Mods: I think there should be a factual answer, but if this isn’t the right forum for this question feel free to move it.
My Apple iPhone 17 is currently set to silence all calls from unsaved numbers, which works as advertised. When I later review these calls and try to block the inbound numbers, it gives me the option to “Block or Block and Report Spam”. If I choose "Block and Report Spam’, who is this number being reported to, and how likely is it to deter them from calling me again, and again, and again?
Simple answer - when you report spam Apple relies on whatever spam reporting app your cell provider uses, and/or reports it to the provider directly. As to the second part - not very likely at all because the next time they call it will be from a different number.
This. Whatever phone number shows up on your caller ID on your phone is likely not the actual number from which the call is originating, especially if the call is coming from outside the U.S. (as most spam calls do). The spammers are using software to spoof the phone companies’ caller ID system.
Blocking that number just blocks what is probably an “innocent” number (assuming that it’s an in-service number in actuality). The next call from the same spammer will tell your phone it’s coming from a different number.
Thanks. My cell provider uses the T-Mobile Scam Shield App, so that’s what it uses to block reported spam calls.
How is it that a spammer can buy an almost unlimited number of numbers? Wouldn’t they be forbidden from doing that if they weren’t a legitimate company?
See my answer above yours, which was simultaneous to your post. That “spoofing” is likely against the law in the U.S., but such calls are usually originating from outside the U.S., and they just don’t care.
I have T-Mobile and also use Scam Shield. For the past 6-8 months I have been getting multiple loan scam calls that go directly to voicemail every single day. I spent several months diligently reporting every single one in the Phone app, and flagging and reporting them in Scam Shield. It has not made a lick of difference, so I gave up. I now clear out my voicemail box once a week and still report spam, but I’m not going to make it my job since it does no apparent good.
To clarify: some calls which you or I would consider “spam” calls do come from the U.S., and might be from actual (if possibly shady) U.S. businesses, charities, research companies, etc. Those calls – maybe from cold-callers for roofing companies, charities, etc. – probably are actually originating from the number that your caller ID says that they are. Blocking those numbers probably does serve an effective purpose.
This is exactly what I’m getting, and I assume it’s an autodialer that will continue to call as long as I have this phone number. You’d think that after never calling them back after a few hundred times trying to reach me they’d give up, but it’s automated, so they never give up.
I think changing my phone number would stop these calls for a while, but eventually they’ll figure out my new phone number and the calls would continue. There is no solution other than to leave my phone turned off whenever I’m not using it to make an outbound call, which seems kind of pointless.
What really pisses me off are all the spam texts I get. Like most of you, I have calls from unrecognized numbers blocked, but it is apparently impossible to block texts from everyone but those in your contacts list.
I thought I was alone in this nasty endemic of spam calls. I sometimes get 13 in a single day all from different numbers but all with the same automated message. I block and report but it doesn’t seem to do much good.
A lot of modern spoofing goes through because it’s spoofing a phone number in your city or state, which is more likely to be presumed as legitimate. And of course, it’s the battle of the spoofers being more ahead of the (reactive) government and carrier responses. So I’ve seen cycles of the guards working perfectly for months, then several months of more calls slipping in, everyone catching up with the newest techniques and improving, repeating until the approximate heat death of the planet or universe.
It’s not really useful to block spam numbers. Spam callers fake the caller-id number. They can specify whatever number they like. It’s like how when you address an envelope, you can put whatever you like as the return address. Spammers typically create numbers with the same area code as your phone number so you think it’s a local call. This is called “Neighbor Spam”. Blocking the spammer’s phone number is just blocking a random phone number that has nothing to do with the spammer. It’s some foreign call center that creates a new, random caller-id for every spam call. Blocking is useful if you know the number is actually associated with the company making the call, like a local carpet cleaner company who calls every day at dinner time. You should block those since their calls will always have the same caller-id. But overseas spammers will have a different caller-id every time they call.
Reporting a call as spam can be useful to improve the provider’s ability to identify spam calls. But that’s only if you actually know it’s a spam call. Reporting unknown numbers isn’t all that helpful since they could have been calls from legitimate companies, like doctors, pharmacy, mechanics, etc.
I don’t think you can natively block all texts from senders not in your contacts list on an iPhone, but you can screen unknown senders which is effectively the same thing more or less. Any message from an unknown sender goes into an “Unknown Sender” folder that you can check at your leisure. You can also set it to still alert you to notifications for stuff like time sensitive messages, so if you get sent a verification code that you asked for from a bot that’s not in your contacts list, it will still notify you when that message arrives.
If you want to turn it on, open the Messages app > tap the hamburger button (three horizontal lines) at the top right > tap “Manage Filtering” > the Settings app will open to Messages settings and you tap “Screen Unknown Senders.”
Right below that setting is “Allow Notifications,” tap on that to see the kinds of notifications you can still allow, such as time sensitive notifications.
Then when you’re back in the Messages app, you should only see messages from contacts in the list (and, I believe, any message from a number not in your contacts that you have replied to). To see messages from unknown senders, tap the top right hamburger button and then tap “Unknown Senders.”