😡Just learned that blocking a caller on android doesn't block their voicemails😡

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Back in the day (ow my back) carriers let you control how calls are diverted by dialling one of those * 123*12345# type numbers.

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- I'm not sure, but I think these USSD/GSM codes still work nowadays.
  
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- They still work. I use them for routing my voicemail to the Jolly Rodger Telephone Company.
  
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- It's *61 in this instance.
  
  The full command is
  
  61#
  
  you can get by typing the command *#61#
  
  is a number between 5 and 30 in five second increments
  
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Only your carrier has the ability to block a call. And when they do that, the caller would receive a brief message letting them know that the number is blocked.

Anything outside of that simply doesn’t answer the call. If you have voicemail active, obviously the caller will be given the option to leave a message.

There is no service that will give you a true number block outside of your carrier.

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I believe if you use a service like Google Voice you actually can block numbers. You can even set filters and play specific messages for different numbers (I sent "unknown" numbers to a recording that told them they need to unblock caller ID)

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- In that scenario, Google Voice is your carrier, so it's the same
  
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- You’re talking about VOIP and other such features that simply require an internet connection. We are talking about traditional cell service which can only be controlled by the line’s operator.
  
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Reading the comments I'm still amazed by how big of a problem robocalls are in the US.

Here in the EU I've had around 4 unsolicited calls in 20 years. Why is it a problem there and not here?

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Because America is a third world country with shiny veneers

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- shiny
  
  The roads, the bridges, the healthcare system, the airports, the rail system, the ports, the housing system, the education system, people of color, any minorities, the electoral system, the unions, the job market, the credit rating, and any government department that isn't military would disagree with that assessment. Only thing shiny in the US is the military and the police.
  
  It just outright is a third would country and has the obsession with state sanctioned killing to prove it.
  
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It's actually pretty big problem in Spain. I have to keep blocking spam numbers. I think it's the same in Poland. EU is not regulating this, it's up to individual governments and some are not handling it well.

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Don't you know that you're not free? You'd only be free if something like this went unpunished/s

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Here in the UK, I get one a year. I used to get more, but then I answered a couple and was deliberately obstinate in a way that seems to have gotten me added to a blacklist.

"No, you called me, so you have to prove that you are who you say you are. We'll start with your company registration number, registered office, and FCA registration number." No threats or profanity or abuse, just firm demands that they prove their identity. They always hang up, stop calling, and tell their fellow scammers not to bother with me.

I definitely don't trust the government to regulate properly, but I do trust the scammers to recognise that pestering me wastes their time and gets them nothing. While it may seem like the 2-3 minutes per year spent stubbornly refusing to give any personal information until I've done "due diligence checks" is a waste of my time, I consider it an investment, since I don't have to deal with any calls in the future.

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- I stopped getting robocalls after I did the ole' trick where you stick your phone under a metal pot and then hit it with a wooden spoon
  
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In US here. I do not remember last time I heard a robocall. A years ago? I did get one robocall message couple months back though.

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- @MxM111 @hedge @maynarkh I still get some robocalls, if they leave a message. Most people don't answer their phones if the calling number is not in their contacts list, so that has put a damper on the robocalls effectiveness. It also puts a damper on the effectiveness of political polling.
  
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On the landline I got them all the time when I still had one, to the point that I wouldn't answer if it wasn't local. On the cellphone I had like 5 in the last 5 years

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My mum constantly gets landline calls, e.g. from some Microsoft employess out of a center in India... Anyway I also don't receive them but I imagine of your number lands in such a pool you might be out of luck.

Edit: I just reread and question my reading comprehension. Robocalls exist? Now I understand why these call screening features are so sought after.

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Blocking a number on you phone just tells the phone to hide the incoming call not the carrier. The call rings through unanswered and then the carrier routes it to voicemail like any other call.

You would need to block the caller at the carrier. Most have some kind of block list you can enable. The alternative would be a non-standard dialer app that, rather than hiding the incoming call, would pick it up and drop it. I don't know if such software exists.

Edit: dialer not diaper.

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The Pampers app does this well. First I tried Luvs and Huggies but they were trash.

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The alternative would be a non-standard diaper app that, rather than hiding the incoming call, would pick it up and drop it. I don’t know if such software exists.

I assume you meant dialer app 😆 . But anyway, for some Android phones you can use call screening.

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But why does it work like that? You could just as easily make the phone silently pick up and silently hang up.

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- That's not a complete solution, though. If it relies on the phone to implement the block, then blocking wouldn't work when the phone is turned off or otherwise unavailable (not within service range, in airplane mode on an airplane, etc.).
  
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- For prepaid phones or international roaming phones, you'd be charged for a 1 minute call and hit with a roaming charge.
  
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- Tons of technological debt would be my assumption.
  
  What I'd prefer is a standardized API where the block is done at the carrier.
  
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- Maybe there's some carriers that also charge for incoming calls, at least in Roaming.
  
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I'm pretty unclear why you'd have this arbitrary expectation

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You leave a voicemail by calling someone.

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- You leave a voicemail by calling someone that doesn't answer.
  
  Blocking the call at your phone is just not answering.
  
  Use something like Google's Call Screening that actually answers numbers not in your contacts so they don't get the opportunity to leave a voicemail.
  
