Say "NO!" loudly and press the End button. You can't hear them because you disconnected.

I have a flip phone. I use it for emergencies, and about four people know the number. I still get robo calls. They call every possible number in the three digit exchange. They don't care. Don't answer if you don't recognize the number. That's the best plan.

helped reduce the # of calls.

Real people will ask: hello? hello?

Robocalls hang up and go to the next victim.

If the caller does say something, and I don't recognize the number, I ask who are you?

They have three seconds to identify their organization or I hang up.

can answer robocalls for you, and engage the caller with a robot response designed to keep tjem on the phone for as long as possoble. I love it.

Jollyrogertelephone.com

How can they identify that as your particular voice? Do they play their tape to your credit card company? And how did they get your credit card info to start with?

iPhones have a quick number blocking feature. The best thing to do, on a land line or a cell phone, is not to answer any call you don’t identify on the Caller ID. If it is genuine and important they will leave a message.
Or, if I am feeling grumpy I will answer and engage with them for as long as they stay involved. They never get any personal info and will eventually hang up when they realize you are just bullshitting them.

A few weeks ago I had someone on the phone for about twenty minutes writing up an order for my “free Medicare back brace.” I always give them the address and phone number of the fraud division at my State Dept of Consumer Affairs, and I use the name of the agency head. When it came time to get my credit card info, which they needed for a one-time $3.95 processing fee, I told them that my relatives had a court order saying I could not handle any money, and they would have to call the attorney who is in charge of my financial affairs. It hurt my feelings when the woman hung up on me without even saying goodbye.

back in the wild west days of long distance telecom it was actually done by a company out of california.....do not know if it was a rouge employee working to make quota or company shenanigans. I dealt with some of their "customers"

Eventually someone caught up to this outfit.....

You hear republican whine about too much government....it is because of crook like these.....

Usually it would be a "you are paying too much interest on your credit card" call.

I express my gratitude for their timely help. Then tell them, sorry, can you hang on a minute I've got something on the stove. Let me put you on speaker. I ignore them until they start saying hello, hello. Then every time they speak, I speak. 15 or more minutes just fly by. Some lose patience and just hang up. Others get frustrated and say something rude. They get a blast from my Acme Thunderer Whistle and a hang up.

If the phone companies wanted, they could easily stop robocalls, even the VOIP ones. I've heard they no longer make much money from them, so why not?

but that is often a waste of time. My sister still has a land line and I was looking at her calls and there was one every day from
401-216-xxxx. The last four digits were different on every call, so they were just generating random numbers to show up on your called ID screen so their calls would not get blocked.
I will occasionally get a call on my cell phone from someone - usually a grouchy old guy like me - claiming that I just called him and hung up. I explain to them that I did not call, but scammers can generate numbers, usually that come from your own area code, and that my number must have been the one that showed up on his phone.

I rarely answer it and it is 90% illegal telemarketing and scam calls when I do. The other 10% are appointment reminders, pollsters, legal telemarketing and political calls.

This phone is at my part time home and is only kept live because cell phones don't work well there.

I've forwarded this to several people. Thank you so much!

It blocks robocalls - many of which are scammers.

https://www.nomorobo.com/

"This is your old pal Charmin' Harmon, and you can win one thousand dollars if you can tell me the KGFY* phrase that pays! Who'm I talking to, and can you tell me the phrase that pays?"

If they're still on the line, no matter what they say, I finish with, "Nope, I'm sorry. At KGFY, the phrase that pays is 'Go fuck yourself!'"

*KGFY is an actual radio station in Stillwater, Oklahoma.