I had a lot of failures and lost expenses as a freshy, it feels awful.
Now, I'm happy to reject 90% of callers on the phone because I know only 10% are vaguely genuine.
50 garbage calls is a pain. I'd block those 50 so they don't bother you again.
Block daily, feels good.
I had 2 calls and 1 job yesterday which is 'my happy norm'.
I expect only a dozenish calls even if I get 3-5 jobs a day for example.
Low call rate, less mental effort.
If you're in Ireland, like Amy says....it's totally normal. I echo her advice.
The only place I've ever worked where that would be normal is Ireland (and in Dublin that would be a pretty enviable hit rate ). I get one, maybe two a no shows a year and I don't remember the last one - I did have one last August I remember being angry about because it was at 7pm and I was bloody hungry.
Are you getting punters to confirm before the booking, or just taking request then giving them directions and not expecting to hear from them again before they arrive? In my experience the timewasters don't confirm mostly because they've forgotten what they said and moved onto another ad as soon as they put the phone down.
If you're not sure on the phone, another thing I've done is ask them to ring back in a couple of minutes (you can say you're in a busy place, or that somebody else is due to call back and you won't know your availability until they do, or whatever). The ones who actually want to see you will do so, the tyrekickers won't.