Top 3 ways to stop spam calls in their tracks

Finding ways to stop spam calls and robocalls on your phone doesn’t need to be difficult. There are several things you can do to reduce the nuisance of these unwanted callers and reclaim your phone. Let’s take a look at what can be done.

Ways to stop spam calls

We have all experienced unwanted calls at some point and know only too well just how annoying it can be. Aside from being an outright nuisance, spam calls can also be somewhat of a security risk as there is often fraud involved. Here are some helpful suggestions to minimise spam calls.

1. Add your details to the ‘do not call’ register for your country

You will find that many countries operate an official list of telephone numbers that are marked as off-limits to telemarketers. Adding your name and number to such a register will not completely solve the issue, but it should help to reduce the amount of calls. The Federal Communications Commission maintains a list in the US, called the National Do Not Call Registry, to which you can add your details free of charge. Similarly, in the UK, the Telephone Preference Service provides a free and official method to opt-out of receiving unwanted marketing and sales calls on your landline or mobile phone.

2. Use device settings to block spam calls on your phone

On Android phones and iPhones, there will be settings that you can use to block individual numbers from calling you. However, the individual blocking of numbers is not the only option. You can also make use of Android’s and iPhone’s Do Not Disturb mode to effectively silence calls from any number that you haven’t selected in your list of contacts.

iPhone’s do not disturb mode

This feature allows several options that you can set which are available within the ‘Settings’>’Do Not Disturb’ menu. Your iPhone will apply default settings if all you do is turn on the mode, these include a setting called ‘While iPhone is Locked’. Consequently, this setting means that Do Not Disturb will only work if the iPhone is locked. This is something that’s worth changing as you don’t want to be receiving spam calls whilst browsing the web or reading your emails.

You can also specify numbers that are permitted to call you whilst in Do Not Disturb Mode. This setting appears as ‘Allow Calls From’ and allows you to select ‘Everyone’, ‘No One’, ‘Favourites’ or one of your saved ‘Groups’ of contacts.

Furthermore, there is a setting called ‘Repeated Calls’ within the Do Not Disturb menu. This ensures that if the same number tries to call you back within 3 minutes their call is allowed through. The downside of this is that it can allow some spam calls to slip through the net. However, it covers you in the eventuality that someone you know needs to call from an unknown number in case of emergency.

Android’s do not disturb mode

As with iPhone, the do not disturb mode on Android offers the ability to customise how you want it to operate. Some menu differences will likely exist across different Android devices, so yours might be a little different from what you read here. That said, you are likely to find the do not disturb setting in the ‘Settings’>’Notifications’>’Do not disturb’ menu on many handsets.

Within the do not disturb menu, a number of options are available. ‘Turn on as scheduled’ allows you to set specific times that you want the function to be active, although when you are blocking spam calls you will likely want them blocked all the time. More useful is the ‘Allow exceptions’ menu option which allows you to specify callers from whom you still wish to receive calls and messages when the do not disturb feature is active.

Additionally, you are able to check a box in the menu to allow ‘Repeat callers’. Similar to the iPhone setting ‘Repeated Calls’, this feature allows calls if the caller tries repeatedly to get through. However, the difference here is the timeframe. On iPhone the interval used to measure what is classed as a repeat caller is just three minutes, but on Android that jumps up to fifteen minutes.

3. Install an app on your phone to block spam calls

Many people find that reducing the volume of spam and robocalls, using the methods outlined above, is just not enough. Unscrupulous companies that pay no heed to regulations or ‘do not call’ registers can be quite aggressive in their tactics. Consequently, you may still experience nuisance calls and want to try something else to reduce them – before they send you completely crazy.

To assist further, you can download third-party mobile apps for both Android and iPhone. These spam call blocking apps can be quite effective, using features such as telemarketer blacklists to help protect you from their pesky calls. Some of the more popular options include Truecaller for iPhone and Calls Blacklist for Android. There are many more, but these two seem to attract a large number of users.