This is technically how it already works except for the government gets the $10 instead of us

There's no enforcement on this though.

Same with number spoofing. They own the network they can ensure the numbers are verified. Yes, there might be instance where another network connects that doesn't do verification, but all is needed is a way to signal the customer whether the number was verified or not.

Just preventing spoofing would be huge contribution as it would allow customers to have reliable blacklists.

Im not sure i want the phone company to make the decision.

It should be more along the lines of all phone companies must take a deposit to open an account. Foreign and voip calls must be linked to a deposit for the phone company to be allowed to connect those calls. A call gets reported as spam, the $ come out of the deposit, if the deposit gets used up, theyre banned from calling until they reup their deposit.

If I was in charge, all phones would be required to have a built-in taser. The recipient of a call should have a button they can press to tase the caller. This taser must be strong enough to seriously injure a human, like, burn ward you never hear out of that ear again strong enough, or strong enough to set any computer that phone is attached to on fire. Capital offense to remove or disable the taser from a phone.

That would solve the problem I think.

What's Merrell?

Some mobile networks have spam protection that's enabled automatically.

You could also have a "clean" number, especially if you don't use your phone number anywhere online, haven't answered a spam call before, and nobody used it before you (or the previous user was a long time ago).

Spam callers can't robodial literally every number, so they rely on lists of phone numbers that are known to be good/active, for example if they've answered a spam call before, if the number has been in a data leak, etc.

I get them because I was jobless for six months. Now that a lot of job sites sell your data and some jobs are straight up fake to collect data, it is so hard to stay off a list.

If you start at a new job and get a phone number that happens to have been owned by someone that signed up to a lot of stuff then you will get them... I sometimes also get random phonecall from old ppl that goes "oh shit wrong person" or text messages wishing me a happy birthday, I feel bad for those ppl. In the beginning did I answer them but it was annoying after x amount.

Apparently did I get a old mans phone number who was very loved but very bad at communicating that he changed his phone number and also signed up for many things. So I only answer if it is with in my work hours otherwise do I just ignore the phone call completely.

You and I do not sign up to shit that requires our phone numbers. Presumably because we do not enjoy getting fucking owned.

I used to not get any as well. Then for a new job I had to sign up with an American company, and since I didn't have a company phone yet, I used my private number.

Since then it's been multiple calls/messages per day, but over the years it's died down. I fucking hate it so much.

I don't know how or why, but it's 5-6 a day some days. Most get autofiltered so it doesn't even ring but they still get to leave voicemails for some dumb reason. So I end up with an inbox full of clearly AI voice generated messages. Many of them are the exact same handful of recordings. It's honestly frustrating as hell.

I got a lot of spam calls when I started signing up for "rewards programs" and eventually stopped signing up for them. I get 1-2 a week now.

Ironically that was the cause of the first worst scam calls. The govt had a do not call list that you could put your number on which then became THE phone book for scam calls instead of stopping them. If you've ever signed up for anything or paid for anything online and had to give your phone number, it went into a list that was sold on. With auto dialers, they just go through every permeation of possible numbers. I don't get many calls on my cell because I keep that number private and use my already compromised land line for everything.

Funny thing about that though is that it asks the caller to say their name but many of the spam caller just say my name, so now my iPhone says maybe: my name as the caller.

The main reason I ended up with another Pixel phone was for the spam filtering. A couple calls a day go straight to the automated answering service (where I can see the speach-to-text response of the caller on the screen) or get blocked completely. Text messages typically come through, but they're less annoying, and I can add them to a spam list.

Don't sign up for things that need a phone number

since STIR/SHAKEN rolled out, the scam and robocalls here have really dropped off. only a few per week now.. even to the phone numbers that are published (intentionally) online.

of the ones that get through, nearly all of them are coming through new voip points-of-presence popping-up in small towns all over our very rural part of the country.

I'll answer almost every call I can, but not say anything. I've learned that they wait for an answer before starting their shpeel, so if I answer and remain quiet, they hang up thinking I'm another bot. Then I block the number to be safe.

Unfortunately, some of us have to. I need my (and my bosses) phone number on danger / caution tape so people can ask me why its there & if can they ignore it.

Yeah but my company thinks that's still the best way to announce everything so I miss stuff all the time lol

There's also donotcall.gov that is for free.

If you are in California you also now have another tool: https://privacy.ca.gov/2026/01/californias-opt-me-out-act-your-privacy-just-got-easier/

I think it starts taking effect in August.