[arbitrage]

Turn off spam call detection, if possible. Let all calls not from contacts go to voicemail. Turn on voicemail transcription (unless you're concerned about the privacy implications). Spam calls rarely leave voicemails. Everyone else has been trained to leave a VM if there's an actual business or personal need to do so.

This is a very old problem. In the days of landlines, we screened our calls with the answering machine for this very reason.

[function_seven]

> Spam calls rarely leave voicemails.

This is quickly becoming not the case! I get several spam voicemails every week now. They're intentionally hitting my voicemail by placing a "dummy" call to my phone, then another call a second later (forcing it to my VM due to the first call being in the middle of setup). The first call is disconnected before I have a chance to answer it. It's only there to force the next call to voicemail.

The voicemails all follow a similar pattern. Here's one:

Hi this is Josh calling. We spoke some time ago about solar for your home but the timing was bad so I wanted to reach back out because we have a brand new program that's only for a limited time...

and it goes on from there. I've never once spoken to "Josh" about solar for my home.

These are call placement patterns that should be trivial to detect on the carrier's end.

[EricE]

Visual Voicemail and voicemail transcriptions are the greatest inventions ever. I love it that Apple also finally added the option to force all calls not in your contacts to Voicemail too.

Nomorobo used to be awesome, but even though they are not as effective as they used to be for the stuff they do detect I have it set to just discard the calls and that's better still. Keeps voicemail from filling up with junk. Now if I could just get Nomorobo's SMS filtering to actually work - not sure if it's them, Apple or some combination; really need to pursue that though because SMS junk is getting totally out of hand :p

[vmception]

I get the ones where the robot breathes in and out, at the beginning of sentences, and sighs to sound more human

[loeg]

I get a lot of spam calls, but only one reliably leaves VM: the “auto warranty is about to expire” scam. At this point my warranty has been “almost expired” for years, never mind that I never had an extended warranty.

[kshacker]

I have started answering many of these calls more so because of WFH as no one is watching me have fun. When they ask me, my car is always old - from 1929 Ford T to 1980s Toyota Celicas. Then they get on to either disconnect or ask if you have another car which is an opportunity to give them another old car or argue with them why they can't give me warranty on a 1929 Ford T. Fun times although I wish I did not have to do that.

But today I got hung up in 7 seconds. Feel bad.

[EricE]

Those are the only calls I get on my work phone and we can't get the IT people to either activate the free call screening from the phone carrier or whitelist at least one call filtering app. So freaking annoying!

[vmception]

For the past two years Ive been needing to clear my ios voicemails every few months because they are full of bounced calls that left a voicemail

There is also a deleted messages section, automatically made for some bounced callers, that needs to be cleared

Non solution offered here

[EricE]

For calls that Nomorobo detects, you can have it just terminate them - it's the only reason I still happily pay for their annual sub. Sadly they aren't nearly as effective as they were a few years ago, but they still get probably 70% of the junk which still makes it worth it.

[CubsFan1060]

Also younger siblings. "Tell them I'm not home!"