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iPhone Stop Spam Phishing Calls
- Thread starter Boca
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This, along with the "Silence Unknown Callers" turned on (if on iOS 13.x).
Or, get an app like NomoRobo, Hiya, etc. Won't be 100%, but better than nothing.
Or, put the phone into Do Not Disturb mode 24/7. Least ideal, as no notifications chime, but will allow calls through that you whitelist via Favorites etc.
None of them really work well.
I use Hiya, which no longer blocks calls but at least identifies some of them as coming from spammers, alongside Wideprotect to stop neighbor calls-- but Wideprotect doesn't work with Google Voice for some reason. So then on the Google Voice side I turned on "screen all calls by default", and then set my contacts to not require screening. So GV asks unknown callers to enter their name, and maybe 3/4 of them just hang up. This solution sucks but even though I've given it a fair amount of attention, I'm unable to improve on it.
Silence unknown callers doesn't work for me because it would block calls I need, deliveries, business calls, etc.
What I really want is SHAKEN/STIR and "Silence unverified calls", so anyone not validated as real in SHAKEN/STIR gets automatically blocked. Hopefully that will come in 2020.
I use Hiya, which no longer blocks calls but at least identifies some of them as coming from spammers, alongside Wideprotect to stop neighbor calls-- but Wideprotect doesn't work with Google Voice for some reason. So then on the Google Voice side I turned on "screen all calls by default", and then set my contacts to not require screening. So GV asks unknown callers to enter their name, and maybe 3/4 of them just hang up. This solution sucks but even though I've given it a fair amount of attention, I'm unable to improve on it.
Silence unknown callers doesn't work for me because it would block calls I need, deliveries, business calls, etc.
What I really want is SHAKEN/STIR and "Silence unverified calls", so anyone not validated as real in SHAKEN/STIR gets automatically blocked. Hopefully that will come in 2020.
Bringing this one back to the fore because spam calls are still a problem.
Wideprotect works extremely well but you have to put a bit of work into it yourself otherwise it does nothing.
That is, it doesn't block anything at all at default, you have to find and enter the ranges of numbers you want to block.
I did two things to achieve this.
Firstly, I looked at the numbers from spammers and robocalls in the received list and identified the patterns.
In my area it was apparent that there were many calls coming in from the 170 and 162 codes so I blocked those ranges (You select the country code, the e.g 170 and then asterisks for the rest up to however many numbers you have in your service- 9 for me)
Then I went to one of the sites where you can look up if a number is spam, robocall or if it's someone trying to rip you off. You will probably find a site that will list all the numbers reported in the last 24 hours and so again, you can quickly identify the ranges they are using.
You have to enable all the extensions for the app in order for it to work. This is a little confusing and unintuitive as they look like they are designed to block country codes but no, each extension blocks something like a million numbers in the range and the developer explains in his instruction video these don't use memory. He says it's just the way he had to do it.
Tick the option to allow calls from contacts just in case and you're good to go.
I now have 15 ranges of numbers blocked and these annoying calls have stopped altogether.
I expect they will find some new ones in the future and I'll have to add more numbers to the list but so far, it's worked like a charm.
He also has an app to block the SMS they sometimes send instead but I haven't tested it yet.
Wideprotect works extremely well but you have to put a bit of work into it yourself otherwise it does nothing.
That is, it doesn't block anything at all at default, you have to find and enter the ranges of numbers you want to block.
I did two things to achieve this.
Firstly, I looked at the numbers from spammers and robocalls in the received list and identified the patterns.
In my area it was apparent that there were many calls coming in from the 170 and 162 codes so I blocked those ranges (You select the country code, the e.g 170 and then asterisks for the rest up to however many numbers you have in your service- 9 for me)
Then I went to one of the sites where you can look up if a number is spam, robocall or if it's someone trying to rip you off. You will probably find a site that will list all the numbers reported in the last 24 hours and so again, you can quickly identify the ranges they are using.
You have to enable all the extensions for the app in order for it to work. This is a little confusing and unintuitive as they look like they are designed to block country codes but no, each extension blocks something like a million numbers in the range and the developer explains in his instruction video these don't use memory. He says it's just the way he had to do it.
Tick the option to allow calls from contacts just in case and you're good to go.
I now have 15 ranges of numbers blocked and these annoying calls have stopped altogether.
I expect they will find some new ones in the future and I'll have to add more numbers to the list but so far, it's worked like a charm.
He also has an app to block the SMS they sometimes send instead but I haven't tested it yet.