[stedaniels]

I'm in the UK and have had the same number for a decade or so, I probably get one a year? They are mainly from foreign companies. If said countries also had our regulations, and a sharing agreement in place, it wouldn't be an issue.

[dazc]

I am in the same situation yet I know people who are plagued by such calls. There must be something that triggers this off?

Having said that, these people will also give their phone number and email address to anyone who asks whereas I do not. If I have to enter a phone number on a form and it's isn't immediately obvious why I should do that then I'll make-up a number.

[crtasm]

If you're not doing so already, please pick numbers that will never end up in use by someone else. E.g. for UK: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/inform... (expand the Notes section)

[dazc]

That's a useful list I never knew existed. Thanks.

[astura]

I'm in the US and I almost never get spam/scam calls, yet people here say they get them multiple times a day. I don't know why some people have such an issue and some people just don't.

[RandomBacon]

I think it's a combination of

- people giving their phone number out to companies that share this data, and

- people answering spam calls. Even if you hang up immediately, they probably have an internal metric that says call that number back more frequently.

I don't do either of those, and last week I had more spam/unknown calls than usual: 4

For online forms that require a phone number, I just insert that company's own number.

[signal11]

A fair number of them are foreign companies, but the “our records show you were in an accident” calls are very much from the UK.

The foreign companies are basically criminal operations and countries like the US have taken action against them in the past by working with local law enforcement[1].

[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2179175/mo...