How to reduce (non-spam) business calls to my personal cell phone?
I have a business phone number that I use for work in addition to my personal cell phone number which I’ve had for 20+ years. I’ve always used my work number for anything job-related (colleague contact, vendors, sales reps, networking, LinkedIn, etc) and only provide my personal for, well, personal contacts.
But having had my personal number for as long as I have, it’s very easy to Google my name and find that number associated to me.
My issue is that I’m constantly receiving phone calls and voicemails on my personal number from vendors, sales reps, etc that are either for services we use at my job or from vendors in relevant fields contacting me for various reasons. I realize some may lump this kind of outreach into “spam”, but I want to differentiate this kind of outreach from what I consider true spam (robocalls, phishing, non-work related sales calls like for home internet, etc) which just goes ignored and blocked.
I don’t want to answer every call to correct someone to use my work contact info. I can continue ignoring but it does fill my voicemail and I’m hoping to reduce the number of calls I receive on my cell every day (even if it were to only cut it down by 5). Someone suggested changing my outgoing voicemail message to flag it’s my personal number and any work related messages would be ignored while providing my work number. I think this may be the best approach (though I’d skip providing my work number as I don’t need it to start receiving robocalls). I know I’m not the only one that deals with this (but maybe I’m in the minority rather than a majority) and am curious if y'all have this issue and if so, how you manage it?
Google has a method to remove your personal info from results: https://blog.google/products/search/new-options-for-removing-your-personally-identifiable-information-from-search/
Thank you for sharing this! I've had my info on an info-sharing site that I've requested to be removed like 5 times in the last two years and they've "removed" it, but it keeps coming back.
I've been using EasyOptOuts for a few years to remove my personal data. They will opt you out of a ton of sites, 3x over the course of a year, for $20. Much cheaper than other sites. I've had great results this way.
This is a really good idea. I think I'll look into this today. I'm more than happy to pay $20/year. My discover card has this feature, but it's not that great and I don't think they actually get my information removed since it keeps popping back up.
I use Android's call screening feature. If they tell the screener they're from a vendor company, I decline the call, then send a text stating that this is my personal line and to please call my other number.
The app “Permission Slip” by Consumer Reports will automatically work on removing a lot of your data that’s out there, and opting you out of various lists.
In addition to that, I recommend searching your name, phone number, etc every so often, and if data comes up, take 5 minutes or so and ask the site to remove it. Most of the public data aggregator sites have a method by which to do it, though it’s often cumbersome; it’s well worth it though.
That app looks promising! Particularly for my mom, who's gotten countless spam calls since applying for Medicare. Literally went from 0 spam calls ever to 15-25 in one day, so clearly her number was added to some lists.
Alas, looks like it's only on iOS right now though.
A lot of those sites will put your data right back up once they think you're not paying attention. I've asked all the major players to opt me out, yet my information is somehow back on the sites.
9minecraft keeps doing this to me by stealing my content and making money off it while making me look bad with crappy and broken download links. I'm seriously considering setting up a repeated scheduled email asking the same thing over and over, every week or month or so: to remove my content from their site.
Maybe this is one way to tackle these annoying sites?
Security hygiene is unfortunately like that - it requires regular work. A cadence of maybe once a quarter once you have it in a normal place suffices, in my experience.
I've done five things that works well.
First, on my smart phone, I block all numbers for my area code that are not in my contact list. I still get spam voicemails lasting a second.
Second, I removed my details from all data brokers.
Third, I opted out of data sharing for all companies I have a login too.
Fourth, removed my details directly from any website that showed my phone or address. For blockshopper, which never responds to requests directly, I simply requested google remove their results from the google search results page.
Lastly, for my home phone, I use Google Voice and a hardware that connects google voice via the internet to my physical phone - I never get spam calls at home.