The trick to making these calls stop is to convince them that they are wasting their time and resources to call you. This is very difficult to do since the resources that they waste are small and the reward of scamming you out of your money is so great. I have found a way however. You must proceed until you get to a live person. Then tell that person in the most forceful, obscene fashion that you can that they should go engage in intercourse with themselves and then call you back to report the results. This conveys the idea that subsequent calls will not be productive and they remove your number from the list more certainly than any other way that I have found. It also is very good for relieving the frustration that they have caused you to feel.
Perversely, this is also what is best for them since it prevents them from wasting time trying to wheedle you into changing your mind.
Try it, you'll like it.
Feel free to cut and paste this advice on similar sites!
Being on or reporting these numbers to the Do Not Call list is a waste of time. These people are not a legitimate business and have no fixed address or phone number. They are using robo dialing so it doesn’t matter if you’re unlisted and, they’re using VOIP so they can” spoof” the number they are calling from. More than likely they are not even calling from this country or they’re calling from a prison or jail somewhere. They are scammers who out for your financial information so they can rob you. First of all never ever answer a number you don’t recognize. All that does is verify they called a “live” number. If it’s family, friends, or some other legitimate call they will leave a message and you can call back. It’s hard at first to ignore a ringing phone but it gets easier, trust me. If curiosity gets you, Google the number and confirm it was a thief calling. Next, most phones allow you to “Save” the number to your directory. Do that and give it a name like “Spam” and then a sequential number if your phone won’t allow multiple entries with the same name (Spam 1, Spam 2, etc.). Then what I did was create a “Group” and the ring tone I created for that “Group” is 30 seconds of silence. I then add that entry to the “Group” I named “Junk Calls”. Now these a$$holes can call as many times a day as they want and I’m never bothered again..
There's somebody operating out of Seattle under various guises and caller ids--changed frequently. Survey and cruise winnings are typical means for phishing. But, today I'm blown away! In three hours this number has generated four pages of complaints!
The only way to stop them is never answering the number. Not even your answering machine. Eventually, useless numbers take up space and they'll erase it.
A new number is increasingly ineffective, as the new number you'll get was abandoned by someone pestered by these callers.