iPhone dealing with phone numbers not in contacts

[ghanwani]

I've been getting a lot of spam calls recently. Here's what I would like to do and want to see if it's possible:
- If the phone number is in my contacts, have it ring.
- If not in contacts, either go directly to voicemail (or alternatively ring without making any sound or vibration).

Is it possible to easily set up the phone this way?

Alternatively, how do you deal with such calls?

I don't want to block these because:
(a) there are too many of them and it doesn't work for new ones.
(b) it looks like spammers are not starting to spoof real phone numbers, so I don't want to block a legitimate number because of spammer that was able to spoof that number.

Thanks.

 

[NoBoMac]

Can kinda do that, but takes some work.

Here is what I have setup:

Download a silent ring tone. Make it the default. Set default vibration to none. Assign ringtone and vibration to important numbers.

Download spam call blocker app. I have Hiya which has a local exchange block as well (ie. First six digits same as cell). Also have Wide Protect which allows you to wildcard the block on area code, exchange, etc.

At this point, important people get ringed, known spam goes to voicemail, and when the odd call sneaks through, no sound or vibration (only time notice is if listening to music and the phone goes silent until vm picks up).

ADD: most call blocker apps have a whitelist feature for numbers in contacts.

 

[C DM]

I've been getting a lot of spam calls recently. Here's what I would like to do and want to see if it's possible:
- If the phone number is in my contacts, have it ring.
- If not in contacts, either go directly to voicemail (or alternatively ring without making any sound or vibration).

Is it possible to easily set up the phone this way?

Alternatively, how do you deal with such calls?

I don't want to block these because:
(a) there are too many of them and it doesn't work for new ones.
(b) it looks like spammers are not starting to spoof real phone numbers, so I don't want to block a legitimate number because of spammer that was able to spoof that number.

Thanks.

You can do that fairly easily with Do Not Disturb, but the downside is that it will also silence all other notifications.

That aside, you can try some third party spam/call blocker apps to see if they might be of some help.

 

[ghanwani]

Download spam call blocker app. I have Hiya which has a local exchange block as well (ie. First six digits same as cell). Also have Wide Protect which allows you to wildcard the block on area code, exchange, etc.

How does this deal with spoofed numbers? It is actually possible to spoof legitimate numbers, so blocking them would mean they would not even get to voicemail, right?

 

[C DM]

How does this deal with spoofed numbers? It is actually possible to spoof legitimate numbers, so blocking them would mean they would not even get to voicemail, right?

Blocking should still give them access to voicemail (although you might not be notified of it and can only see it if you go to your voicemail and check it yourself): https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201229

 

[NoBoMac]

Unfortunately, Apple blew it when they implemented call blocking.

Could have had a simple switch to allow only whitelist (aka Contacts) numbers through. From what it appears like, a number needs to be in the block list to block (eg. Wide Protect app, want to block all numbers from 555 area code, the app generates 10 million numbers and adds them to the iOS block list). Makes it pretty much impossible in current form to block all iffy numbers.

 

[dk001]

Doing the Hiya, the default silent ring tone path, however it still is tough. Especially if you get real business/client calls that go out through a switchboard. I've tried a number of Contact type apps (both iOS and Android) and have yet to find something for iOS that "just works" the way I want it. For now between the Silent and Hiya I have pretty good control.

 

[harriska2]

I do what NoBoMac does except if the caller doesn't leave a message, I block. I can't remember the last spam call I got. I do this with all 3 phones. Every month, I go through the list and blockety, block, block, block. I figure if they haven't called back or left a message in a month it is spam. The other 2 only get about one spam call a week which is reasonable. Before I started blocking calls it was about 1-2 a day on other phones.