Then the person sends you a 2 minute long audio over whatsapp
Not if I don’t have whatsapp.
At least I can get a transcript and speed it up a bit
The True Crime here is an 11 year old child with a (I suppose) Smartphone.
I would totally understand if it was in a place where your kids can take a walk or public transport to school or other places on their own. I would also want them to have means to call you.
EDIT: my bad, I ignored the ‘smart’ bit there. I just meant any phone.
Can be a normal phone which is what I would do if I where a parent and my kid would have to bike 12 km to school every day.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I’d just like to mention that it was perfectly normal for kids to go on 12km without a phone not so long ago, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it now. Parents worry too much. I mean, it’s a biological impulse that makes a lot of sense, but it’s often over done.
Well yeah, but it is always good to carry a phone with you especially when you bike through somewhere where there isn’t a lot of other traffic or it is off your unusual route. There is nothing wrong with carrying a Nokia 3310 or something
Ye, I think it’s fine either way, nokia or no phone at all. I cycled 17km to school from age 12 to 17 and only got my first phone when I was 18 and moved out. Of course I did get a flat tire a couple of times, but then I’d just walk or sat at the back of the bicycke of a friend.
And what if you fell while you where alone and broke a leg making it impossible for you to walk? Or you friend fell and hit his head open on the road being able to call for help is actually pretty handy.
Like it might sound absurd, but shit happens
I suppose living in the Netherlands, a pretty crowded place, assures you that you’re rarely ever alone in the middle of nowhere for very long. But yes that is handy and I can totally understand parents feeling comfortable with their kids being able to call for help if anything ever happens to them.
No you are never that far from society in NL, but at moments when every second counts I would rather just have a phone for my kid. Use something like a Nokia, give them a 10 euro prepaid card and if it is used up buy more and take it from their savings.
At least that’s what ill do when I have kids
I think a lot more kids got napped in the States before cellphones were common
Kidnaps are and were never common. It’s one of the most overrated risks that parents worry about. And also one of the most disastrous especially in the US, where people, riled up by media, seems to find it irresponisble to let your child roam around the world unwatched. Whereas experts have shown again and again that this is important for the childs development.
That paranoia came about when crime documentaries got big on TV (and now internet) rather than a consistent increase in abductions. People are really bad at reasoning with probability and undoing attentional bias from media, so they even think it can be likely kids would be abducted if left alone.
This is why 24/7 location tracking on kid’s phones is completely normalized. Sure, it’s not a bad thing to take precautions, but tracking your kids like a dog seems a bit much. And I’m sure a lot of parents misuse it for a lot less serious things (eg teens being at the mall unsupervised).
Normal Phone would be fine :)
Whatever you say Grandpa
Ok, brainrot
I think I was maybe 12 when I got my first smartphone, admittedly they weren’t really a thing much earlier than that and while I definitely have issues I’m pretty sure none of them were caused by the phone
There was no Instagram/TikTok back then, though.
Or Cocomelon, or other services and channels literally designed to break impressionable brains.
See, for me, if you call me and don’t leave a voicemail, I’m going to assume it was unimportant (or spam) and I won’t call back. Businesses, which are most likely going to an unknown number, should leave a voicemail if they want any action on my part. I mostly don’t want businesses texting me because they tend to spam the fuck out of you. And I’m sure as fuck never going to pick up the phone for an unknown number.
Recently, I’ve been getting calls I’m pretty sure are spam. They are all from different numbers, but all of the area codes are from where I got my phone number, which is quite far from where I live now. Additionally, they all do leave voicemails, but each and every one is exactly thirty seconds of silence.
Spam or not, I can’t figure out the point.
They spoof a number close to your number to increase the chance you pickup, they don’t know you moved.
I’d bet the silence calls are to determine if a phone number is active.
I definitely know about the spoofing - that’s what made me figure it was spam initially.
The waiting for a voice response makes sense, but I’ve never encountered a system that didn’t at least say some form of “hello.” Not this persistent of one, anyway.
Thanks!
Interesting, one of the recent voicemails I received was a very high-quality voice courtesy one of everyone’s favorite text-to-speech companies (perhaps ElevenLabs)
Wonder if it’s possible they were trying to route on the fly, if they had such a low latency system that they’re able to wait for potential victims to say hello before instantly transferring to a human scammer.
Probably a bot waiting for a voice in order to start. It waits until it hangs up.
That makes sense, and I appreciate the information.
You’d think they would have marked me as inactive by now - they’ve been calling every day or two, including weekends, for more than a month. I haven’t answered once! The persistence is the only thing that made me question whether it was spam.
