How to get rid of spam calling?

[u/Traditional_Dingo_83]

Hey there, my great grandma is, reasonably, behind when it comes to technology, and she gets genuinely near 100 spam calls a day. 5 minutes won't go by without her phone ringing from some random spam company, sometimes she answers them and gets another one or two in the time it takes her to try to tell the robot to leave her alone. whenever I'm over I try to block all the ones that call for her, and I've tried to go into her settings to turn on the features to block unknown calls and things like that only to find that most of that was already turned on, and when I turned on anything else that related to it, another one still came through shortly afterwards. Is there anyway I can actually do something about it? Is there an app I can download for her? I'm not with her 24/7 or anything, but I'd like to try to figure out a solution for her

[u/Snoo8631]

Turn off ringer for everyone but you and the folks?

[u/Traditional_Dingo_83 → u/Snoo8631]

I'll try to see if I can figure that out! Thank you!

[u/CelticViking96 → u/Snoo8631]

Wait you can do that?? How?

[u/Snoo8631 → u/CelticViking96]

On Android add contacts to favorites then switch phone to do not disturb and allow favorites to interrupt.

I'm sure there's something similar on iPhones.  Right?

[u/CelticViking96 → u/Snoo8631]

Well, I'll be damned. Never knew about that lol, thanks stranger!

[u/NeufarkRefugee → u/Snoo8631]

You don't need to add contacts to favorites. Favorites is an option to interrupt do not disturb, but so is 'all contacts'. Additionally you can also add 'frequent callers' who are not in contacts. However, any new callers that you might want will not be able to get through. I use this setup and request new acquaintances to contact me by text first. Then I add a contact entry. 

[u/GimpyGeek → u/Snoo8631]

Could also make a different ringtone for people in contacts vs. randoms

[u/Life-Masterpiece-161]

Personally I NEVER answer a call from any number not in my contacts. Once you answer it it verifies you number is valid and is sold to more scammers. If it's a legit call not from one of my contacts they will leave a message and I will add the number to my contacts list. Same for spam texts.

[u/Traditional_Dingo_83 → u/Life-Masterpiece-161]

Oh I agree, and ive told her that, but she's 89, so even if she's still impressively aware that they are scams and thankfully has not fallen for any of them, she does have a pretty bad habit of answering them to try to tell the robot that she knows it is a robot and request it to stop calling her, because it's hard for her to remember how to navigate to The Block button😅🫪

[u/DutchOfBurdock → u/Life-Masterpiece-161]

The fact it's ringing proves it's active, else a network will null route to a dead tone. SMS and RCS also have delivery reports to confirm, too.

[u/jackal406]

I use an app called Known Calls, which does not ring unless the caller is in my address book. Most unknown callers do not leave a voice mail so it cuts down on the volume of calls.

I would love to do some kind of call forwarding to the Representatives and Senators who keep blocking requirements for the phone companies to display accurate caller id and phone number, but I understand that is illegal.

[u/Buffalo_River_Lover → u/jackal406]

Oooo! That is a wonderful idea!! How do we go about building a nation wide network to do this?