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Both of those are service related and nothing to do with Android.

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No, most blocking these days is done on the device level.

It used to be that your provider was the one who would manage individual number blocks, but now that smartphones can do that trivially easily, calling up your provider to ask to block a number will end up with the rep telling you how to block the number from your device. Granted, you still can do carrier-level blocking, but most carriers are moving away from it because the user isn't in control of those settings. Carriers are mostly hands-off with blocks, unless you're blocking specific types of numbers (like 5-digit shortcode numbers or toll lines).

So yes, this is 100% a failure of the OS in this case.

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- That's called declining the call.
  
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Voicemail? What year is it?

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2002 called but it got voicemail.

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- I get all my VMs transcribed and faxed to me.
  
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Exactly. Maybe I can disable it altogether...?

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- You can reset your voicemail, which on some carriers will result in callers getting the, "This voicemail box has not been set up yet," outgoing message (which will not let them leave a message). From the quick search I did, it looks like it's a pretty carrier-specific process, though, so you'll need to search " reset voicemail" to get anywhere.
  
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- For me, Its the call forwarding option. My Cell provider has a special number in there for unanswered calls. If you forward that to a number that isn't real all unanswered (and blocked calls) will get a 'this number does not exist" message.
  
  Be careful with this because real callers and people you know will get the message if you don't answer.
  
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It's 2023.

demand no voicemail
reassure incredulous carrier that no, it's 2023, voicemail is as dead as the answering machine, and that you never want to get a message beep.
reassure them again that their useless pork service isn't required, and that your choice is only between various plans that do not include or enable a voicemail service.

Just let it die.

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- These issues are probably cultural and region-specific. The countries I've lived in are the opposite, voicemail just isn't a thing and if you leave an important message in voicemail you're likely to get blamed instead.
  
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- Yep, I wish I could disable voicemail, but there are important ones that come through from time to time that I don't want to worry about missing. Not every profession has comfortably transitioned to texting/email and I can't force them to.
  
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And blocking someone on Lemmy doesn't block them on Reddit. What did you expect?

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Given voicemails start with a call, OP probably expected that voicemails would be blocked since you have to perform a blocked call in order to leave one.

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How could it? Calls are blocked on the OS level, but voicemails are on the carrier level, the OS has no way of affecting that. Just disable voicemail altogether.

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Ya, I'd honestly rather an automated system that accepts and hangs up on the caller just so I don't need that stupid "YOU HAVE A VOICEMAIL" notification that I can only remove for 2 hours at a time.

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That's essentially what Call Screening does if the number has been reported as spam enough times.

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This is why someone should make a non-standard dialer that lets you:

Pick up then hang up immediately, so they can't send it to voicemail.
A button that tells the carrier "I missed the call".

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Does your carrier's online account management allow you to block numbers yourself? That will prevent them from leaving voicemails. If they don't let you do it yourself online, you'll probably have to call, and regardless, there might be a charge per number - the last time I looked into it, it was $10 to block a number for my Verizon account.

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👍Thanks for the tip, will definitely look into.

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I just had my carrier remove my voicemail.

I’m on iOS, and I have “silence unknown callers” turned on. I’m sure a similar Android option exists.

Basically - any number that calls me that is unknown (that isn’t in my contacts or I haven’t called/picked up before) goes right to my nonexistent voicemail, which means they’re immediately hung up on.

Auto-dialers are funny. Most are configured to redial on connection fail. Yesterday I received 38 calls in a 2 minute period. Never got a single notification about it

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What do you do for contractors, Doctors, etc?

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- Nothing apparently
  
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- I’m almost purely digital for pretty much all of notifications that come my way - even my doctor.
  
  I don’t live in the area code where my phone number is from, and haven’t in so long that there’s only a few people that would call me from that area code.
  
  And - well spotted - The 38 call salvo from the day prior was actually a contractor trying to get ahold of me. Because it was a number from my current area code, I went ahead and called them back. The person who called me only tried to dial once, and the redials were all the computer automatically retrying.
  Admittedly, it is less than optimal, but in the 5ish years I’ve gone without a voicemail, it’s the second time I haven’t picked up for a desired call.
  
  Usually when I know I’m going to be receiving calls from new folks, I’ll first try to call their number or text them - even if the number isn’t in my contacts, if I’ve interacted with it in some fashion, it will ring through. Or I’ll disable the ‘straight to voicemail’ for a time.
  
  It’s not too onerous, and I really hate spam calls, so the effort of remembering to enable/disable it a few times a year is worth it to me.
  And, for what it’s worth, I do think it has an effect. Earlier this year I let calls through and forgot to block them again, and it was 3 weeks before I got a spam call. Before taking such extreme measures, I was getting about 5 a week.
  
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- I usually text with them. The missed call entry is usually enough information anyway.
  
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Yeah I hate that. It just fills your voicemail with crap and makes that useless, too.

You'd think something as simple as a phone wouldn't get so shitty... But he we are.

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What I do is mute all calls not on my contacts and never set up voice mail.

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I don't have this problem. I think it depends on your carrier. Some carriers let the call go straight to voice mail. My blocks are a one-time thing and system-wide.

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they're just trying to get u extended car warranty bro

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