone. All the time. I have to recover from it.

Next time you get a unknown caller, they won't be so unknown anymore https://www.truepeoplesearch.com/
- I searched the # of a place I work for and it said it was from some random lady in Florida. I do not live anywhere near Florida
  
  Well we've been trying to find a good time to tell you this, might as well be now. You actually work for some random lady in Florida. Sorry about all the misdirection, she's a very secretive lady

Are spam calls that big of a problem, where you live?
- I heard spam calls are rampant in the US. I'm not sure about other countries.
  
  it's gotten significantly worse in EU in the recent years as well, anecdotally, I don't think I got more than idk maybe 10 spam calls in 2011-2019. Since 2020 I sometimes get as many as 3 a week

I'm guessing the mass here is from USA. People from EU, where regulations work better, what's your opinion on this?
- German here, I also google unknown phone numbers first if they are mobile phone numbers. My business phone number is in the imprint of every website I make due to legal reasons, so I receive around 1-2 spam calls per week.
- I'm from France, there's actually a law to force telemarketers to use certain phone ranges, which I've blocked.
  During some periods, I have a call blocked per day, sometimes more, then nothing for a while.
  I sometimes have the odd phone call that passes through, but unless I know I'm expecting a call, or it is from a number I know, I never pick up. It's usually spam anyway
- Poland here. I really get spam calls, once a week or less. My phone flags unwanted calls as spam so I don't pick up. If I miss a call from an unknown number, then I Google it. I almost never get to talk to a spam call.
  
  Scamers put effort into learning Polish and you didn't even hear them out? Harsh.
- I'm from the EU. I do the same. I hate getting calls. It forces me to drop everything I'm doing and suddenly switch contexts, which I absolutely hate. So I usually don't answer unless I expect the call or know the number. If it's important they can enter a voicemail or preferably send a message, either of which doesn't require an immediate response and is therefore a lot less annoying.
- from the various comments it looks pretty much the same. I have two numbers UK, and PL, and I get spam calls on both of them. It's gotten to a point where if I don't recognise a number and don't specifically wait for a call from somewhere I just ignore it
  
  Yeah, i see that. I guess I'm just lucky then. I mean there's this one survey company that nags ppl, but you block their one number or ask them to leave you alone and that's it. And the boring sellers always get flagged by Google so that's filtered out automatically. Basically, whenever my phone rings, it's for me personally and it's a call I'd want to take.

I have a sibling I have literally told to stop calling me who still calls me.
People are silly.

I tend to block numbers known to spam from a specific exchange, as well as those that duckduck throws shade on

always

I literally just did this for student forgiveness spam. I use the Google call screening.

Nah man, if it's not important enough for a call it must not be that important, if you text me I might not even open the message
- Nothing like a good voice conversation, face to face or not

Me answering a call because it's way faster and convenient than only texting like a nervous, terminally online teenager who is trying to stigmatize using a phone to make phone calls: 🥱
- This post is about spam calls, which you'll only get more of if you answer them.
  
  "we text now, stop calling me". Very clear OPs opinion on calling in general.
  
  nowhere in the OP is there anything about spam calls. the comments just started going that way but this post just reminds me of socially awkward flakes