Our landline, is waste of space to me abut the hubby feels we need to keep it running. Rarely does anyone call and normally is for me since I handle all the business affairs. I stopped answering years ago, and have left numerous Voice mail announcements so would not have to answer unless I wanted to. Since the mean announcements did not work, tried my hand at the comedy ones. Since nothing ever left seems to have intrigued anyone to actually leave a message .I have resorted to. Please leave a message. Sigh. You have no idea how many nit wits will go- Hello , anyone there ? Hello, have you answered ? Hi my name is John, hello, um, well if your not on the line I am going to stop this call. Here's your sign - It is answering machine, leave a damn message or move along.
My message says, "Leave your name and number and I will call you back." I have thought about adding, "If I want to talk to you. If I don't, to hell with you. " People that I want to talk know to say who they are and ,"Pick up the phone" or something like that.
We only got spam calls and telemarketers, so we cancelled our home phone several years ago, and have not missed it. I have T-mobile and have it set to only give me known numbers, and any other calls go to voicemail. If they are legitimate, then the caller will leave a voicemail and I can call back; but the telemarketers usually hang up.
I keep a landline solely to have that number to use for store discount cards, website orders, and anything else that requires a phone number or where I can use one as an Alternate ID. I also wanted it as backup in case cell service goes out, although I'm not sure it still works. When I get fiber, I'm gonna find an internet phone provider and see if I can transfer the number over and get rid of the landline. When I got my new cell phone a few weeks ago, the Plan signed me up for Spam Filtering on it. Man, it works great!
We still have a landline, and it is our principal phone service, although we both have cell phones. Wife uses her cell phone a lot, but I answer calls on it only if they are in my contacts folder. Others get ignored or deleted.
I recently went with unlimited calls on my cell, and was going to cancel my landline (Spectrum). But for $10 per month I decided to keep it. Yes, it only gets mostly junk, but so many people that matter (doctors, etc.) have it and do not have my cell. Another thing: If I dropped, spilled coffee/alcohol, etc. on my cell and killed it, I would have no phone til I got to civilization where I would have to pay an inflated price for a new one. Assuming it wasn't an emergency like trying to call an ambulance or the fire dept. My landline has 5 phones on it, so I'm pretty well covered. I have a Panasonic in the house and it has its own call-blocking feature which works well. A previously blocked number will only ring once if they ever call back. I have my iPhone set up exactly like yours and that also works well.
Years ago we kept getting telemarketer calls from AT&T on the land line at the restaurant. Sometimes they would leave a message and of course when I picked up the phone to answer it, some person would start their spiel. One time I was feeling rather ornery and when the marketer started her written statement I stopped her cold. I told her I was very busy but asked if could I get her number and I would call back later. Of course she said yes and started to give me the number she was calling from which is when I stopped her again. No, said I, I want YOUR number not your office number so I can constantly interrupt you at home the way you guys do when I’m working. I never got another telemarketer call from them again.
I get automated spiels. They dump to Voice Mail, and when I play them back, I hear: "My name is Alicia. How are you today? [pause 3 seconds] Good! I'm glad to hear it!" I really resent my personal communications devices being used to be so damned intrusive. I'm not paying cellphone bills just so I can have a telemarketing conduit strapped to my hip for the convenience of others. Of course, this is nothing new. I recall getting those calls on our landline back in the 60s. I guess it's better than having the Kirby guy show up and throw a can of ashes on your carpet before you can slam the door in his face. I still try to have empathy for people who are at a place in their lives where they do that for a living...but it's not easy.
We still have our landline; it's "bundled" with cable TV and internet and it's just as cheap to have it as not.
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Like everything else, this reminds me of a tangentially related story... You know those goofy emails "Your Nigerian uncle has died and left you $1,000,000. Just send us $500 to get the will out of probate and the money will be yours!" They are crudely written to be obviously unbelievable for a reason. The idea is that if those emails had been written to seem to be genuine, some number of people might respond and then bail when they realized the whole thing is a scam. From the scammer's point of view, it's best to not even waste time with those people in the first place. So the emails are written such that those who would eventually smell a rat don't even bother in the first place...only those who might get sucked into sending money would respond. It's smart and it's sneaky, all at the same time...just like all marketing.
Are you looking for the Do Not Call Registry? It seemed to make an initial difference for me, and then the calls started up again. But I had just bought a new car (so the Vehicle Maintenance Program calls started up.) And who knows how much worse it might have been had I not registered. I also thought I heard that the off-shore call centers were out of the reach of U.S. control, but am not sure how significant an issue they are. My new phone came with a Stop Spam app on it that has really helped (or maybe it's a feature of my Verizon plan.) The Vehicle Maintenance calls get shuttled to Voice Mail without my phone ringing at all, and I get a text notification that the call was blocked. I've yet to have a legit call identified as spam (shoved to Voice Mail), and I've yet to have a spam call make my phone ring.