@Jack -Thanks for answering! I had not thought about the calls being the whole “live bait” thing like email spammers try. Yuck!!!

My rule of thumb is no longer answering calls that caller id (on cell) doesn’t pick up as being in my contact book and I can recognize. I’ve used similiar websites to look up phone numbers that show on my phone. The only characteristic common among all of them is they often call in spurts (usually twice within the same hour, then again the next day) then disappear completely.

Almost all the numbers I’ve keyed into similiar sites have come back with dozens of comments from others about it being some sort of scam or nuisance call.

I figure if it’s important they’ll leave a message (if it’s a legitimate call). Since it’s a personal line, I’m not too worried about letting voicemail screen for me, if the caller id can’t pick up the number.

Thing that worries me about picking up with these things, is I fear they’re fishing for live bait. What I mean is, I’ve heard about people using nonsense email messages to scan for “live addresses.” If someone replies back, whether seriously or to tell them to bugger off, the person then knows it’s an active email address. Then they can sell the address to marketing/spam companies for more $ because it has a confirmed live user.

I don’t know if it applies to a phone # as well, but I could see that being applicable there as well. And since I never pick up, these weird numbers that call me end up just stopping after a few tries. So I figure — they think the line is no longer in use, or whatever.

The last few days I’ve had a weird number of calls from the 876 area code. Google tells me it’s Jamaica. Couldn’t find a hit for the exact #, but from what I can tell other people have gotten marketing/spammy calls from other numbers very close to mine (same first six digits), so I figure it’s got to be another nonsense caller. I don’t know anyone in Jamaica, lol.

ooo. Sorry for the length of this comment, lol..