How to Block Robocalls and Spam Calls
Spam calls are unwanted calls with intrusive advertisements to a mobile phone. Usually fraudsters or companies that do not care about their reputation usually use this method of advertising.
Today, a mobile phone or smartphone is in the pocket of almost every person. And his number is constantly distributed on social networks, personal databases are sold on the Internet or stolen by hackers.
Spam calls are not as harmless as many mobile phone and social media users think. They are not only annoying, but also threaten with personal data leaks and, as a result, financial losses. Block spam by all available means, file complaints and seek administrative decisions from the authorities.
Most spammers want to sell you their services or products. But there are also scammers among them who are always trying to extract any information:
- CVV code;
- Card number;
- passwords to your accounts;
- pin codes, etc.
Do not share this data with anyone if you are not sure of your safety.
One has only to answer the call at least once, as they become more frequent and become an avalanche. Is there a violation of the law in this?
Spamming is an offense and associated fraud is a criminal offense. Usually in the jurisprudence of spam is defined as a message addressed to an indefinite circle of subscribers and delivered without their consent and without the ability to identify the sender due to their indication of a fake or non-existent address. These actions are in violation of advertising laws and the right of citizens to confidentiality of personal data. Therefore, when faced with spam, you can contact the police. They should respond to your appeal, or at least suggest the address of the department that counteracts spam in your area of residence. It can also help to ask your phone or Internet service provider to protect you from such calls.
However, remember that you can fight spam on your own. It is important to behave correctly when receiving a spam call:
- turn on the recording of the conversation and report it;
- ask the caller again for the name of the organization, his position, name and surname;
- find out where he got your phone number and other data;
- report your unwillingness to receive advertising and ask to be excluded from the database.
Ironically, these measures are often sufficient. But only if the advertising campaign is carried out by a person, not a robot. If you encounter robocalls, these measures are ineffective. Automatic blocking of unwanted calls is required.
What Are Call Blocking and Call Labeling?
Most smartphones have a function thanks to which you can ignore (block) incoming calls from numbers outside your contacts list or from hidden numbers.
Ordinary mobile phones also have in their menu the means of protection against unwanted calls, the so-called “black lists”. The easiest way to use them to protect against spam is to block calls from unknown numbers. In this case, the caller receives a message that the subscriber is unavailable or busy. The method, of course, protects against spam calls by 100%, but is inapplicable for those who constantly use the phone for work, for example, sales managers, employees of call centers, government agencies. It may also happen that a courier from an online store or pizzeria, an ambulance doctor or a firefighter will also not be able to get through, because all incoming calls are blocked. So the method is effective, but the most inconvenient and even dangerous.
The disadvantage of this approach is that you will not be able to get through to any contact whose number you have not recorded. You can add numbers to the “black list” and pointwise – most modern phones have this feature. But the number of new numbers for spammers is growing exponentially.
There is also a less radical way – this is the installation of applications that allow you to determine whether an incoming call is advertising or spam. In this case, it is necessary to grant rights to these applications for labeling and blocking incoming calls. The principle of operation is very simple: when an incoming call arrives, the system checks if there is an incoming number in the database of this application, and, if there is one, the system asks the application for short information about the number. This approach makes it impossible for applications to receive any significant information about your calls.
A modern smartphone provides many more options for spam protection. Similar functions are built into the applications of popular resources. But there are hundreds of dedicated spam filtering applications running on Android and iOS, the most common operating systems. All such services collect a database of spammers and check if it contains every incoming call. The system itself asks the subscriber for information about him, after which he most often turns off.
Android and iOS phones offer many tools to get rid of intrusive ads. In this article, we will look at several ways at once on how to block spam calls on an Android phone or iPhone.
Let’s talk about blocking on an Android phone.
Google’s default Phone app already has built-in spam call protection, which helps you get rid of a significant portion of unwanted calls.
If you have another Phone application installed on your phone, for example, an application from the manufacturer, you can switch to using the standard Google Phone application by simply installing it from the Play Market.
Google’s Phone app automatically drops spam calls without playing audio or receiving missed call notifications. You can see blocked Android calls only in the “Phone” application itself in the section reporting on recent calls. These calls receive an exclamation mark icon and are marked as spam.
By default, the spam call blocking feature is enabled on all phones with Android 6.0 and higher, but if necessary, you can enable or disable it yourself using the settings for the Phone application.
Also, in the list of recent calls, you can block a spam call that was not recognized as spam. To do this, you need to click on the call and hold your finger until a menu with additional options appears. Likewise, you can unblock a contact that was mistakenly identified as spam.
In the settings of the same Phone application, there is a function for blocking unknown numbers, which can also be activated.
Can spam calls be blocked on iPhone?
The iPhone does not yet have a built-in spam call blocking system. But, it is possible to filter incoming calls by third-party applications.
To take advantage of this opportunity, you need to install the anti-spam application from the App Store and then open the iPhone settings. We are talking about the section for blocking and identifying calls, where a list of applications that can filter spam is available. Here you need to give the application permission to block spam calls, after which the protection will start working.
As for the spam blocking applications themselves, there are a lot of them in the AppStore, so you can choose something that best suits your requirements. To find these applications, use the AppStore search for “anti spam” or “blocking numbers”.
Optimize Your Phone to Block Robocalls
Get rid of unwanted calls and messages with the help of new and improved tools designed to block incoming calls from spammers and fraudsters of all kinds. Next, we will analyze the most popular utilities from this category.
First, let’s talk about programs that not only know about intruders, but are able to automatically filter out such calls.
- TrueCaller. is one of the most popular spam call blocking apps on Android. The utility has existed for quite some time and has managed to gain the trust of users, as well as noticeably replenish the database with scammers from all over the planet. TrueCaller was originally created as a utility for BlackBerry back in 2009. Over the 12 years of its existence, it has saved thousands of users from unwanted calls and quite effectively blocked attempts by fraudsters to cash in on users. The utility is distributed by subscription.
- Hyia is another tool that is able not only to identify a large part of fraudsters by their phone number, but also to automatically block calls from them by sending a busy signal to the caller. Hiya, like TrueCaller, uses its own database. The program is available for free for both iPhone and Android devices.
- Call App is a multifunctional application that allows you not only to identify fraudsters and block spam calls, but also to perform other operations related to calls. For example, you can write them down. And it also has a mode for hiding numbers. That is, the call will remain in the call history, but all data that can be used to identify this contact will be erased. Not all features are available by default. The total cost will depend on which features you want to activate.
In addition to third-party utilities, there are also system tools.
- Recently, iOS has the ability to automatically cut off all calls from unknown numbers. To turn it on, you need to open the system parameters of the iPhone, go to the phone section and turn on the toggle switch, the function of which is to muffle unknown subscribers. After that, you will stop receiving call notifications from any numbers that are not listed in your contacts.
- Android has a similar function, only you need to turn on the do not disturb mode and add the list of contacts to exceptions so that even in the Do Not Disturb mode, calls from known callers will pass.
Not all programs have mechanisms for blocking calls. Some are intended only to identify potential scammers, spammers, and indeed anyone else. This function can surely be useful to everyone. After all, even if you are not bothered by spammers, you are probably bored by managers from banks of all sorts, with their unnecessary loan applications, etc. And sometimes you just get a call from an unknown number and would like to know who needed it.
Tips for avoiding unwanted texts
First of all, you must regularly take all possible measures to protect yourself. Check apps and web resources thoroughly. You use services to receive SMS and activate applications, get additional SIM cards. In general, take action to combat spam and fraudsters in advance. But if the prevention did not work, then we hope that the applications described above will help you in the fight against spam.