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If there’s one thing that everyone can agree on — one annoyance that bothers every single person on Earth — it’s this one: spam calls are the absolute worst. It’s one thing to see a 1-800 number on your mobile phone and have the option of not answering it (though it’s still annoying to receive these calls). But spammers have become so much more savvy in recent years and it’s more than likely that the incoming call will look like an unassuming phone number. And then when you answer it and wait a few seconds, you’ll hear the inevitable recording and a frightening warning about your credit card being hacked (or simply an offer to win a free cruise). Whatever the purpose of a spam call, it’s always unwanted. But there is some good news: there are ways to protect your iPhone from spam calls. Here are four things you didn’t know you could do to protect your iPhone from spam calls (we’re trying these immediately).
Miranda Yan, Founder of VinPit, says there are ways to actually prevent your phone from receiving spam calls, but that not enough people know they have rights.
1. Enable the Spam Blocking Feature on Your Phone
“This application offers a unique spam blocking feature that uses a specially crafted list compiled by Google themselves,” Yan says. “To use this feature on your phone, click the options button, which would direct you to the Caller ID & Spam settings. Here you can activate the Filter Spam Calls option that will block all of the callers recognized as spammers in Google’s database.”
2. Stop Unwanted Calls using Third-Party Applications
“If you don’t want a different alternative to stop spam, then remember, you live in a world of third-party applications,” Yan says. “Truecaller, Hiya, Nomorobo, and RoboKiller are a variety of different applications available on the market right now that identify and even block unwanted calls for you.”
3. Block Individual Callers
“If you have some identified spam, you can use the reported spam or blocking feature for any contact on your phone,” Yan says. “To apply this setting on any contact, just go to the contact settings and push the report spam/block button.”
4. Stop Spam Calls Using Your Carrier
“This has nothing to do with your mobile device — instead, it is related to your carrier,” Yan says. “Many phone carriers offer some sort of spam protection by detecting the calls as spam, but they don’t provide advanced functionalities like actually blocking such calls.”
Raju PP, the Founder-Editor of TechPP, offers additional advice on how to make your carrier work in your favor when it comes to spam calls:
AT&T
“For AT&T subscribers, the company offers a fraud and spam blocking app for iOS and Android, called Call Protect, and an AT&T Secure Family app for the family available on iOS,” Raju PP says. “For AT&T Mobility subscribers, the basic version of Call Protect is free, and the carrier rolls it out automatically to new customers and adds it to existing customers' accounts. There is a $3.99 monthly fee for the Plus version of Call Protect, which offers enhanced Caller ID and Reverse Number Lookup features.”
Verizon Wireless
“For customers with compatible phones and postpaid plans, Verizon Wireless offers a free version of its Call Filter service,” Raju PP says. “Free version of the program aims to detect spam calls and filter them out. You can be alerted when incoming calls are spam, report unwanted numbers, and have robocalls blocked automatically based on your risk settings. In addition to Caller ID, a personal spam list, and other features, the paid version of Call Filter costs $2.99 per line.”
T-Mobil and Metro
“For postpaid T-Mobile and Metro subscribers, T-Mobile offers a free blocking app called ScamShield,” Raju PP. “Using the app, you can identify scam calls in order to avoid receiving them. You can determine whether a call is spam by looking at detailed information about the caller ID. The number verification tag appears on a legitimate call, whereas the warning appears on a potential spam call. If you don't want to share your regular phone number, ScamShield even gives you an extra proxy number. You can change your regular number once a year for free if you have been receiving spam. Calls that have been blocked are recorded in a spam counter. A ScamShield Premium edition costs $4 a month and includes more advanced features, such as voicemail-to-text and the ability to block certain types of calls or automatically transmit them to voicemail.”
