After ~2 years of this strategy I've missed 0 important calls, the important ones always leave a voicemail.

Me too. The vast majority of my spam calls are on the local exchange for my phone's native number. I use Google Voice on a Pixel2, so nobody should even be using the native number. I've often wished for a way to either:

Block any call for the native, non Google Voice number or Block any call claiming to originate from any number in the native number's local prefix. Eg, 604-233-

I haven't found a call blocker that can do this, but it has been a while since I looked.

For those on iOS, you can block wildcard number ranges like this with Number Shield[0].

I have been receiving alot of these spoofed neighbor number calls, and this app saves me a lot of time and stress. You can also prevent it from blocking contacts that fall into your blocked number range.

0: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/number-shield/id1319082167?m...

Most of the junk calls to my cell phone follow this formula. There doesn't seem to be anything to block the whole exchange. I'd be happy to do it. I don't actually live in the same city as my cell number so the odds that I'd be blocking someone who needed to reach me is pretty small.

Hiya on android will allow you to block numbers that start with a prefix, so you could block all calls that start with 604-233 604-232 and 604-234

But will it allow me to block all calls from 604-232 and 604-234 that are not in my contacts? Because I've noticed a similar trend where I get calls from numbers that begin with the same 6 numbers as my phone number.. but I have friends and family with phone numbers similar to mine and I don't want them blocked. Just ones not in my contacts list.

Edit: I read a review of Hiya and it sounds like they're still missing what we're all looking for: "Two things are missing. First, the ability to block all calls not in contacts. I have to download a separate app for that. Second, on inbound calls from the same area code (i.e., spoofed numbers) it does not pre-screen the call."

Do it.

I have my phone in a permanent "Do Not Disturb" mode with a few break-through rules for "favorite" contacts (not even all contacts). Missed important calls: 0. If someone's calling and doesn't leave the voicemail, then it's not important.

Set default ring tone to silence. Create separate ring tones for people in a contact list or people for whom you must pick up a phone.

I have been using this for 3 years. No issues at all.

I'm purely whitelist at this point. If I get a call and it's not from a contact I know, I send it straight to voicemail. Probably less than 10% of my phone calls are legitimate. The rest (2-3 calls a day) are vacation timeshare spam, "IRS" spam, solar panel spam, and some Chinese spam that I can't understand because I don't speak Mandarin.

Anyone who's important (including kid's school) is in my contact list, so I'm confident that I'm not missing anything important. And in the off chance it is important but not in my white list they will leave a message.

I get so many robocalls I don't even bother with call notifications anymore. If they're a friend, they'll probably text instead. If it's a business matter, they'll leave a message.

Hiya on android will block calls from known spam numbers, or you can set it to allow the calls but flag them as known spam or telemarketers. It also supports blocking calls based on what the number starts with. So if you have a non local number, and spammers are spoofing a local number it is easy to block them without missing important calls. Lastly, how many calls do you get that are important, but not important enough that they would leave a voicemail?

T-Mobile will sometimes display "Scam Likely" for me in place of the phone number. It's way to conservative though. It would be nice to have a way to report scam phone numbers back. Kinda like Apple's "was this voicemail translation helpful" in voicemail. I'm sure this would weed out scammers phone numbers pretty fast. Although, once a number is flagged its gone for good and phone numbers need to be recyclable.

You should be able to report these numbers using T-Mobile Name ID app. https://explore.t-mobile.com/nameid?icid=WMM_TM_Q317NAMEID_2...

> and phone numbers need to be recyclable.

Why?

Finite supply.

I haven't answered an unknown number in well over a decade. My voicemail message has for at least that long been along the lines of "I probably chose not to answer you, especially if your number is withheld or not known to me. Leave a message, or better yet text/email me". I don't recall ever missing something important.

I use Google Voice.

I send all calls that block the caller ID automatically to voicemail.

If I get repeated spam voicemails from the same number, I manually add it to a contact called “Block”. The next time they call they get a special voicemail message I recorded telling them the number is no longer in service.

This system has worked well for years.

I'd suggest against it. There are important calls that can come in from true unknown sources, people who just legitimately need to contact you out of the blue, especially officials (police, utility companies, etc...). If you feel like ignoring those, there's also the possibility that a contact of yours needs to contact you in an emergency can can't use their normal phone. As an example, assuming you're married, maybe your spouse gets into an accident and calls to you for help from a nearby house?

This happens less often than being killed by lightning, which you do not take proactive measures against.

People can leave a message. Officials can leave a message. When do you ever need to answer a call from a official? 911 is for getting instant help in emergencies. No one needs you to answer your personal phone immediately.

I tend to agree. It's probably in part that I can remember when someone reaching you required you to be at home. I can even remember before answering machines :-) Now, I don't make myself arbitrarily hard to reach. But I also don't buy into the idea that it's unthinkable to not be reachable 24 hours a day.

I do take protective measures against being hit by lightning. I don't take shelter under trees during a lightning storm - I do so in a building that has a working lightning rod.

> I do so in a building that has a working lightning rod.

On a serious note, all buildings are different so you can't really do this reliably as it is unlikely you will locate the lightning rod before it is too late to course correct.

So please tell me you are joking :)

You can always just accept the call and wait for the other party to speak. If it's a machine-assisted call, silence doesn't trigger the answer detector, and it hangs up after a few seconds, possibly also marking your number as no-contact. A human caller will eventually ask if anyone is listening.

They called you, after all. They can just say what they wanted to say whether you acknowledge them or not.

They can (and do) leave a voicemail.

I could see sending all non-contact calls to voicemail the first time, and letting them ring if they call again.

Anything more restricted would make you unavailable if, say, the police called because a family member was in a crash. I will put up with some inconvenience to be available in rare emergencies.

If you get a voice mail from the police, you can listen to the voice mail and respond.

Yes, that was referring to the idea of going further than sending to voicemail.

I've considered it. Important-but-not-emergency calls would theoretically go to voicemail where they can leave a message. I would worry about missing calls that really are emergencies though. This is why I haven't done such a thing.

Perhaps there would be an override if they kept calling back.

What's wrong with emergency calls going to voicemail, for your personal line when you aren't an onduty first-responder?

Would you also take your phone into the shower with you so you don't miss a potential call?

> What's wrong with emergency calls going to voicemail, for your personal line when you aren't an onduty first-responder?

If I'm available I don't want to wait to find out a family member was in an accident or something.

> Would you also take your phone into the shower with you so you don't miss a potential call?

No, because I'm in the shower for less than 10 minutes. If some kind of emergency unfortunately happens while I'm in the shower then I guess I'll just have to find out after my shower. I can live with that.

You can do it on an iPhone at least using Do Not Disturb. I've resorted to doing that when I travel overseas because otherwise I get woken up in the middle of the night. I don't really like doing it for the reason you say but I really don't have a choice.

I'm seeing residential POTS equipment now listing up to 1,000 number blocklists.

None I've yet found clearly advertise a whitelisting feature, though that's obviously the direction to roll.

I'm also trying to see if Asterisk might be applicable here.

We tried that in the UK with BT's service but it was blocking to may calls and as one of the household was on a transplant list that was some what suboptimal.

Please do - but how would you go about doing that?