Never give any company your cell number.  Just don’t.  I’ve tracked this, I generate new numbers for many common needs, such as recently, refinancing a loan.  The amount of garbage suddenly sent to that new number is unreal.  It was a number we’ve had for nearly ten years unused, clean.  I have one generic personal number that I use for companies.  It just goes to VM.  I can’t picture what company needs to talk to me NOW instead of leaving a message.

Funny story:  An Indian-run dry cleaner, and Indian-run store have actually been offended by this.  They said they would text me, and I said they can’t because it’s a landline.  The dry cleaner in particular was super perturbed that she “can’t send me coupons and reminders to get things cleaned” and then more pissed when I said those are ads I don’t want.  The c-store nearly told me to just get out.  WTF.


On Mar 18, 2026 at 8:40:47 AM, Alex Balashov via VoiceOps <voiceops@voiceops.org> wrote:


On Mar 18, 2026, at 11:37 AM, Aaron C. de Bruyn <aaron@heyaaron.com> wrote:

I wish my upstream (Twilio) had a big "Flag as Spam" button or API call that would send all the relevant info to whomever needs to know.

E-mail sorta has spam reporting handled, but Voice/SMS doesn't appear to have that sorted out yet.

I have been receiving the "tax resolution center" / "loan determination" / "debt consolidation" scam calls, many of them from TFNs, for close to a year at this point. They often overwhelm my phone, sometimes several come in at the same time from different DIDs, and they often interrupt other tasks or calls.

I don't know what to do about it other than change my number (TMO), which I'm unwilling to do with how much 2FA and business stuff is tied to it. Turning on the iOS "ignore calls from unfamiliar numbers" is also totally not an option because I get lots of legitimate calls from unfamiliar numbers. It's really, really, really bad. I seem to have been singled out for an exceptional volume of these.

I have on occasion pressed '2' on their IVR to speak to an "agent". The transfers are instant with no hold time. 100% of "agents" have been Indian.

-- Alex

--
Alex Balashov
Principal Consultant
Evariste Systems LLC
Web: https://evaristesys.com, https://www.csrpswitch.com
Tel: +1-706-510-6800

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