Prank, harassing phone calls !

Yes! Oh man, sometimes if I see a number with an area code that I'm not related to in any way shape or form, I'll google the number and guess what? It always pops up as a spam caller or telemarketer or even a scam artist. A lot of calls I get, I call them empty callers because there is no one on the other side. It's just silence and then it hangs up a few seconds after. I found out that those are "feeler" calls to find out what numbers are legit and what are not active. So if you pick up, or it goes to voicemail, it's registered as an active number and then sold to other scammers and spammers.

There really is no way to stop this unless you screen EVERY SINGLE CALL you ever get. But if you do that, you might end up missing important calls that didn't leave a voicemail. So it's a fine line type situation. Pick up every call and end up on the scammers list, or screen every call and miss the important ones. What to do???

I noticed absence of prank calls since we can check the caller number. If the number shows, we know who the prankster is (they can't be anonymous anymore). If the number doesn't show, I simply don't answer the phone.