It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop… ever, until
you are deadit’s no longer profitable to operate the automated service!
Had this problem too (phone number is from NM but I’m in MA now) so I just started messing with them. I’d answer “Federal Bureau of Investigation, Albuquerque district office, how may I direct your call?” Click. After about a week of doing this I haven’t gotten a single spam call, this was like 2 years ago. Who cares it it’s “impersonating a federal agency” or whatever, they’re scammers overseas, fuck em.
It’s AI, I’d be willing to bet. Waiting to detect a human before responding with whatever scam they’re selling.
that doesn’t really require AI lol
Playing back a message when you hear someone pick up? No, they’ve been doing that forever. But trying to determine whether you have a human on the line or just their voicemail recording? That’s something that could start to require more sophisticated language models, and the fact that the message didn’t just start rattling something off as soon as something picked up suggests maybe they’re using it. Actual phone scams using AI? Well, if they’re not doing it yet, they will be soon.
And I’m sure as fuck never going to pick up the phone for an unknown number.
You’ve gotta be diligent: if you do business with something, like a project or an appointment, you need to drop their number into your contact list. Every time. Yeah, it’s neat if you need to reach out to them, which will be never because it’s on the phone, but it’s primarily so they can call you and not be unknown.
I’d love a QR code with the org’s phone/mail/blah number on it at the front desk, because I do in-person a lot because fuck the phone.
My kid can make 100 push ups, when Nobody’s watching.I love that meme! I can see this one being real though
ya if the child is old enough to know what a phone call is, they are old enough to understand how pointless voicemails are
This is perfect. At least boomers have an excuse. Millennials using voice notes is unforgivable.
Since about 2006 my voicemail message has been “for a faster response send me a text message.” When I started my business I added my business name and rerecorded the rest. If a client can’t send a text instead of call then I’m going to charge them more.
That’s a greater idea I’m doing that
That’s actually really smart lol
The absolute worst thing about voicemail is that you can’t just listen to the one you just got. I have about 50 unheard voicemails at this point. You leave one? I have to work my way through 50 just to hear yours. And it doesn’t even let me work from most recent. Nope. Just never going to happen.
huh? Android lets you pick from a menu.
What? How do you set that up?
It’s carrier specific. Mine doesn’t do that either. iPhones seem to be the only ones that force it. Otherwise I get to sit through the same dial-in voicemail service as ever.
Darn, I thought that was the case but I was kinda hoping that I could get around it.
The feature is called “Visual Voicemail”. Your carrier may support it, but if it’s like mine they likely charge extra. iOS works around it by just answering the call and saving a recorded message.
Most smartphones offer voicemail transcription now, I believe. Or at least Apple does. I don’t have voicemail set up on my Android phone to check.
I used to use an app called Hullomail which brought them into an app as voice clips you can see the caller and play or export.
It also showed you missed calls while your phone was off since they can just flag when a call was redirected to them. Super useful.
IIRC they got acquired and removed the free tier but you might still find them useful.
It is ridiculous that in 2025 you still don’t have random access voicemail.
Life must really suck when you’re too dumb to know how things work.
As your dad proved when he couldn’t figure out the condom
I’m an old guy, but I hate voice mail. Mine says “You can try to leave a message, but it’s probably full, and I’ll never listen to it anyway, so either send a text to this number, or send an email to XXX, and I’ll get back to you ASAP.”
I used to troll with mine and spell out my name, phone number, email address, website, all twice.
Most voice-mails I got were like “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHY IS YOUR MESSAGE SO LONG”
top kek
This is the way.
Though, I have found that the default message of “pinball_wizard has not configured their voicemail” conveys the same message pretty effectively, too.
at least in germany you can just disable voicemail
Brb moving to Germany
Mine emails me an attachment with the recording. It’s a lot easier than the old call up voicemail to listen to your messages etc. Lot of people prefer it to writing with their phones.
Back in the day, I realized there wasn’t really a voice-mail message length limit, so I had a 20 minute rant about why I don’t want voicemails
I don’t like voicemail typically, but I have some voicemails from family members who have passed away and I cherish listening to them.
If I were you, I would save a copy of them somewhere safe. I wouldn’t trust a phone company or my phone to hold on to voicemails forever.
But one could set up an Archer style voicemail prank!
Voicemail is actually really nice, if people call you and don’t leave a message, the call was not important or a spam call. Its like the perfect filter.
Yeah but I get like 5 spam calls a week from “Nicole with loan processing” or “Joshua Martinez from the loan issuance department” and they always leave a voicemail that I have to delete because I tried to get a personal loan 4 months ago.
