[LOCKED]WTF

“find my phone”

we were out fishing in a lake and it started pouring. we went in and was in a hurry to get the boat on the trailer in the rain. apparently hubby put his phone down on the back of the boat to secure the boat on the trailer, and forgot about it. we went home and he realized he didn't have his phone. he used find my phone and it brought us back to the exact location where it must have bounced off the boat after hitting a pothole. much better than the time (before the find my phone app) he had to change a tire after drinking alot for his birthday. he woke up and and didn't have his phone. after realizing that he had used the flashlight on his phone to be able to see to change the tire. we went back to the area and walked along the busy highway while i was calling his phone with my phone.

I had the "can't find my phone" problem a lot- until I bought a "holster" for the phone. 999 times out of 1,000 the phone is attached to my belt or in either the car or home charger.

It's that 1,000th time that sucks without having another phone to call my cell and figure out where the hell it is.

That said, the potential for losing a phone is a reason I never do anything with finances on my phone. Absolutely none of my banking info, CC info, accounts, etc. are on it.

A few updates ago the phone added a "wallet" where I think I'm supposed to keep all of that. Nope, not happening.

Do not want; do not need. Stupid phone keeps reminding me I have a digital wallet on my phone that I'm not using. Yeah, I know, STFU phone.

Once upon a time my ex had just left the house. About 10 minutes later 2 uniformed police officers show up at the door. The 911 operator had received a 911 hang up call so dispatched 2 units to the GPS coordinates of the call. They said the system told them the call was made within 25' of my front door so they were asking me first.

Apparently my ex had put her cell phone on the seat of the car and the dog had "butt dialed" 911 and then somehow hung up as she pulled out of the driveway.

I dialed her while the officers were standing there. showed the officers the number and asked if that was the number that had made the 911 call. I called it using the speakerphone with the officers there and asked if she had dialed 911... that's when we figured out what happened.

I had just finished processing a deer and luckily had washed up or I would have answered the door with bloody hands. "No officers. Must be a mistake. I'm the only one here and I didn't call 911..."

To the person that said, Why would you need a watch to tell time when the time is in your phone? (Not a quote)

I can’t find my phone at least once a day. Siri can ring my phone in seconds and the searching is over.

Yes, my watch keeps track of the time, my steps and heart rate, and lets me know who is calling it gives me a message when my phone has been put away. All of these things can be found on my phone. However if I can’t find my phone it does me no good.

This ADHD woman has found ways to compensate.

MAYHEM

I'm afraid we may end up side by side in stocks in the town square for admitting this, but I too still have a landline. I have found that the more I use it for making general calls, the % of robo calls I get seems to mirror the usage. I would much rather get them at home, than on my cell. I do a lot of business calls with my cell, so I can't simply ignore calls from numbers I don't recognize.

Also, like you, my phone is a phone, and my computer is a computer. Staring at that little screen trying to do stuff makes my eyes swim.

@Goodenuf, you’re absolutely correct, research “find my phone”. I left mine in the cart at a grocery store one time and when I used my wife’s phone to find it, it was at the store. I called the store and was told “no, no one’s turned one in” I had to tell the girl I was looking at a “map” that not only had it marked at the store, I zoomed in and the map showed the customer service desk inside the store. I told her it should be somewhere close to the far right had side of the counter, she looked and said “Oh! This must be it”.
As well, I drive a lot for work and my mileage is tracked by my work phone; the tracking app uses the phones location software and I am told its accurate to with in 12” of where the phone is.
Big brother knows where you’re at anytime they want to look…. Well at least they know where your phone is!!!!

I am still not a big phone person. Probably the single biggest use for my phone is for Waze on a trip. While I will text, I really don't like to. I prefer to be on a laptop vs a phone for doing anything where I have to type. Big fingers and little bitty buttons are annoying.

Years ago before I got my first smart phone I had a co-worker tell me that once I got one (vs the old flip phone I had way back then) that I'd quickly get addicted to it. Hasn't happened yet and probably never will. Yet another rarity in today's world.

Pretty sure your cell phone tracks every move you make. Admittedly it doesn't tell you, but pretty sure it tells a lot of people you don't know. And it shows the temperature too.

Well, at least mine does.

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:tahoma,verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:14px">"Why do you need a watch? Isn't there a clock on your phone?"</span></p>

<p><font color="#000000" face="tahoma, verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size:14px">I mainly use my watch because it shows the outside temperature and it tracks fitness goals, such as steps taken and miles walked.</span></font></p>

"Why do you need a watch? Isn't there a clock on your phone?"

You're correct. I don't need a watch or a landline.

"WTF is up with so many people still having a landline?"

We have a landline. We have been in the same house since 1993. When cell towers sprung up, somehow we wound up in the middle of about a 1 mile section of road where the towers on either side of us don't quite reach that well. I did put up a cell booster and that made things a little better, but we still get spotty service. We are in a small town and it isn't likely we'll see more towers by us anytime soon, if ever.

I have VOIP with an Ooma device. My only fee is that I have to pay the telecommunication taxes, which are about $5/mth. Of course if the internet goes out, so does that phone.

