(Picture alt text: a screenshot of my phone’s call log, with numbers redacted (just in case). The phone numbers (except for one) are all spam calls)
I’m not sure if this is the correct place for this, but I am at my limit with these.
Constantly throughout the day I get spam call after spam call. I constantly report them to Google (I’ve got a Pixel 5, if it matters), yet nothing changes. This has been happening for months.
These calls will also leave the exact same, completely silent, 4-second voicemails. I will block and report spam, but you know how it is. There’s no way to turn voice mail notifications off, and I wouldn’t necessarily want to, because I know I’d miss something genuine or important.
What do I do? Is there anything I can do, beyond changing numbers? Even then, I’m sure a new number would exist in some database somewhere and be victim to more spam calls. This is heinous.
Thanks for reading. I’m just so frustrated.
Edit: this got a lot more attention than I anticipated. I appreciate the suggestions for different spam blockers and settings! It’s also nice knowing I’m not alone. Hopefully, at least in the US, we’ll get some real legislation eventually that will kill these spam calls once and for all.
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Not in America. Dude, same. I get 2,3 spam calls a day, sometimes like 6. It’s so annoying.
Of course nothing changes when reporting them to Google, your number is somewhere on the internet, change it.
Use Carrion from F-Droid and make it your screening app. Numbers that call you have to go through a verification that is mandated in the US & Canada. Numbers that fail this handshake verification will be rejected.
Will this effect callers who’s numbers I don’t have that I need to take? I have business calls all the time where I don’t know the number.
As long as its a legit number that uses a popular carrier that supports modern protocols they should come through. I’d test it out yourself if you have any concerns.
That’s awesome. Thank you. I’ll try it.
This totally blocks all scam calls for me:
I’ll just pick up the call and immediately mute my microphone. That way at least I don’t get the voicemail.
That still counts as an active number. Most providers these days have a spam blocking option, have you tried turning that on? I’m with tmo and get very few spam calls. I get the odd text offering to buy my house but I have my ways of dealing with them.
Your voicemail picking up the call still counts as an active number.
Where did I say anything about vm? I get very very few spam calls and androids dialer does a really good job of identifying the few calls that get through tmo as spam.
Here is my vm log, notice how few are actually there? I honestly don’t remember if/when I ever cleared any out from this phone number. My old ass direct line is on GV and it’s set to never ring.
The discussion was about letting it go to voicemail, I responded saying I pick it up, you said that counts as an active number. You didn’t mention vm, but that’s what the discussion started with.
I believe iOS has a built in feature to block spam calls, but I don’t use it. It already labels them as “Scam Likely”. If there’s anyone in the world named Scan Likely, I feel very bad for them.
I used to pick up spam calls and go along for as long as I could. For at least 5 years now my number has been blacklisted in India, I’ve never gotten a single Indian spam call since. I used to get a car warranty call every few months but I’m pretty sure they black listed me as well. I got pretty deep into the hierarchy getting names, payment details, anything. But the car they called me about doesn’t exist.
This worked for me. Over time I got less and less calls and now I get none at all. I’m guessing I got marked as inactive eventually.
Who is your provider? If they have an online toggle for more spam detection/blocking, turn that on. Alternatively you could move to another provider who does a better job at handling spam calls.
Since you have a Pixel maybe try changing the call screening settings?
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I don’t see why prison calls need to be filtered out by spam filters
Probably because if they are automatically marked as “legit” spammers will just spoof those numbers.
Where is this setting?
Open phone app, 3 dots at the top right, settings, call screen
Interesting, the menu in your screenshot isn’t available on my Pixel
Are you in the US? I believe call screen is region limited.
I have the AI call screening, just not this specific menu… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Silly question, but where in settings is this? I feel like I’ve had it set up but can’t remember.
Open phone app, 3 dots at the top right, settings, call screen
Seems to be on, apparently… Thank you for showing me though!
