[v-erne]

Few years back brother of my spouse took his wife to Spain (thousends kilometrs from here) to drive around and see some sights. At some point they got a flat tire and while he was trying to fix it two nice gentlemans on motorbikes took everything they had by force (including phones). My spouse brother managed to borrow a phone frome some stranger that was driving by. And when he tried to call the only number they both could remember, his fathers, he did not answers.

Can You guess why? Thats right - he also had a policy to not take phone calls from unknown numbers (especially foreign). They had to go to ours country ambassy in Spain (which took a while) and beg for help.

Since that day his father answers all calls :)

[elenaferrantes]

You can leave a voice mail. I don’t answer to unknown number anymore due to heavy phone spam. My thought is "if it’s really important they will leave a message".

[coliveira]

That's the sensible answer. Nowadays it is crazy to answer the phone. If the message is useful to me then I respond.

[v-erne]

Thats interesting - I have two phones (with different numbers of course) and I almost get no spam calls (maybe a bit on the company phone but its still very low number). I must be doing something right here :)

[v-erne]

Generally that seems like a good idea. In case of father from my story somehow this was not possible - I do not remember why - either he had voice mail turned off (it could have been paid service at that time) or he did not know how to use voice mail.

[namaria]

112 is way easier to remember then anyone's family member numbers and way more effective in emergencies.

[v-erne]

You can get money for gas, food and shelter by calling 112 ? I do not think this works that way :) Jokes aside - by calling father they could get access to other members of family who could help with their knowledge what to do next and I bet they would do a lot more to help them than anyone one the other side of emergency number(direct money tranfer could save the day here).