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How to Block Spoofed Calls from Your Phone

How to Block Spoofed Calls from Your Phone

If you aren’t sure what call spoofing is, it’s when someone tries to misrepresent information on a call, typically by identifying as someone else.

Yes, spoofed calls are annoying. They are easy to tell, however, as not a lot of effort usually goes into making such a call – since most spoofers are after quantity. Sometimes, though, a spoofed call can put you in danger of losing valuables, such as money or reputation. Spoofed calls can even endanger your life.

Knowing what you can do to block spoofed calls on your phone is something that you may find very useful.

What You Can Do

If only there was an app that you can download to fix the problem… it’d automatically block any spoofed call that you may receive, whether it’s scammers, telemarketers, or robocalls. Unfortunately, there isn’t such a tool that can help you in this regard.

With that said, there are things that you can do to protect yourself against these unwanted calls.

how to block spoofed calls from phone

The National Do Not Call Registry

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) formed the National Do Not Call Registry for a reason (apart from carrying out what’s spelled out in the relevant legislation). It’s a service that consumers can use to avoid telemarketing calls. This opt-out service can be used on both home and mobile phone units.

Okay, so, the NDNCR won’t necessarily stop all scammers, robocalls, and maybe not even telemarketers from getting to you, but it will let you know that the caller is probably violating the law and that you should probably avoid contact with them.

Unsolicited Calls Go to Voicemail

Screening your calls is the first step. Yes, screen all of them. If an unknown number is trying to contact you, either let it go to voicemail or go ahead and send it there. This will protect you from those spoofed calls. Even if the spoofer is to leave a message on your voicemail (which isn’t likely), there’s not a lot of damage that they can do here.

Be careful with seemingly legitimate numbers too. Some scammers may go through the trouble to make it appear as if the call was coming from a well-known business. There isn’t much that you can do to protect yourself from these calls other than letting all unexpected calls go to voicemail.

Take Note of the Caller’s Pitch

Pitch as in sales pitch. Every spoofer has an end goal. Some want you to subscribe to a less-than-favorable service. Others are purely fraudulent and want access to your finances.

In either case, pay attention to the information that the potential spoof caller gives you. They’ll often introduce themselves as “your” credit card company or bank, rather than giving the actual name of the institution. This is often a telltale sign of fraud. A simple “could you state the name of the institution you represent” should do it.

block spoofed calls from your phone

Another thing to keep in mind is that a legitimate company will never ask you to give out your credit card information or Social Security Number.

Finally, if the person on the other end of the line claims that a neighbor of yours referred them to you, it’s a red flag. It’s highly unlikely that your neighbor would ever do that without having a word with you before or after. Besides, you can just check whether this is true by asking for the neighbor’s name. If they don’t want to disclose this information, you’re probably being scammed. If they do disclose this info, go ahead and check with the neighbor.

Blocking Spoofed Calls

To accurately predict the spoof calls from the legitimate is borderline impossible. However, there are telltale signs of scams and fraudulent behaviors that you should be wary of. Don’t take spoofed calls lightly and stay on your toes.

Have you ever received a spoofed call? If so, we hope that you didn’t fall victim to it? We implore you to hit the comments below and tell us your story – share with the community what they should keep an eye out for.

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9 thoughts on “How to Block Spoofed Calls from Your Phone”

Dale says:
90% of the spoof calls I get have a caller ID of just a city name no person’s name. How can I block these calls? There should be some way to stop calls with no person’s name on the caller ID.
Myra says:
We are currently receiving back to back “neighborhood” spoof calls. They are using “not in service numbers”, calling every 15 minutes and hanging up the second the phone is answered whether by me or my answering machine. The phone company can’t do anything about it.
Archer Jordan says:
I’m in a business where people are referred to me to access my services so I have to answer my phone if a call appears legitimate. These spoofers use a realistic name and phone number and so I’ve taken to let them go to voice mail rather than answer. About 95% of these calls are are either marketing Medicare plans, phishing or some other scam.
chris says:
I hate everyone in this country, especially our government, the corporations, and democrats.
gregory danker says:
i love are government i hate republicans
Darrius Thurston says:
The National Do Not Call Registry does nothing
Craig says:
So true – a government entity that is ineffective.
Linda Andrusko says:
I receive back to back “neighborhood” spoof calls, mostly asking for a call back to their call center or pretending to be Amazon, etc. They come in about every 10 minutes, & use not only our area code, but the first 3 digits of our phone number. There must be 1000s of those, so about once a month the whole regimen starts over. I block each one after, never answer, but if my VOIP phone wasn’t necessary for us, I would get rid of it, as I get very few scam calls on my mobile phone. I use NoMoRobo & my cable company’s blocking service, but of course spoof calls cannot be stopped, as a few might be legitimate (very few). So sad that the perps know they can get away with this.
Charles Sheets says:
Here is what NOT to do. I was literally terrorized by dozens of continuous calls one Sunday from a scammer.
I called back the number and to my surprise I got a ring and then could leave a message. I left more than one profane message hoping to get them to call me back. They did on Monday morning. The scammer had spoofed their number and they were a legitimate business who was paying the price every bit as much as I did. I could not have been more mortified (knowing the things I had said on the message). NEVER return a call, especially after drinking.
Michael Green says:
I have lot of phone calls on my phone for no reason want know how to get them stop

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Jordan

Aug 11, 2020

271 Articles Published

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