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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

> and it hasn't let me down yet.

It's let me down a ton. Deliveries, contractors, maintenance people, doctor's offices with a last minute appointment available, and so forth. Fortunately never for a true emergency, but that's also something to keep in mind as well.

There are lots of things that people simply don't leave a voice mail or text because if they can't contact you immediately, there's no point. Or if the contractor can't get you on the phone, they'll just move onto the next home and skip work on yours that day or that whole week.

So it's not win/win. It's very much win/lose.

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my strategy is to live in a different place than my area code and only pick up from number that do not share my area code. This is pretty clise to working but I did almost miss an instacart delivery because they happened to be from my home town.

> my strategy is to live in a different place than my area code and only pick up from number that do not share my area code. This is pretty clise to working but I did almost miss an instacart delivery because they happened to be from my home town.

I'm in that situation, and it works most but not all of the time.

I don't really keep track, but I'm pretty sure I've gotten robocalls with an area code appropriate to my city, either it was coincidence or they were using a database that had my actual location.

A good tactic I use is as stated + if you see a number you don't recognize is to answer and then put yourself on mute and wait. Typically robocalls just hang up after a few seconds of silence.

I struggle to do this cause it shows that the number is valid. Always leads to an increase in calls for me :(

Not answering also lets them know the number is valid, unless they receive some sort of error after dialing.

Call centers will dial multiple numbers and connect to only the ones where someone responds. Sometimes they will still hang up on you because multiple calls responded.

Probably a wash whatever you do after picking up.

I leave a simple voicemail message: please send me a text.

People that listen to that will... send a text.

It is sad that virtually every form of communication: snail mail, phone, email is overridden with spam and fraud, and the "FCC" does jack about it except a CYA "hey we said it was wrong".

The FCC has been so thoroughly lost to regulatory capture and licentious industry - lobbying - official revolving door that it possibly the least effective federal regulatory agency, and that is saying something

I don't think my doctor's office can even send texts. They just have landlines.

Same with restaurants calling about a reservation opening up. Etc.

Not to mention the fact that if someone doesn't intend to leave a voicemail, they'll often/usually hang up as soon as the prerecorded message starts. "Hi, you've reached" -- <click>.

Those sound like cases where you would have heightened expectation of an important anonymous call. If that's not the case, and you must always maintain a high expectation of an important anonymous call, then I don't know what you can do. I guess that's how the telephone was, say, 70 years ago.

This worked for us until we owned a house. Now, we get calls from random numbers multiple times a week, and if we don't answer, the house falls down or something.

For deliveries, if they have tracking (which most of them has) I'm expecting an unknown number, so when I pick up 99% of the time it's the delivery person.

For the rest, unless its an appointment that requires me picking up the phone ASAP (which is maybe once or twice a year for me), they leave a message and I just call back.

In France, we have a gouv service to block non-solicited phone commercial calls. It works pretty well. Combined with the default google spam blocker, most of the phone calls I receive are phone calls I want.

You’re correct. One suggestion is explicitly request email or text instead of calling. (Or WhatsApp in many countries.) Since some people are hearing-impaired, it’s not even an unusual request even before this spam program arose.

It won’t always work, e.g. the request won’t reach the delivery driver who’s a contractor of the subcontractor of the logistics company you mention this to. However, I’ve found it works with businesses that are small enough to care about customer satisfaction.

Add the contractor to your contacts.

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