As far as donations, by law, they are required to tell you what % of the collected money actually goes to the charity. We had someone calling us for a State Police Benevolence fund that I picked up. When I asked them how much of every dollar actually goes to the fund, they said $0.10. They take 90% of the proceeds for their efforts and actually still expected me to donate.

Being in NH and having the first Primary, we get a LOT of political calls. It sucks for us when we're expecting a call and don't know the incoming number. The worst though is if watching free streaming content. The political commercials right now are ridiculous. At least with YouTube, you can skip most of it.

My cell phone handles spam calls pretty well. Most often I get a warning it's a spam caller. Apparently there must be a list somewhere of known spam callers...? Aside frim those, if I don't recognize the number, I just don't answer/hit "Ignore".

Some areas, like where my cabin is, don't get cell phone service. I would have to pay for 12 months of landline service to make the few calls a year I would make from there. The downside is- no 911 service in case of emergency. No, I don't have one of those pones that use satellites for 911 calls.

Why do you need a watch? Isn't there a clock on your phone?

;-)

Before I had my smart watch, I had to keep a landline to find my phone!

I am never troubled with spam calls. I had all unknown numbers blocked. People can leave a message if it is important. I can unblock it if needed and out the block right back up. There is no need to be disturbed.

For a while I had a land line as an internet backup to the satellite. Mainly for weather since the satellite would lose the signal. Then the IPs began discontinuing dial-up services and cell phones became better.

Bought my first home in 1992, never owned a landline phone. Had a cell in the 80's. Never saw a need for one.

Cannot remember having a landline it was so long ago.

And yes, the original Man Show was great.

"WTF is up with so many people still having a landline?

That's what I was thinking! The last time I had a landline with a number I knew was in 2008 (I had a security system that needed a landline until 2012, but it used a switch rather than a phone).

My cell phone identifies potential scam calls and has a screening tool that tells people to give their names and purpose for calling, plus I don't answer calls from numbers I don't know and block any numbers that don't leave a message.

What I also have is a constant barrage of political text messages from both parties and various causes. But the more I report and block, the smarter my phone gets about what to never show me.

It is just the two of us and we know that the world will not end if someone can not get hold of us. We like being able to smell the flowers along the way and clear our minds of things that are not important to instead of worring about ever little thing going on in the world; things we have no control over. The companies have made that every one has to be instant contact, why so that they can make more money by charging for things that one aready have. The one time I had a cell I kept getting texts about verious things then being charged for the texts that they were sending me. You would be surprised how many people have told me that they wished they could get rid of their cell phone but now they are hooked on it being part of their lives. Maybe that is what is wrong with the world now days so many people believe that they must be on instant contact they they can't reset their minds

WTF is up with so many people still having a landline?

We gave ours up more than 10 years ago. The only calls we ever got were from telemarketers and my mother.

I have had several sale callers call me back after I hung up on them telling me that I was rude. I answered I sure am with them then hang up again. As far as any political calls go I just tell them that I believe that all politicans are crooked and should be in jail for defrauding the American people. We answer the phone because wife have several jobs that she is looking after and we are never sure who is calling when it is the same area code. Haven't had a political call since.

If you are aggressive with reporting the robo-calls and scam calls to the Do Not Call List, they will become almost non-existent. I can not give a timeline to you. I only tell you what worked.

If yourselves want to stay on the phone and heckle the scammer, that's all you, have at it. I've got better things to do.

I walk away from this conversation.

Do Not Call only works on legitimate companies - i.e. those with something to lose by violating it.

Overseas-based calls or scam calls are unenforceable, so they just ignore it.

What really grinds my gears are these things like calls for donations to the "Breast Cancer PAC". They go on about the need for more research funding blah blah - but really, it's for campaign donations "to elect lawmakers who support breast cancer research".

Fuck that, and fuck any politicians who use such a tactic to hoodwink people who think they are donating to cancer research.

Unfortunately the Do Not Call registry exempts the type of calls that annoy me the most: politicians and charities.

The calls coming in from the same # constantly are not a problem. Just about any cell phone or landline answering machine can block a call from a specific #. The problem is that the vast majority of them are spoofed phone #'s. I can't see how reporting them does any good. The ethical hackers that traced these type of scammers did so from the laptop/desktop the scam hackers were trying to get into.

I had one scam recently that was the same #. They were spoofing my credit union # trying to execute a scam. A few times they called when I was done work for the day and I had time to fuck with them, so would keep them on the line for as long as possible pretending to go along with their scam, but giving them all fake info and making "mistakes" with their requests that tried their patience.

One of them was hilarious because he got so riled up that he was calling me a "fucking asshole". I laughed even harder at him saying that he was the scumbag trying to scam me thinking I'm the asshole. The more aggravated the guy got, the more amusing I found it and the more it pissed him off. Eventually the scam call center realized I was onto them and THEY took me off of their list ;-)

These days, if we don't recognize the # we just don't pick up the phone. Our landline answering machine will tell us the # of the person calling so we don't even have to get up off the couch, but with 3 daughters, we usually just keep the phone on the couch because inevitably at least one will call when we're trying to watch TV.