Do pervy phone calls still happen?

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Nowadays, with the internet, and calls being much more traceable than they used to be, the perverts have many other ways of frightening people, but I remember that it was quite a scary thing in the 90s and earlier; there were documentaries about it, and in one book of safety stories for children (stranger danger, etc.), there was one story about a child who answered the phone to one of these callers, and the story was full of advice on what to do about it, including the now discredited advice of blowing a whistle down the phone.

Scam phone calls tend to be the unwanted ones now, but I'm just wondering if the lewd ones do happen nowadays, and if it's something we should warn our children about, as well as all the many, many other things.

I volunteered for Samaritans and used to get plenty. It was soul destroying.

Especially when you didn't realise at first, because they pretended to need emotional support, but then the conversation would turn and you'd realise they were having a wank. Grim as hell.

I remember being an innocent 12/3 year old taking one of these calls on the public call box. He was ringing to ask if his girlfriend was there as she was meant to be there to take his call they were going shopping for tights and stockings aparinately and asked me all sorts about them wanting "advice" I didn't click on at the time but it still makes me feel sick many many years later.

Did blowing a whistle hard down the phone really deafen people permanently or temporarily? I wish I'd known this years ago when I was getting creepy calls .

My dad told me he once received a call like this at home, and when the caller said "I want to suck your cock", my dad couldn't resist saying "it would be difficult to do that over the phone". My parents were both Samaritans at one point, and they told me about time wasters, although didn't mention the pervy ones so much. I've just remembered, because at the time, I didn't give it a second thought: when I was a driving instructor, I received a call from the "Association of British Driving Instructors" (there is no such organisation) which started out as saying that a customer had made a complaint, but then turned into a pervy call.

That book teaching children about situations like this gave the advice never to say your name or number when answering the phone, as people did in those days, because sometimes people like this dialled numbers at random.