I get phone spam now and then, those calls where you say “hello” and then it’s a scratchy recording in Spanish saying you’ve won a free vacation or whatever. There’s a gazillion websites where you can report this stuff. One of the ones I like is Phone Spam Filter…I like to read through and see what people have to say about the calls they received. The difference between Phone Spam Filter and other similar sites is that they actually explain what is going on. Most sites, you see people leaving comments like “how did they get my number?! I’m unlisted!” But at Phone Spam Filter they explain that they’re just autodialing every number. They didn’t get “your” number, they just called a phone that happened to be yours.

The site offers software that’s supposed to protect you against telemarketers, kind of like this old thing I had that plugged into your phone line at home - we basically don’t have any telemarketing calls at home anymore. But for the software, you have to have a modem…do that many people really have dialup anymore? Their software is open-source though, so that’s cool…but I don’t know how useful it is for most people. There’s also fun anti-telemarketer videos.

The site also works internationally, BTW. I don’t know of any other sites that do that, but for example UK users can visit the UK Phone Spam Filter site. Unfortunately they don’t have any answers about how to handle telemarketers on your cell phone. I’ve heard of people adding “Known Telemarketer” to their phone’s address book, but then you have to do it for ALL the numbers they use. No thanks! Mostly I just love reading other people going “what is this?!?!” on these sites.