Number of blocked phone numbers

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[funhitman]

Greetings!

As of my last count, I have manually blocked over 2,000 spam phone numbers on my iPhone. Since then (that was more than a month or two ago), I have blocked countless more. Is there a way to find out just how many numbers I have blocked without having to actually manually count them?! I tried asking Siri, but she (it?) doesn’t seem to understand the question, “Hey Siri, how many blocked phone numbers do I have?”

On a side note, I just downloaded and installed Verizon’s Call Filter app (the free one), so we’ll see how well that goes over the next few weeks.  Also, I did verify that a blocked caller can still leave a voicemail; so if a previously blocked number is a legitimate one that I need to respond to, that caller can leave me a message.

• This topic was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by funhitman.

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Why do you need to know how many you blocked? Blocking is a waste of your time and effort. The number listed by the spam call is spoofed and you are not blocking the phone the calls are coming from, just some random phone the spammer chose. There has been a major increase in such spam calls (remember the recent data breaches with lists of millions of real phones numbers for sale on the dark web). I hope the filter works for you.
For the current situation I have my iPhone set to silence unknown calls. That doesn’t disturb me with constant phone calls ringing that I don’t want and allows any new contacts that are not in my Contacts and I want to talk to to leave a voicemail for me to call them…spammers don’t usually leave voicemails and if they do, delete it.

HTH, Dana:))

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Thanks for the suggestion regarding setting the phone to silence unknown calls.  As to why I want to know how many blocked calls I have?  Curiosity.  When I have my Apple watch on, it doesn’t bother me to get these numbers – I just tap on the Ignore button on my watch. Later, I go into the Phone app, see if there are any voicemail messages; if not, I go into Recents and set the number(s) to blocked.  So it’s just curiosity.  I even have my message saying that if the caller doesn’t leave a message, there’s a high chance that the number will be blocked. I had one guy leave a message saying he had dialed my number by mistake (off by one number).  I thought that was pretty cool.

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I have an Android cellphone, but similar experiences.

I do go thru the blocking individual phone numbers routine (even though I know the overwhelming majority of them are spoofed). Often, I research the numbers before blocking them, and I have discovered real numbers in the mix. Sometimes numbers that matter.

My safety solution — which I realize is not viable/suitable for everyone — is that I DON’T allow my phone to connect to the Internet. Period.
Phone calls and text messages only.

The reason I’m writing this is that a couple of days ago I got a text message from a gobbledygook “phone number” (which wasn’t even a phone number with actual numbers). This was a new first for me.
My standard procedure is to NEVER open questionable text messages, immediately block the number, then delete it and immediately empty the Trash.
THIS TIME, when I went to block the number, I was told “this isn’t a real phone number,” and it would not block it.
So, I deleted it and immediately emptied the trash.

My question to the community is this…
IF my cellphone is “smart” enough to know it wasn’t “a real phone number,” why did it allow the text message to come thru in the first place???

I’m not using a junk phone.
Have a Samsung Galaxy A13 5G
Running Android 13 (which I keep fully updated)
One UI Core Version 5.1
Current “Android Security Patch Level” dated August 1, 2024

Any insights would be appreciated

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Spam calls coming through could be a carrier issue, it isn’t the device causing your problem. Or the phone number you have might have belonged to someone else and this could cause a flood of unwanted calls/texts coming through on your cell phone. I would contact your carrier to see if there is a spam blocker they use to help eliminate these annoying calls. We get very few spam calls, too few to even mention, AT&T has an effective call blocking process, we’re happy with that.

MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS

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My number has been my number for 25 years.
So, no former owner issues.
Samsung has pretty good blocking/spam software built in.
That’s why the constant churning of spoofed numbers (it takes a while for new spoofed numbers from bad actors to become known).
And, YES!, when I do research numbers before blocking them, 99% of the time they are clearly numbers from former owners, typically recently deceased.

My carrier is Cricket, which is nothing more than a pre-paid version of AT&T, using the AT&T Network, and 100% owned and operated by AT&T.

This is an election year, so that is adding to the deluge of spam/malicious/unwanted calls and text messages

So, my original how does “not a real phone number” get delivered in the first place is still on the table.
I fear this is a new level of hacking attempt starting to be deployed.

Thanks for responding.

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@sisyphus7x64 – AT&T is a major carrier and offers more reliable service in all aspects compared to less expensive networks, even if those cheaper companies, such as Cricket’s pre-paid plan, use AT&T’s network. Cricket doesn’t deliver the full spectrum of the better services of AT&T. Again, we have AT&T as a major carrier service and don’t have much of a problem with spam calls coming through.

I mentioned a couple of possibilities related to your dilemma of spam calls, such as having a number previously owned by someone else, obviously that doesn’t seem like it would be your case. But major carriers have more protection and what you get is more reliability. So it goes, you get what you pay for. Hope you find relief from spam soon, I’m sure it’s very annoying. Good luck.

MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS

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This phone number with all letters and no numbers may be related to something called Mobilefish.

https://www.mobilefish.com/popupwindow/phonenumber_words_help_all.php?help=action&lang=en

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Sisyphus7x64 wrote:

I fear this is a new level of hacking attempt starting to be deployed

SMS originators can use pretty much any characters they want and reputable companies use this to let you know who is sending the text.

There is nothing you can do about spam except lobby your government to make it illegal to send unsolicited messages, as they do in Europe and the UK.

cheers, Paul

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