Consumer Spam Experience - The Australian Government to Require SMS/MMS Sender ID Registraion

Personal accounts of overwhelming spam call volumes—up to 700 in three months, 20 per day—and coping strategies like ignoring unknown numbers, using spam filters, and relying on features like iPhone's 'Ask Reason for Calling'.

Consumers are increasingly besieged by a relentless volume of spam calls, with some individuals reporting as many as 700 incidents in a single quarter. This barrage has fostered a deep-seated skepticism where many now reflexively assume any unknown number is a scam, leading them to ignore calls entirely or wait for a voicemail to verify legitimacy. To combat this exhaustion, users are turning to a variety of defenses ranging from official "do not call" registries to advanced smartphone features like iPhone’s "Ask Reason for Calling," which effectively filters out noise while allowing genuine communication to break through.

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Just looking at my incoming call list on my phone for yesterday: "Suspected Spam", "Suspected Spam", "Suspected Spam", "Potential Fraud", "Suspected Spam", "Suspected Spam", a real call, "Suspected Spam", "Suspected Spam"...

Phone is set to only notify me for numbers for known contacts - does mean that I occasionally miss calls from other people, but I can live with that.

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I often get calls from people I don't know for legitimate purposes.

Spam calls happen but I'm not interested in social credit ratings for callers.

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Yes, was just relating my experience - it's just go the the point where I personally opt to play safe. Like everyone I do get calls from people who aren't in my contact list but it was getting silly so I've defaulted to ignoring them and it works for me. Anyone serious is going to be happy leaving a message - which suits me anyway as I spend a large part of my work day in Teams calls.

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I guess the signal-to-noise ratio matters.

In the last 3 months I received 700 spam/scam calls to my phone, my wife received about 400. We can't turn off ringing for unknown callers and we're getting mad. A few days ago I vented to one of those call-center people trying to sell me a cheaper power utility for the Nth time, and told her to find another job or something like that; she actually called me back yelling at me that "any job is worth", and yelled at her that I cannot fucking receive sometimes up to 20 calls in a day, sometimes at quite annoying times of the day! It's getting ridiculous.

EDIT: I know not everybody is having the same experience in my country. Some people are only getting a few calls per week; I registered our phones in https://registrodelleopposizioni.it/ and also I'm using android's spam filter which filters out additional hundreds of calls automatically.

EDIT 2: I sometimes wonder if we're being harassed by somebody ; I cannot tell. The voices are often quite similar, but it might be the albanian accent that makes them sound similar.

EDIT 3: caller id numbers are always different

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I too, but I never take them before I've looked up the number. If it's important they'll take my call or call back.

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If some unknown numbers calls me and they're not a courier or the bank (which rarely calls) I immediately assume it's a scammer.

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Good move, it's crazy how many scam calls and SMS I receive in Australia. In fact, if I get an SMS or a call, I just assume it's a scam.

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The 'Ask Reason for Calling' iPhone feature has completely eliminated scam calls for me. Real callers not in contacts leave a short message and I pick it up. Best iOS feature from the last few years IMO.