I would make sure you have it on “maximum protection” to ensure it screens all unknown callers.
Personally I use Fossify phone to send all unknown callers to voicemail. Then disable my voicemail. It causes problems, but fewer problems than having my phone blowing up all day with spam calls.
Also the stock Pixel dialer makes it nearly impossible to decline calls because the button is at the bottom of the screen, but you have to swipe down to decline…
You can also just borrow someone else’s phone and jam-pack it full of voicemails until it stops accepting them. Then leave a voicemail message asking them to text or email.
Thank you! I didn’t know where to find that setting and I didn’t know exactly what term to search in the settings to find it.
I just leave it on maximum. Too many spoofed local numbers. If it’s someone important a d they’re not in my contacts, they’ll either make it through the screener or leave a message.
So the solution is give Big Daddy G more control huh. How convenient for them.
I used to get these all the time, dont think ive had any yonks. Wonder if they changed something down here.
You could try talking to your phone company about it. My wife had a problem where someone was spoofing her number to make the spam calls. So she’d get call backs from old ladies asking her who she is and what she wanted. But T-mobile shut down her number for like 24 hours, which was inconvenient for a day, but when it came back on the problem was resolved.
Put your phone on do not disturb for anyone not in your contacts. I almost never get spam calls anymore because my phone just sends them all straight to voicemail and they seem to have figured out that they’ll never get through to a real person. It took a few months, and I still had to clear out quite a few voicemails in that time but I didn’t get notifications about them so I could just clear them out at the end of the day.
Do you know if there’s a way to do this other than DND? I just set up a profile that’s scheduled to be active 24/7 where only people in my contacts can call, but my problem is that it puts the DND icon in my status bar, so I lose the visual indicator when my phone is in a more restrictive DND profile, which I do use sometimes and also occasionally accidentally trigger.
I’m not sure. I never use the full dnd setting, so I haven’t had to try any alternatives. I just know dnd seems to work better than apps that say they’ll block spam.
T Mobile has an app called Scam Shield that seems to do a better job than Google. If a call is identified as a scam, your phone won’t ring. You can report ones that get through. I installed this a few days ago, and it’s much more manageable now. I get something like 20 scam calls a day. This kept 15 or so from ringing.
I have started asking callers various disheartening questions, like “Is this what you planned for in life?”, “Does your family laugh at you?”, “Do your friends have better jobs than yours?”, “Are you an embarrassment to your parents?”. Most hang up, but a good number get upset - I imagine because their parents really are embarrassed by them. One person, whom I asked if he was happy with his choices in life, said “I am in hell”. My hope with these questions is for them to rethink a life of trying to cheat old people out of money.
For what’s worth, I registered for the FCC’s do not call registry way back and it helped a bit - but once you’re registered, if you get spam calls, you can report the numbers to the FCC for having called you despite being on the registry. YMMV but it might be worth a shot!
You have the Pixel, use your assistant on the calls. It’s good at screening them and they give up when they hit a robot talking to them.
Save all known callers to your address book. Set “block calls from unknown numbers” in the android caller settings. Done.
On Android you don’t have to save the number, you can just block it. I’m not sure if this is true for all Android phones.
you misunderstood. you save the ones you expect calls from and block all others by default.
Yeah I misunderstood what they said. Thanks for clarifying.
I know you can block numbers without adding them, but I mean to do the exact opposite. Save all of your actual contacts and block unknown ones straight away, or send them to mailbox where you leave a recording to email you instead.
Yeah I misunderstood what you said. Thanks for clarifying.
In my country hospitals and the like tend to call with hidden numbers, so it wouldn’t work here.
Whitelist > blacklist
This is hard if you have to see doctors. They like to call from different variations of their numbers.
I got so tired of them that I actually answered one a few weeks ago. I was shocked that an actual person answered.
I asked to be taken off and she was very nice and they actually did it.
Haven’t received one since.
