(Picture alt text: a screenshot of my phone's call log, with numbers redacted (just in case). The phone numbers (except for one) are all spam calls)
I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this, but I am at my limit with these.
Constantly throughout the day I get spam call after spam call. I constantly report them to Google (I've got a Pixel 5, if it matters), yet nothing changes. This has been happening for months.
These calls will also leave the exact same, completely silent, 4-second voicemails. I will block and report spam, but you know how it is. There's no way to turn voice mail notifications off, and I wouldn't necessarily want to, because I know I'd miss something genuine or important.
What do I do? Is there anything I can do, beyond changing numbers? Even then, I'm sure a new number would exist in some database somewhere and be victim to more spam calls. This is heinous.
Thanks for reading. I'm just so frustrated.
Edit: this got a lot more attention than I anticipated. I appreciate the suggestions for different spam blockers and settings! It's also nice knowing I'm not alone. Hopefully, at least in the US, we'll get some real legislation eventually that will kill these spam calls once and for all.
I’ll just pick up the call and immediately mute my microphone. That way at least I don’t get the voicemail.
That still counts as an active number. Most providers these days have a spam blocking option, have you tried turning that on? I'm with tmo and get very few spam calls. I get the odd text offering to buy my house but I have my ways of dealing with them.
I used to pick up spam calls and go along for as long as I could. For at least 5 years now my number has been blacklisted in India, I've never gotten a single Indian spam call since. I used to get a car warranty call every few months but I'm pretty sure they black listed me as well. I got pretty deep into the hierarchy getting names, payment details, anything. But the car they called me about doesn't exist.
Your voicemail picking up the call still counts as an active number.
Where did I say anything about vm? I get very very few spam calls and androids dialer does a really good job of identifying the few calls that get through tmo as spam.
Here is my vm log, notice how few are actually there? I honestly don't remember if/when I ever cleared any out from this phone number. My old ass direct line is on GV and it's set to never ring.
The discussion was about letting it go to voicemail, I responded saying I pick it up, you said that counts as an active number. You didn’t mention vm, but that’s what the discussion started with.
I believe iOS has a built in feature to block spam calls, but I don’t use it. It already labels them as “Scam Likely”. If there’s anyone in the world named Scan Likely, I feel very bad for them.
This worked for me. Over time I got less and less calls and now I get none at all. I’m guessing I got marked as inactive eventually.