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Comment by andybak | Hacker News Reader

> Seriously, who's picking up those calls?

People who don't live in countries where the problem is this bad?

I'm in the UK and I get about 1 unsolicited call a month. If I didn't pick up numbers I didn't recognize I would have missed my Doctor (this week), several new client leads and multiple friends and acquaintences that changed their number.

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Also people older than ~60 who still have a landline at home, and grew up without caller-id. Answering unknown phone calls was normal, because you never knew who the caller was.

You don’t have to be 60+ to have grown up without caller ID. I’m much younger than that, and we certainly didn’t have it for at least most of my childhood.

However, I do not have a landline at home now, and have not in many years.

In the UK, doctors don't provide caller-id, not even the number of a hospital switchboard.

I don't pick up unknown numbers, I call them back a bit later. If the number turns out to belong to a call center, great, I just hang up. If it's a real person, sure, let's chat.

If somebody really wants something, they'll call again.

Also, sending an SMS to the unknown number and asking for a name works wonders.

If someone really wants something they will take the time to type.

If US presidential election pollster cold calls are reaching voters in the UK, things are really screwed up.

I'm not suggesting that. I was suggesting that unsolicited calls in general aren't that bad in the UK. We have our own pollsters you know!

Wouldn’t all those people leave voicemails?

In some countries, voicemail is not a thing.

I guess so but I loathe voicemail more than I loathe the occasional marketing call.

It's easier to just answer given the overall chance of it being a waste of time.

Just let your voicemail fill up, if it bothers you that much. If you miss an important call, it will show up as a missed call on your phone.

This is getting really off topic but I also don't answer calls unless I know them. My mobile voicemail is redirected to my Google Voice # and the automatic transcription is good enough that I usually don't need to listen to the actual voicemail. You might want to give that a try.

No Google Voice outside the US and I've never found a satisfactory alternative.

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