The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support Forumswho wishes we still had caller id?
i mean, i wish people i call could have my id.
any legit company probably wishes they could signal customers that it's a legit call. my vm says if you arent in my contacts, i'm not answering your call. but if i had a clue, i'd pick up a lot of calls. like the good old days.
sure, they'll start spoofing those soon. but hey, a fake id is a lot easier to share w others than a spoofed phone number. so, limited downside imho.
am i the only one?
GPV
(72,377 posts)mopinko
(70,024 posts)i never answer my phone any more.
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,852 posts)About 95% of the time for me, it's a phone number with complaints about a scam.
mopinko
(70,024 posts)Buckeye_Democrat
(14,852 posts)I still get "wrong number" calls from some elderly African American woman in South Carolina sometimes.
She left a message the first time, thinking she'd called a family member, so I called her back to tell her about the mistake since her family didn't get that message.
And it seems to happen with that same elderly woman about every couple months. I honestly think she's doing it on purpose now, and I'll always answer her call after recognizing that phone number again. Then she'll always apologize for "doing it again", but it just seems a little too weird that she's always typing the same wrong digit to end up calling me. I never accuse her of doing that, of course.
ret5hd
(20,483 posts)just sit and chat with her. Ask her about who she is trying to call, what shes doing that week, how shes feeling.
Probably just wanting some company.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)Problem was she was extremely rude as if were my fault she dialed the wrong number. After that every time she called, I'd been really rude about her inability to dial the correct number. Finally she stopped calling my number.
Then there is the AA family that keeps calling for their mother/aunt. They are always polite and apologetic so I am polite to them.
The other wrong number that has not happened recently is for the private school - theirs is one digit different so slightly understandable. Nothing like being cussed out when their kid was barred from taking a school trip for misbehaving - that dad got cussed out for being an asshole and for threatening someone not associated with the school!
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,852 posts)And I'm nice to her as well, usually chit-chatting with her for a few minutes. It's just small talk, and neither of us have divulged much about our private lives.
It's one of her nephews that she's trying to call when she accidentally calls me instead, but I'm not so sure it's always an accident anymore. Lol!
Very sweet woman.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)But the first time I answered and she asked for someone not at this number, I told her that, and she went "So who the hell are YOU?" I told her it was none of her business since she'd called the wrong number, and she kept cursing at me and blaming me for her mistake.
Maybe the lady you're talking to is the aunt of the people who keep calling looking for their aunt?!
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,852 posts)Maybe the old person calling you has dementia issues or something? Good grief, what a ridiculous question after SHE called the wrong number.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)More than a couple just kept hitting redial on their phones and getting confused why they were still getting the wrong number over and over. The record for that was over a half dozen times!
The worst was the the school athletic director put down my number on the flyers for a tennis tournament. I got dozens of calls from people wanting to sign their kids up. I ended up calling the school and threatening them with harassment if they didn't get it fixed immediately. Maybe I should have taken their kids' names and info and let the shit hit the fan when everyone showed up for the big tennis event.
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,852 posts)... in your case, announcing that you're NOT the school which has a phone number with a different digit.
I'm sorry about your situation!
Heck, I might be ready to request a different phone number too.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)So I was not about to give up my telephone number since it was on all my stationery and business cards, plus it was out in the public domain for a lot of my contacts. My telephone answering system had a message about the business and I didn't want to confuse people by mentioning another one.
Oh, well. Now, thirty years later somehow the school has educated their staff and parents so I don't get those calls much anymore. Maybe it's that people are using their cellphones' memories to store number and call them so are not confused by trying to dial a keypad?
Fla Dem
(23,593 posts)mopinko
(70,024 posts)none on cellphones.
Fla Dem
(23,593 posts)They can leave a message if it's important.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)Because in more than one case I've both categories not leave messages. And some of the calling services for my doctors do not have caller ID and they do not leave messages. PITA!
I let the phone ring three times before answering - most scammers especially robocallers will hang up after three rings.
On your cell phone, where it says the number that an incoming call is coming from, that's caller ID.
-- Ron
that's my point.
Jeebo
(2,021 posts)... that's the information it showed, the number the incoming call came from. How's that different from the same information your cell phone gives you now?
-- Ron
mopinko
(70,024 posts)unless you paid to be unlisted, it showed up like it was in the phone book.
which also, i miss phone books.
Jeebo
(2,021 posts)The caller ID that I had showed only the number the incoming call was coming from, nothing else. That's the same information my cell phone gives me now.
Oh, and I still get phone books delivered to my house, but they're not nearly as useful as they used to be.
I feel nostalgic about rotary dial phones. I'd actually like to have one just because of ... well, nostalgia. I haven't even seen one in 15 or 20 years. It's hard to find a phone booth nowadays, too.
-- Ron
csziggy
(34,131 posts)Even though the people delivering there were supposed to deliver to each house, out here in my rural area, they did not do it. They left them leaning up against the mail box, sometimes in a plastic grocery type bag. More often than not, by the time I noticed it, it was soaking wet. Once, I found it as I left home and along my route to the store for seven miles, there were plastic bags with wet phone books at every mailbox.
I got tired of dealing with the phone book company's wet messes, so I called them and asked to be taken off the delivery list - four years in a row. It wasn't until the year I saw all the wet phone books that I told them if I go another one, I was reporting them for littering. Haven't gotten one since.
Besides the type in them got so small I couldn't read them anymore.
grumpyduck
(6,225 posts)"Scam Likely." Keep wondering who it is, maybe someone I went to school with?
ret5hd
(20,483 posts)Damn irresponsible parents! I tell ya, its no wonder the kids today are up to no good.
TxGuitar
(4,185 posts)He seems to call us a lot!
EYESORE 9001
(25,909 posts)Im not putting up with their shit any more.
Phentex
(16,330 posts)but I want a phone that ONLY works if the call is from one of my contacts.
Like you say, the best we can hope for now is it gets recognized as spam or as unidentified which goes unanswered.
Most of the time I have to keep the ringer off because of the spam calls. And then yes, I often miss a call from someone I'd have answered. I am not the kind of person who keeps the phone near me all the time but I try to check it every now and then.