how can i stop all these silent calls i get on my landline phone

@Spoiledbrat Not all telephones have that feature (mine doesn't so I have to interrogate it after the call to find the number) but sometimes you receive calls from what look like genuine numbers.

Perhaps it seems one you have used only once or twice, e.g, a mail-order company or a travel booking-office, but forgotten? Or is it from a fellow member who does not normally ring you, of a hobby club with a geographically widely-scattered membership?* A genuine caller would be expected to leave a message.

There, the number has been "spoofed" to resemble a real one from your own country, or is routed through a sort of accommodation number, but is actually from anywhere in the world. It might be the telephone equivalent of those fraud-attempt e-posts pretending to be from a friend or relative, asking for an emergency loan.

Sometimes the area code alone is the give-away by not looking right for your own land - well, it isn't!

The telephone companies seem unable, unwilling or just too complacent to prevent this happening and act properly against this sort of misuse of the system.

................

*(Clubs and societies used to publish personal telephone numbers for enquiries, but many now use a web-site instead, in which the enquiry will be routed through something like "appropriate-officer-title@ yyyyyy-xxxxxxing-club.org", for both security and longevity.)

@Spoiledbrat dont have it

@DunningKruger At least some landline services provide blocking but probably as an extra, and certainly with a telephone made to work with such features. A plain telephone will not have such features.

I am on BT and bought a 'phone that would allow such filtering, caller-number display and other auxiliaries but when I found it needed plugging into a mains power-supply unit left on all the time, and have to buy an extension to the service for these features to work, I put it back in the box. I keep meaning to advertise it for sale, in the local paper.

The unsolicited calls are a nuisance but neither they nor my landline telephone cost me extra to the broadband service fees, so I am not going to waste money on electricity and service-extensions just to stop a few nuisance calls !

I have never received spam calls or messages on my portable 'phone, but that may be because it is a very simple one, not linked to the Internet, and I use it too infrequently for the criminals to have spotted it!

@Soossie i reported it to the donotcall.gov

@pearllederman

Good for you girl… 🥰🌹

@Roundandroundwego Oh, I regard them all as having criminal intent.

Most of the silent ones I have received don't respond to my speaking, but just cut out after a minute or so's silence.

The recordings, often spoken by a mellifluous woman, are easy to spot as such by trying to talk back. A real caller would be thrown by the interruption - these aren't.


Though much rarer now, I still occasionally hear a real person claim being from the "Windows Corporation and your computer has reported a fault" (or "illegal activity"),

I've sometimes responded with, "I know you are not, it has not, but you are a criminal. Goodbye!" and hang up before they can.

@Anielka yes

@Lilnonames i have one

@pearllederman then let it pick up call