I may have had one, but am not calling back any number that doesn't leave a message unless from my identified ones. My kids never leave messages though, they know I'll check after being unavailable (which is far less than more) and know it was them.

The norm for these scams, why take the time to bother with unknowns. In this case, call a number just to see who it was if they don't take the time to let you know.

As an aside, I hate junk snail mail and trying to get out of it is a pain. There has been more than a few times when what looked like junk turned out to be important. Now I take the time to open unknown junk paper. Can understand part of the wanting to know who called.

I don't even call back numbers if missed calls of people I know unless I get a message to call them back.
Thanks for posting this. Everyone is so connected to their phones, ithey have become a source if entertainment.

I call back unknown missed-call numbers all the time, so thanks for the warning.

Are the strange text messages a scam? The ones like, "You comin over later?". I ignore those.

graywings - if you google the phone number of the missed call you'll probably find out that it's a scam or some kind of unwanted solicitation.

We had a new one last week - it was a local area code and it was a recording that began with ......."every day thousands of senior citizens fall" I googled the number and discovered it was a scam.

My go to response to unknown calls (home or cell), texts and emails is to ignore them. If someone that knows me really needs to get a hold of me they know how to. Period.
If for some reason our children or hubby didn't have their phone with them and needed me they'd text me or email me with a phone number I could verify before calling. It's not a bad idea to set up a code that only your family would know as my sister got a phone call from a young girl saying she was her granddaughter and was stuck in California, my sister lives in another state than her GD so it was possible that she wouldn't have known her GD was traveling. The young woman begged my sister to send her money via Western Union and not tell her parents because she was afraid they'd be upset with her. That there was a big tip off to my sister that it wasn't her granddaughter so she asked her a personal question. The young woman got defensive which my sister knew her granddaughter wouldn't have done so she hung up and called her parents. GD was in school, not in Cali. That evening her GD called her back and they made up a code question and answer to keep this young lady, or anyone else, from trying this again.

Every person I agree to accept calls from is in my contact list. If you're not in my contact list, I don't take your call. So no, I would not call back an unidentified number.