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Other Blocking call questions

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kat.hayes

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 10, 2011
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I pay for the block calling feature through VZW and for some reason I have gotten a DISGUSTING number of fake calls over the past few days. Many of them show up as "Wireless Caller". Like 15 in the past 24 hours. I just blocked "Wireless Caller".

1. Besides paying for my VZW service, any other suggestions?
2. Anyone know when "Wireless Caller" might be a legit call? When would this ever show up from a legit person trying to reach me? Just wondering if I might end up blocking some legit calls in the future.

Thanks
 
Wireless Caller can be a real person you may want to talk to. I have gotten a few that way from people who (for whatever reason) don't want to broadcast the number. 99% of the time, you would probably be safe in avoiding due to scammers, perverts, and bored banned MR members.

Edited to add: I may remember wrong but, when I had VWZ, their call blocking didn't actually block calls. They were sent to voicemail. Double check with Verizon and see if they offer an actual blocking service. I pay $4 a month with T-Mobile to actually block any scammers and nut jobs from calling me. There are third party apps available but, I can't attest to how well they do on iOS 14.
 
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Right after blocking the "Wireless Caller", I now am receiving "Toll Free Call"...just blocked that also. Isn't a "Toll Free Call" made from a payphone? If so, I'm guessing I am safe in blocking this to not receive future legit calls? Not expecting anyone I know to go to jail, hopefully...

Yeah, the VZW feature doesn't block, it just sends to voicemail...

Thanks
 
kat.hayes said:
Right after blocking the "Wireless Caller", I now am receiving "Toll Free Call"...just blocked that also. Isn't a "Toll Free Call" made from a payphone? If so, I'm guessing I am safe in blocking this to not receive future legit calls? Not expecting anyone I know to go to jail, hopefully...

Yeah, the VZW feature doesn't block, it just sends to voicemail...

Thanks
Click to expand...

You need to look at the actual number.. your looking at the caller ID…

Toll free is 800,888,877, etc numbers. Toll free numbers.
 
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"Silence Unknown Callers" us a wonderful iPhone feature. Unknowns go to voicemail. If they don't leave a message, I'll review my recent calls log (on my own time) and block them. If they are legitimate and leave a message, I can call them back within minutes, and add them to my contacts list. Go to settings, phone, toggle on Silence Unknown Callers.
 
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SSMD42 said:
"Silence Unknown Callers" us a wonderful iPhone feature. Unknowns go to voicemail. If they don't leave a message, I'll review my recent calls log (on my own time) and block them. If they are legitimate and leave a message, I can call them back within minutes, and add them to my contacts list. Go to settings, phone, toggle on Silence Unknown Callers.
Click to expand...

Blocking certain numbers can be useless. As a lot are spoofed. And it’ll always call with a different number.
 
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DeepIn2U​

Are you saying that if you block someone it is essentially useless because they can just call or message you again which just unblocks them? Not sure I understand.
 
SSMD42 said:
"Silence Unknown Callers" us a wonderful iPhone feature. Unknowns go to voicemail. If they don't leave a message, I'll review my recent calls log (on my own time) and block them. If they are legitimate and leave a message, I can call them back within minutes, and add them to my contacts list. Go to settings, phone, toggle on Silence Unknown Callers.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I do. If they don’t leave voicemails I block them. Rinse and repeat. I don’t have time to deal with scammers or wrong numbers
 
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Will ditto "Silence Unknown Callers", it's a godsend.

As for blocking, I don't really bother with it due to Silence feature. I'm on ATT and they use Hiya for their back-end call blocking. That catches a fair amount of junk, the odd ones that sneak through, never hear. If they do leave a voicemail, I'll report the number via the ATT/Hiya app.

Combined with a "land line" number (Google Voice) that's 99.999% of the time in Do Not Disturb mode, my phone numbers have become pretty inactive re: spammers. Guessing that my numbers are getting marked as "time waste" when sharing/selling between scammers.

Now, if we could only get "Silence Unknown Callers" for Messages... (that's where I use "Block").
 
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I have a related question - is there a way to turn off notifications for silenced callers? As in, I don't want to know that they called. I get tons of spam calls and I still see the notification that they called. I searched and I can only turn off phone notifications as a whole, and obviously I still want to be notified when a known contact is calling.
 
hyelton said:
Blocking certain numbers can be useless. As a lot are spoofed. And it’ll always call with a different number.
Click to expand...
I see this constantly. Cloned/spoofed numbers. I generally only block them when it's a repeat number.

What I've seen a lot of recently is the caller id listing a city and state. "Caldwell, NJ".

Until we can block both numbers and/or caller id tags the solution for me is to set my default ringtone to 30 seconds of silence and no vibration. I then assign a custom ringtone (my old default ringer) to each contact in my address book. It's a pain in the azz to do this, but once its done my phone never bothers me with these subhuman scum telemarketers. There are not enough terrible and evil things that can befall them. But I digress. If the call is not from a sleazoid scammer or telemarketer they can leave a voicemail. If it's legit I add the number to my address book and assign a custom ringtone.
 
diego said:
is there a way to turn off notifications for silenced callers?
Click to expand...

Not really. Closest you can get is turning off banners and lock screen notifications. Can add Notification Center as well, if can live with just periodically having to pull up the the Phone app to check things. Then can just deal with a call if rings and or vibrates.

But as of today, hopefully the spam calls might drop a bit, as STIR/SHAKEN is supposed to be implemented. I've seen a huge drop on my cell line the last few weeks, but not like I was getting them every day anyway.
 
rambo47 said:
I see this constantly. Cloned/spoofed numbers. I generally only block them when it's a repeat number.

What I've seen a lot of recently is the caller id listing a city and state. "Caldwell, NJ".

Until we can block both numbers and/or caller id tags the solution for me is to set my default ringtone to 30 seconds of silence and no vibration. I then assign a custom ringtone (my old default ringer) to each contact in my address book. It's a pain in the azz to do this, but once its done my phone never bothers me with these subhuman scum telemarketers. There are not enough terrible and evil things that can befall them. But I digress. If the call is not from a sleazoid scammer or telemarketer they can leave a voicemail. If it's legit I add the number to my address book and assign a custom ringtone.
Click to expand...
Speaking of spoofed numbers, the major U.S. carriers (as of yesterday) now show you the actual number that is calling you. There is no more number spoofing. Smaller carriers have until 2023 to start using the STIR / SHAKEN protocol.
 
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I will say that "Silence Unknown Callers" has sent a few legitimate calls to voicemail - there's a number of businesses that have actually removed their ANI/CallerID information.

Edit: Just saw Apple_Robert's post on new anti-spoofing going into practice! Finally!!! :)
 
I’m with Verizon and was paying the $2.99 to block spam calls. Once I realized I was better off using the free version I stopped paying. I am using YouMail, and that has helped a lot.
 
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