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Comment by sm4rk0 | Hacker News Reader

Over 50% of phone traffic is spam.

Please, don't generalize. That statistic is maybe valid in the USA. In my case (Serbia) spam is practically 0%. There's an occasional landline call or two per month but that's enough for making fun by letting our kids answer the phone and troll the spammers. Third world "problems" (:

Anyway, I support your fight against spammers.

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Living in Germany I have received a total of 0 spam calls over several years.

That’s because there’s actually a law against it. I remember some years ago we always had Werbeanrufe on our landline. We don’t have a landline anymore but I’ve not gotten a single spam call for years now (except from my own home internet or mobile provider, which isn’t “spam” per se but still annoying because they sometimes call you five times a day instead of emailing you about some minor things).

Same thing in France. I wonder if phone spam exists elsewhere than in USA (in UK perhaps) ?

I'm from France and we get daily spam, especially at night. My parents don't even use their landline for that reason.

My parents in France get spam calls on their land-line phone almost everyday. It almost never occurs with mobile phones though.

In the Netherlands, I get called unsolicited and for marketing purposes maybe once a month. The call is always by a human, I’ve never been called by a robot.

As soon as I notice it’s a marketing call I just hang up and if it’s not a hidden number, I add it to my “blocked numbers” contact, which I have blocked from incoming calls on my iPhone.

You could also GDPR the shit out of them... ;-)

I have mobile numbers in HK, mainland China and UK. I get zero spam on the UK number, and daily spam calls on the other two, although they hang up as soon as they realise I speak neither Cantonese nor Mandarin, which is a good enough spam filter for me :)

Seriously? If my phone makes any kind of noise and/or presents any text or other media that I have to look at and/or dismiss then it is not enough spam filtering for me.

Nothing much in the UK, maybe once a month if you’re unlucky

My parents in France receives 3 spam calls everyday, the first one always between 9 am and 10 am.

Don’t get much in the U.K.

There’s a lot in Australia

It was about 90% for me, personally; at least for a while. In Canada.

You're right, the number varies based on geography. Also it is subjective because what constitutes spam depends on personal preferences (I'm personally okay with 1 appointment reminder, for example, and getting work calls only between 9-6). Thank you for the support!

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