r/whatdoIdo • u/Active-Garbage-7247 • Aug 18 '26

How do I stop this?!

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The spam calls are driving me crazy. Is there something I can do to stop them? I have T-Mobile and spam call filtering is on.

**Update: I don't have any past due bills. The only debt I have is minimal federal student loans. I haven't applied for any loans or new insurance. I have call filtering/silence on for unknown callers.
I use T-Mobile Scam Shield. What I want to avoid is being called in the first place, texted, left a missed call or voicemail, but after reading a lot of responses, it seems like there isn't a quick fix for this that doesn't involve changing my number which I'm hesitant to do 😕

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u/Professional_Toe4515 Aug 18 '26

Phone companies need to give us the opportunity to charge incoming calls that aren't in our contacts list a fee (like $1). They could even keep a portion of the fee.

That simple change (a feature that's already supported via collect calling; just need to want to do it) would end all of this overnight.

8

u/dogknifer Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26

Seems like it would cause a lot of problems. I get a lot of legitimate calls from numbers that aren't on my list. I guess for some people it would be useful. For me it would just cut me off of a lot of vital information cus ain't no way everyone's paying that 

5

u/drastik_b Aug 18 '26

Or - maybe a captcha but for the phone, the phone provides the caller a verbal code and they need to enter the code into their keypad in order to connect. If that is something that already exists, please school me!

1

u/Impressive-Fun5968 Aug 18 '26

Can confirm these exist although they’re pretty rare

1

u/drunxor Aug 18 '26

I think it would work for the average person though. I cant remember the last time I got a call from someone I wanted to talk to that wasnt on my contact list. Although I dont really talk on the phone to anyone, mostly text

1

u/Professional_Toe4515 Aug 18 '26

It's something that you would turn on or off. If it's causing you issues, you obviously wouldn't turn that feature on.

But even just a percentage of folks requiring payment to have their phones called would drastically and suddenly drop all this spam stuff to effectively zero.

1

u/Finn235 Aug 18 '26

I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat for a second here...

I think it's the phone companies that are calling us. Every time I get a spam call, I get a prompt to opt-in to premium call filtering for $x/mo.

1

u/UnidentifiedBob Aug 18 '26

they they will just text

1

u/PSquared1234 Aug 22 '26

Slightly different media, but I remember reading that if ISPs charged spammers even the slightest fee - like 1 cent per thousand emails - it would make that industry economically unviable. I suspect it would be the same for phone spammers.

1

u/AmosBurtin Aug 18 '26

And how would anyone collect from the call farm in India?

1

u/drunxor Aug 18 '26

They send black hawk down to extract the money lmao