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Comment by toast0 | Hacker News Reader

From what I can tell, spam calls are mostly war dialing. Some of them are actually going sequentially, my spouse's number is about 400 away from mine, and sometimes she gets the same automated call minutes after me.

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Well, from what I can tell, older people are targeted at far high rate. Age seems to be a valued input to the process. I can guess a number of reasons for that.

Does anyone under 50 pick up the phone if they don't know the number that's calling?

Yes

When searching for a job is the best example. Though these are usually not hidden numbers and for me, if a mobile is calling it's either a wrong number or work related. Spam seems to always a landline.

In North America, all phones, landline or cell, have the same number format: 1 (222) 345-6789, where 222 is the area code.

Oh that's interesting, here in Australia mobile numbers are always 04xx xxx xxx (though according to wikipedia, 5 is also valid but i've not seen it)

Most people I know over 50 don't answer unknown numbers either.

But it's the same as spam... getting one victim out of a hundred thousand is probably enough to make it pay off.

Only when I'm on call.

Sure. Ever gotten a call from a delivery person with food? A doctor’s office with test results? A hair salon confirming an appointment? A teammate with an emergency at work? A taxi driver with the wallet you forgot? A distant relative that needs help? A potential customer referred by a friend?

Food I’m expecting, so I pick up. Usually my phone actually tells me it’s DoorDash calling, which is nice.

Just about all the others get to go to voicemail and I’ll read the vm messages at my leisure as my phone transcribes them for me.

My parents (over 70) get so many spam calls on their land line it’s comical. Last time I visited them the calls would come two or three per hour, nonstop, day and night. They would leave the phone off the hook at night so it wouldn’t disturb their sleep. It gets worse every decade. Answered a few of them and it was always the usual suspects: the IRS, Microsoft tech support, your credit card company, vacation winner, etc.

Best thing they ever did was cancel their (at least) 50 year old phone number.

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