How to reduce junk mail and solicitation calls?

[iMas70]

At least 75% of the e-mail that I receive is junk! Things that I never sign up for. I'll sometimes go through the unsubscribe process but keep thinking I'm adding my email address to more lists when I provide it to unsubscribe from their list. Don't know if it matters but most of my e-mail accounts are on AOL.

Next up is solicitation calls. I sometimes receive 3-4 per day. Sometimes I let the phone ring and other times I'll answer and mess with them for a little while if I'm in the mood. I'm on the "Do not call" list. That doesn't work.

Besides hiding in the mountains with no internet and cell service, are there any good ways to reduce these unwanted invasions?

 

[bopajuice]

Every time I receive an unsolicited call I ad it to my blocked list. iPhone gives you that option to block numbers. My list has over a hundred numbers on it. The calls have slowed to maybe once a week if that.

Regarding email spam, maybe it’s time to get a new email address. I use one for social or purchases, and another for family and business. That way if somehow my name or email is added, I can delete the email and create another.

 

[Apple fanboy]

At least 75% of the e-mail that I receive is junk! Things that I never sign up for. I'll sometimes go through the unsubscribe process but keep thinking I'm adding my email address to more lists when I provide it to unsubscribe from their list. Don't know if it matters but most of my e-mail accounts are on AOL.

Next up is solicitation calls. I sometimes receive 3-4 per day. Sometimes I let the phone ring and other times I'll answer and mess with them for a little while if I'm in the mood. I'm on the "Do not call" list. That doesn't work.

Besides hiding in the mountains with no internet and cell service, are there any good ways to reduce these unwanted invasions?

I have three email addresses besides work.
@me.com I use for family and friends.
@gmail.com I use for purchases and the like. This email isn't set up on my phone and Mac. I just access it when I want to.
@yahoo.com I use for when you have to provide an email address but you know it's of no interest.

As for calls I just add them to a contact I created years ago called Spamcaller. It's set to not notify me. But tbh I rarely give out my mobile number.

 

[eyoungren]

I maintain several email addresses for different stuff.

I hand out my Yahoo address for when I don't want a particular online merchant or service knowing my home email. People bag on Yahoo but the fact is that they have a pretty strong Junk mail filter.

I manage to get what I need through Yahoo and I have yet, in the 18 years I've had the account, to see something in my junk mail folder that should not have been junk mail.

In your case, I might advise moving to a new email address and handing out that one only to friends, family and those who you need to contact you directly.

Use your AOL address for stuff you know you'll get spam for or for non-important stuff.

If that's a hassle for friends and family you could probably set up email rules or aliases within AOL to have those emails forwarded to your new email address. Any conversations replied to at that point would go back directly to the new address.

 

[iMas70]

I like the idea of having different email address for different things. My @me.com and @icloud.com address never receive any spam mail. One person, Boston Market and YouTube sent mail there (all legit). My main AOL account has been used for years. Friends who hardly send me email, message board notifications, and anything that requires an e-mail address. I've had that account for close to 23 years. I have a couple of other AOL accounts. They are mainly from when I used to list things on Craigs List. Some spam but not much. I wonder if disabling my main AOL account for a few days would bounce back mail which could cause me to be removed from a bunch of lists.

As for unwanted phone calls, my blocked caller list is long. Companies are getting creative with local numbers. I no longer think it's my long lost aunt from Phoenix calling after all of these years. Now I think my cousin moved two streets away and got a new number when the phone rings. Most of the time I don't answer the phone if I don't know who it is.

 

[Volusia]

We dumped our land line; 98% of the calls received were solicitors or scammers. I have noticed that within the past two months the scammers are spoofing numbers within my own area code and most are very similar to my own number (same prefix numbers). I don't answer them. If it someone I know they are probably in my contacts and will come up with a name. If not and they really want to reach me, they can leave a VM.

 

[Huntn]

Privacy, what privacy? Unlisted number? hahahaha.

 

[NoBoMac]

As others have mentioned..

Use the iOS builtin number blocker. I have also installed he Hiya app to handle call blocking. Has been working like a champ: only calls getting through are friends and family.

Got rid of landline and replaced with Google Voice. GV is setup with Do Not Disturb turned on, and that number is provided to everybody other than friends and family (eg. acts as my home number and pseudo mobile for businesses I deal with). Anyone that calls that number goes to voicemail, which, for the most part, telemarketers/robocalls will not leave. iOS notifications for missed calls and emails with VM transcriptions allows me to ignore or not anything coming in there.

