Have you been getting a lot of weird numbers calling you lately? Are they calling your cell phone and maybe also your landline? A nuisance like unwanted calls can start to happen to you seemingly out of the blue. I recently had a friend of mine complain that he was getting all sorts of unsolicited calls. He couldn’t figure out how to make it stop. It was wasting a lot of his time picking up phone calls. So how do you make this nonsense stop?
Get on the Do Not Call registry
To be honest with you there really isn’t a sure way to get people to stop calling you. Even if you get a new phone number, which most people dread and avoid like the plague, you’re still likely to get unwanted calls from telemarketers, businesses, and scammers. You can however lower those unwanted calls to just the scammers and illegal ones by getting on the do not call registry. Once you’re on this registry you’re not supposed to get any more unsolicited phone calls. If you do then you should assume it’s a scammer or that they are breaking the law. You should also report them.
If you check the FTC government site you’ll see this info about getting on the registry. “Add your phone number for free by visiting donotcall.gov, or calling 1-888-382-1222 from the phone you want to register (TTY: 1-866-290-4236). If you register online, you will receive a confirmation email from donotcall.gov. You must click on the link in the email within 72 hours to complete your registration.”
Just because you put your phone on this list doesn’t mean you’re free and clear from all unwanted calls. It just means that most legitimate businesses will not call you without your consent. You may still get calls from some businesses and scammers. If you do then you should report them.
How to report them with a complaint
If you’ve put yourself on the do not call list and you’re still getting calls from numbers then you should report them with a complaint. This isn’t going to make it stop, but it can help. You can file a complaint at donotcall.gov to let them know what number is bothering you.
Another important thing to know is that you should never give these callers any info. If you know it’s an unsolicited number then don’t answer or hang up as soon as you know. Never push any buttons to select anything within their prompts as that could actually be worse than doing nothing at all. Don’t try calling the number back either.
Some people may try to call the number back to try to get your number off their list, but when you do that it can actually put you on a bigger list where you’ll start to get more annoying calls from other numbers. The best advice is to not respond to the call in any way. Don’t give them a reason to call you back. These annoying callers are just trying to waste your time, cost you money, or scam you in some sort of way. It’s unfortunate, but we have to live with it.
On a similar note, you should never respond to junk texts either. And never click on any link that’s in a text from someone you don’t know. A lot of the times these text links will be malicious. Don’t be fooled by the “click here to unsubscribe.” Just delete the text and report the number.