Comment by RHSeeger
1 year ago
Many of us are in situations where we get calls from various people we haven't had contact before (nurse at the child's school, parent's doctor, there's a lot of them) that should be answered immediately; waiting until later to listen to the message could have significant impacts. Some of the calls (injured child) could require immediate contact and, if not answered, could result in other issues.
My area code doesn't match my area, and most e.g. recruiters are calling from other area codes as well, so I can be reasonably confident that a local-area-code call is legitimate, but man is it frustrating to brace myself for "$child/$spouse/$etc is on their way to $hospital..." and instead I get "I was very impressed by your skills I got from $someJobBoardIHaven'tUsedInYears, are you free to talk about a $industryOrCareerFieldIDon'tWorkIn position located in $areaIHaven'tLivedInInYears?"* Especially if they've called repeatedly in a short amount of time without leaving a message.
*bonus if they're speaking heavily accented english and miss important connecting words, suggesting they don't even really understand the script they're reading from, much less the job description they just pulled off of Indeed or wherever.
Area codes are increasingly meaningless as people A: drop land lines and B: Keep porting the same cell number around (for obvious reasons).
Really what's needed it ditching numbers, at least as user facing things, and having something like phone-over-dns.
Yeah, when you have small children, your obligation to pick up the phone when they aren't with you is increased. I also find that whenever you're shopping for big-ticket items that involve salespeople and soliciting multiple bids, you have to forego your "don't pick up the phone for unknown numbers" policy.
I now just pick up and say "hello?" and count off two seconds. If I don't hear a response within that time I hang up. I've had a couple false positives, but they generally just assume there was a dropped call and try again.
I pick up and don't say anything. Humans typically, after about 4 seconds, go "umm.. hello?" and I have a conversation with them, while bots simply hang up.
Wow, everyone's imaginations sure ran wild with this.
Yes, I use common sense and DO pick up calls from unknown numbers when I am expecting them. Most days, I am not expecting them.
Same, except I am expecting calls from unknown numbers more or less constantly these days. I do remember a time in my life where I could get away with an attitude of "people I care about have other ways to contact me, so this is a non-problem," but that was basically before marriage, kids, and homeownership.
Newer versions of Android and iOS allow you to immediately send a call to voicemail and then watch the live transcription
If it’s important, the caller will generally start leaving a message, and you can pick up right there
One way might be to list a number that you monitor as their "emergency contact" but list a virtual or other no-pick-up-policy number for all other forms.
The only issue is that a friend once listed me as their emergency contact for a gym membership, but then the gym made telemarketing calls to me with it. There should be federal law protecting emergency contact numbers from being shared or used for any reason except an emergency.
Alternative method might be to set up a Twilio workflow that says "Press 1 to reach me" and only forward to your actual phone after that. That will probably eliminate all the robocallers but not the human telemarketers
I have children. And I didn't say I wait until later to listen to the message.
I can't think of any non-action-movie scenarios where me picking up the phone within a specific 120 second window would be a life-or-death situation. If there are any, they are so unlikely that they are not even remotely worth being annoyed by multiple scam calls a day.