phone spam

More than half of the incoming calls I receive on my cell phone are spam or wrong numbers. A lot of the time they come in while my phone is in silent mode during the daytime at work, so I don't notice them til later. They never leave a message. During the last month or so, I've stopped answering calls from unknown numbers, even when I see or hear the call as it comes in.

Not many people know my cell phone number, and those people should all be in my contact list already. But there's always a chance one of them may call from a new phone number.

I considered changing my voice mail message to inform people that I don't answer calls from unknown numbers, but that I do eventually listen to my messages, and that they can leave a message. But I wondered if that was necessary. Do most people nowadays assume that other people won't answer calls from unknown numbers, anyway?

I also considered saving a short clip of absolute silence as an mp3 file, and setting that as my default ringtone. Then I could specify some other real ringtone for all of my contacts. That way I'd never have to hear the phone ringing from an unknown number.

I considered using call blocking for some of the repeat spam calls I get from the same numbers. But my phone, even though it has Android Marshmallow, doesn't have the call-blocking option.

Today while browsing through the phone settings under "Sound and Notifications", I noticed the "Do Not Disturb" options. I saw that you could add a rule which could be set to every day of the week, all day long, and that you could set it to "Priority Only". The "Priority only allows" section has options for which messages and calls are allowed - None, From Anyone, From Contacts Only, or From Starred Contacts Only. It even has a special option to allow a call through, if the same person calls twice within 15 minutes (most spammers don't do that).

Anyway, that sounded perfect. I could configure it so that my phone would only ring when people in my Contact List call me. But when I tested it out this evening, calling myself from another phone, it didn't work as expected. The phone still rang, even though the number I was calling from wasn't in my Contacts (I had temporarily deleted it).

So I read about how those settings are supposed to work, in case I was doing it wrong: Android’s Confusing "Do Not Disturb" Settings, Explained

It turns out that the Do Not Disturb rules only work when you have your phone volume turned all the way down. So rather than it being a way to configure "how to make spam calls be silent even when the volume is on", it's a way to configure "how to make real calls ring even when the volume is off". Which is not what I want. Because when I turn the volume off when I'm at work, I really don't want my phone to ring for calls from ANYBODY. People who know me, know to call me on my work phone, not my cell phone, if they really need to reach me. But with the volume off (as opposed to being in Airplane mode), I can still occasionally check to see if anyone has sent me a text or left me a message.

My working-at-work hours are irregular enough that I don't want to set any time-based rules for that either.

So I suppose it's back to the silent ringtone approach.

There are probably apps that would help, but I'd be wary of giving any app access to my Contact list.