Should I Answer My Phone?

Patick Reany

26 August 2023

You should, in any case, take some measures to keep from being scammed on your phone.
The bad guys can record your voice and use that to defraud you by using that with your
other information to steal from you by setting up false accounts in your name. Then there
are the many ploys that scammers use to get you to send money or personal information
to them. They can pose as lawyers for your nephew in a foreign country, or persons from
the IRS or ICE (Immigration and Custom Enforcement in the US) or a Microsoft technician
telling you that there's something wrong with your computer, when there isn't, or someone
from your bank, who isn't from your bank, and on and on it goes.

It is my own policy to never answer my phone unless at least one of two conditions is met:

1. I know who's calling me from caller ID on my phone.
2. I'm expecting a call from someone legitimate, though I may not know the person's
   telephone number.

I know that the phone policy I've stated above is extreme and it won't work for everyone.
But as for me, it came down to a choice between:

1. I always answer the phone, or
2. I only answer according to the policy above.