Robo Call and Spam Text Blockers — Anyone Pay to Use Them

Most phones these days have spam or call blocking features. Mine blocks a thousand numbers before you have to reset it back to zero.

I have the paid blocker from AT&T (the irony) and it barely does anything. Perhaps those others are better.

Just switch to the latest Google Pixel phone. It comes baked in with it, and anything that might happen to slip by you can easily screen the call with an automated message. Works like a charm.

^ I forgot to add, buy it directly from Google, not your carrier. You'll get all the latest updates for Android immediately.

I pay 2.99/mo.for Hiya, a spam blocking app. It's not perfect but better than the built-in one from Verizon.

There is supposed to be a federal mandate that went into effect this year. SHAKEN or STIRRED or SPOONED or something, that will eliminate them.

I now get texts that say: AT&T Free Message: Thank you for paying your bill. We’d like to send you a gift as a reward [insert link to download malware].

I need this shit to stop!

R2, same, hell I think my most recent spam text came from "AT&T" themselves informing me that I came in "second place for the free iPad drawing."

R7 I just started getting those damn things in the last few days - I must have gotten a dozen in the last couple of days

I want to get hard with you calls

All sex uis about

What?! I was in the Robocall thread!

Somehow my post ended up in a Joe Covid Rogan thread. Anyway, here goes3

AT&T fucking sucks. I had been with t-mobile for fifteen years. AT&T had a plan where you get an iPhone 12 Pro Max when you switch to their plan. I needed a new phone, and I didn't think there would be much difference in their service, so I switched.

Now I have a phone that has 5G capability but the speed is SO slow, I'll never even know what that means. It hasn't been this slow since 2010. FML.

Not a fan of AT&T.

—Anonymous

I was once courted by this hot Nigerian Prince. He only needed a few thousand dollars to open up the bank vault in France and free his father's gold bars.

My phone drives me crazy. I get a lot of 800 service calls. It just keeps ringing. Sometimes I take the phone off the hook...yes, it's a landline.

The numbers I manually block together with the service provider's blocking leaves me almost spam free. The number of spam calls I receive has dropped dramatically compared to just several years ago. Currently I may get three or four calls a month about my auto warranty which go to voicemail.. That's all.

I write down the numbers. Then I pay men to hunt down those numbers. Then I have them killed.

Unfortunately, they spoof numbers, so it doesn’t matter.

That’s why I laugh when Apple tells iPhone uses that, good news! You can manually block spam callers! Oh, sure, block a number that’s not even really. That’ll help.

Google Phone app and Message app have a built-in blocker. And in my region, we use the free version of WHOSCALL app to screen incoming calls and SMSs.

Yeah Google has done a great job with their Pixel phones for blocking or screening spam. I love watching the call screening feature in action.

I paid for RoboKiller for a while, but it was blocking calls that weren’t spam. The problem is that it evidently blocks calls that users flag as spam, which often end up being bill collectors. Your credit card company calling because you haven’t paid your bill isn’t spamming you.

Why not just pay your credit card bill in the first place?

My pixel blocks a ton of spam calls and texts

There’s an iPhone setting that makes callers silent if they’re not in your address book. They’ll still ring but you won’t hear it. If it’s a real call they’ll leave a message.

If you have an iPhone, go to settings, phone, and block unknown callers who aren't in your contacts. It will go direct to VM and not ring on your phone. If it's someone important, just call them back after they leave VM.

What about spam texts?

I have Robokiller. It's good but sometimes a random spam call will get through (not sure why but thankfully it doesn't happen often). On the text side, I have been getting all of these AT&T spam texts lately (like the ones described in R7 above) and wish it would stop those but so far it's not.

Another vote for Google Pixel.

Verizon offers it free on my Phone.

Robo calls from 1-800 numbers, I get it. But when someone spoofs a phone number, how is this even legal?

[quote]What about spam texts?

You can block spam texts on the iPhone.

R30 legal or not, how can they ever stop those?

So how do you stop the spam texts on your I-phone?

Maybe someone with more technical knowledge can explain, but my understanding is that the phone companies are installing software that can detect whether a number is spoofed or originating from the number being displayed.

NoMoRobo is a couple bucks and month, takes a little input from you when you receive robo calls (you just report it as one, and then it is blocked), but has definitely improved the quality of my life. ATT's call block feature seems to alert me to a fair number of robocalls, but not like the NoMoRobo app. It really cuts down on the repeat callers, for sure.

^ and yes, I too am getting those cheesy-looking spam texts from AT&T in response to paying my bills. Sometimes they call me "Mark" -- um, that's not my name. I get clusters of these soon after paying my AT&T bills. They stick out so obviously as spam, it's funny. But I wish they would stop popping up.

I was courted by a handsome, well hung Nigerian price as well. I beat you to giving him money to come and visit ME!

[quote]So how do you stop the spam texts on your I-phone?

Open the text

click the info button on the right

the phone# should come up on that page

click the info button, at the bottom of that page block caller option should be available

R38, they send the messages from different phone numbers (because they anticipate people will block them), so I don't think that will probably help much.

^^Let me add that that doesn't mean you shouldn't try, though. By all means block them.

The answer is very simple and very free.

I don't answer any call from someone not in my address book/contacts. Nor do I reply to any text from any number I've never seen before.

Any important information will either come from a more verifiable source or be sent to me via US Mail.

I don't turn my phone ringer on very often. I don't feel the need to be a slave to its ringing. I engage with it when *I* want to, not when the ringer demands I do so.

I use Robokiller and am very pleased with it.

R39 It worked for me.