Change email address to Google and have a secondary email address. Google's spam filter is top notch, rarely get spam in my primary Inbox. Has powerful filtering options, allowing setup such that most of my email goes to Trash or Archive and not setting off alerts for Inbox. And it's good on its own to determine if Offer/Promotion etc and not send to Inbox. Provide the secondary email address to anybody that is not friends, family, established business relationship.

 

[iMas70]

I have Google Voice and have been wondering why the phone never rings when I receive a call. Haven't taken the time to look into it to figure out why. I didn't know Do Not Disturb is turned on.

Something that I continue to wonder as I'm unsubscribing to another pile of new emails that I didn't sign up for... am I being lurked into signing up to receive more spam? Some mail has an unsubscribe button that supposedly takes me off the list. I just have to click it. Other mail takes me to a page where I have to enter my email address. I did this for about 10 messages yesterday. It was the same page for a lot of them. Am I helping the cycle continue?

Something else that I've started to do is hit the reply button to send it back to them. I guess I'm hoping that will help get me off of their list. Maybe I can do a few things to put a dent in the number of spam emails that I receive each day and not have to replace the email address that I've been using for over 20 years.

 

[eyoungren]

We dumped our land line; 98% of the calls received were solicitors or scammers. I have noticed that within the past two months the scammers are spoofing numbers within my own area code and most are very similar to my own number (same prefix numbers). I don't answer them. If it someone I know they are probably in my contacts and will come up with a name. If not and they really want to reach me, they can leave a VM.

We got rid of our landline about 10 or so years ago. Couldn't see paying $~50 a month for a phone we hardly use when we are paying for cellular service.

Additionally, it made it much easier for friends and family. They know my wife's number and if they want to talk to her they call her number. They know mine and if they want to talk to me, they call me. No calling a landline and then asking if so and so is there.

In truth, our friends and family were already doing this anyway since most of the time (except weekends) we are out so calling the home phone was a non-starter.

When it comes to spam callers, I don't answer a call that's not in my contact list. I have an extensive BLOCKED CALLER contact with a silent ringtone I add any number to that I believe is spam. Using Google to search a number you don't know is also useful and has prompted me to add quite a few numbers to this contact.

Family that happens to be in my contacts does not live in my state so any 'local' numbers pretending to be family are immediately suspect.

Finally, my iPhone is jailbroken and I have iBlacklist installed. Any number added to my blocked caller contact gets added to iBlacklist. iBlacklist is set to answer and hangup. Thus, spam callers never even get a chance to leave VM.

 

[kazmac]

Sound advice in this thread. Whenever I do not recognize the number (i.e. most phone calls I get on my iPhone), I immediately block them.

As far as emails, one of my three gmail addresses is for purchases, one for family, friends and work and the third just for me. Gmail has a good set up with promotions (which I often just punt to spam, or mark it as such.) The spam calls come in waves, I'll get 1-3 day for a few days then it will stop before it starts up again.

One of the reasons why I stick with iOS is that is very easy to do. I should probably look up the general phone numbers of the jobs I apply to, so I do not block them by accident.

 

[0388631]

AOL? Wow.

 

[D.T.]

Another spam/solicitation blocking solution for iOS I've been using is NoMoRobo. Works terrific, isn't as intrusive as some others - and ignore some of the negative reviews complaining about needing to refresh blacklists or contribute bogus numbers, if anything, it means more up-to-date lists - spam blocking requires a little proactive effort. It's a $1.99/month recurring fee, well worth it, dramatically decreased our "time share" calls

 

[shinji]

If you're on AT&T, check out the free AT&T Call Protect app.

 

[Tech198]

At least 75% of the e-mail that I receive is junk! Things that I never sign up for. I'll sometimes go through the unsubscribe process but keep thinking I'm adding my email address to more lists when I provide it to unsubscribe from their list. Don't know if it matters but most of my e-mail accounts are on AOL.

Next up is solicitation calls. I sometimes receive 3-4 per day. Sometimes I let the phone ring and other times I'll answer and mess with them for a little while if I'm in the mood. I'm on the "Do not call" list. That doesn't work.

Besides hiding in the mountains with no internet and cell service, are there any good ways to reduce these unwanted invasions?

Really no way to prevent this 100% You can reduce it, but if u use an email online, u'r always gonna get spam,,

For the most past, i get around it by abandoning my old email address, set up a new one with my ISP and never give it out ever, except friends you "trust"

Or get a Gmail account, and hide the "Spam" label...

You'll still get spam but you won't "see" if the label is not there.

The reverse of this is it may not be perfect in all cases either since people mark messages as "not spam" but that doesn't always mean its spam to "you" but based on enough "spam" clicks in Gmail interfact, it would go into your spam folder for all, not just for them..

Collaborative filtering Gmail users (use users to tag which is spam and which isn't) is good at fighting spam, when enough people flag such message as "spam"the filtering is applied to "everyone" not only to that email who gets the same email.

So, its always 'hit' & 'miss'... The goal is keeping spam count low. This includes NOT clicking the 'unsubscribe' link. as spammers then know a human clicked at the email address, so just encourages to send more spam, not eliminate in all cases.

Calls are much easier to solves personally Only accept from known phone numbers, and ignore private calls..

 

[Apple fanboy]

I get no more than 5 spam calls a year. Mostly as I rarely give out my number.
However the not picking up unknown calls isn't an option for me due to a complicated family situation.

I get more spam texts. But they are easy to ignore and get added to my spam caller list.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Some very interesting (and useful) advice tendered in this thread.

 

[HDFan]

I get no more than 5 spam calls a year

That's how many calls I get on my hardwired phone in a single bad day. Nomorobo (if you are in the U.S.) as mentioned above is my savior for a Comcast hard wired phone which supports dual ring. One ring goes to nomorobo which hangs up the call before it even gets to the 2nd ring. Nomorobo.com service is free.

I understand that they also have an app now for IOS, however they do charge $2 a month for the service.

You can report callers, such as the people who call my iPhone using my same exchange (so I know not to pick up the call) to the FCC:

https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=39744

I do most of my mail reading on my Mac and spam sieve does a great job. Haven't tried it on IOS.

 

[eyoungren]

Whenever I do not recognize the number (i.e. most phone calls I get on my iPhone), I immediately block them.

I wouldn't go that far. I'd at least let the caller leave a VM. If the VM is legit then I take it from there. If no VM and Google says the number is a scammer then I block.

We have too many people with legitimate reasons to be calling us that are not in our contacts list. Our landlord for example, has a revolving door for repair people. We never know what phone number we will get a call from. Instantly blocking them just because they are not in our contacts means we don't get help and our landlord gets pissed.

People related to our kids schools we don't talk to very much. Appliance delivery people, my wife's schoolmates, etc.

No, that's just a little overreaction for us.
[doublepost=1508166333][/doublepost]

Another spam/solicitation blocking solution for iOS I've been using is NoMoRobo. Works terrific, isn't as intrusive as some others - and ignore some of the negative reviews complaining about needing to refresh blacklists or contribute bogus numbers, if anything, it means more up-to-date lists - spam blocking requires a little proactive effort. It's a $1.99/month recurring fee, well worth it, dramatically decreased our "time share" calls

T-Mobile (our carrier) also has a free service. Scam Block. I have that set up on all lines except my wife's. It seemed to be a little too efficient on her line and was preventing some people from getting a hold of her.

 

[kazmac]

I wouldn't go that far. I'd at least let the caller leave a VM. If the VM is legit then I take it from there. If no VM and Google says the number is a scammer then I block.

We have too many people with legitimate reasons to be calling us that are not in our contacts list. Our landlord for example, has a revolving door for repair people. We never know what phone number we will get a call from. Instantly blocking them just because they are not in our contacts means we don't get help and our landlord gets pissed.

People related to our kids schools we don't talk to very much. Appliance delivery people, my wife's schoolmates, etc.

No, that's just a little overreaction for us.
[doublepost=1508166333][/doublepost]
T-Mobile (our carrier) also has a free service. Scam Block. I have that set up on all lines except my wife's. It seemed to be a little too efficient on her line and was preventing some people from getting a hold of her.

Different usage. I rarely get calls. Blocking phone calls from anyone I do not recognize is sound. Of course, I will make sure to look up the general phone numbers for jobs I am applying to and answer those just in case.

 

[D.T.]

T-Mobile (our carrier) also has a free service. Scam Block. I have that set up on all lines except my wife's. It seemed to be a little too efficient on her line and was preventing some people from getting a hold of her.

The thing I like about this being on the device (vs. upstream at the service provider), is it's a little more transparent in terms of what it's doing. So a call can either get through and get flagged, or be pushed directly to VM (and also be flagged). So it allows a quick review (ID'ed calls without a VM are pretty obviously legit spam calls).

Also, they're not trying to do some kind of number analysis, but doing a lookup against a central number repo, that super easy to contribute to (and reduces spurious flagging).