Call screening is a complete fail when it comes to scammers

[Chew Toy McCoy]

All it has accomplished is a slight delay in the call coming through. Your devices still ring/vibrate and they can still leave messages.

I took it to the extreme of blocking all calls that aren't in my contacts which is only slightly less annoying. My devices don't ring/vibrate but if I'm looking at my devices I still get text notifications about the call and they can still a leave message, but I acknowledge choosing this extreme option should allow messages to be left because it may be a call you want to receive. Thank God I don't have a work cell because I don't know how people who do deal with this shit as they often have to take calls from unknown numbers.

At minimum if a number is identified as a potential scammer or telemarketer there should be an onscreen option to hang up/not allow a message to be left, and permanently block the number.

Just as annoying when I'm trying to cleanup the mess manually, often at least a dozen a day, I sometimes accidentally hit the callback button and even though I near instantly hit end call I'm sure it probably sends out a signal to the scammer that lets them know "hey, we've got a live one!" to be redialed and resold to other data brokers.

If the government or anybody else is in fact coming after me they are going to have to show up at my house in person because I'm not going to believe anything I receive by phone or email.

 

[Eric]

Mine is pretty good about picking up and notifying of potential spammers when one calls, I just hit the straight to VM option and they never leave one. Done and done. I also have to leave my lines open because of potential clients in the Bay Area reaching out from assorted numbers so I don't have the luxury of blocking all outside of my contacts.

 

[Cmaier]

I started getting multiple calls per morning between 6:30 and 8:00 am from “my cable provider” and “AT&T.” I gave in and turned on call screening. After 2 weeks of this, the calls stopped - I suspect their autodialers keep track of the fact that they aren’t getting through, and remove me from a list.

 

[Vincent Hannah]

Blindly answering a call from an unknown number, scammer or not, is a 20th century concept.

We’re gonna have to explain to future generations how this was ever considered a good idea.

 

[fischersd]

If you answer the call but don't say anything, the robodialler hangs up. Anytime I get a call without a meaningful caller ID, that's what I do.

I stopped using "block unknown callers".

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Mine is pretty good about picking up and notifying of potential spammers when one calls, I just hit the straight to VM option and they never leave one. Done and done. I also have to leave my lines open because of potential clients in the Bay Area reaching out from assorted numbers so I don't have the luxury of blocking all outside of my contacts.

I rarely talk on the phone. It could be days or even a week. So it might be slightly less annoying when they are just mixed in with an active phone call day as opposed to 95% of the calls you get with a minimum of a half dozen a day.

Plus I'm somewhat hypersensitive to unnecessary noise and distractions. My phone vibrating with even a legitimate call can trigger me.

 

[RockRock8]

I'm definitely not blaming you (but I'm not blaming Apple either), but Call Screening isn't an "AI" that blocks scammers. It does and was shown exactly as you described at WWDC

Its meant to prevent you having to get the nuisance of getting the phone call immediately unknown, wondering whether or not to pick up the phone, and then answer, "hello? Hello? Who is this? Who are you?" Etc.

The phone call comes in, and the phone remains silent. Only once they've sent a voice message (hopefully) detailing who they are, then then call comes through in an iMessage style pop up, where you can see who they are and if you want to answer the phone. This is way faster and less of a nuisance, especially considering you can actually type to respond to them and they can leave a message or hang up.

I think it's a good feature, but I can imagine if you thought that it would automatically filter calls out for you then you would be disappointed. I wouldn't trust an algorithm to do that regardless (personally lol).

Also if you're getting nearly a dozen spam calls a day, and I feel bad for you if my read of that sentence is accurate, then your number is already marked as active most likely.

Have you tried one of those call filtering apps from the App Store? There are a few, some are better and some aren't as good.

 

[Yoused]

Plus I'm somewhat hypersensitive to unnecessary noise and distractions. My phone vibrating with even a legitimate call can trigger me.

You might try this: years ago, I made a ringtone in Audacity that amounted to a few faint clicks – essentially silent. I assigned it to numbers that I knew were spam/scammers. But, what you could do is assign a ringtone to each of your contacts (not a big deal for me, I only have about 2 dozen), then make the nearly-silent ringtone your default and straight-up turn off vibrate. When you are expecting a call back from someone not in your list, keep your phone where you can see the screen when it lights up with that call (just a regular shirt pocket would probably be good enough). Vibrate can be a bit annoying.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I'm definitely not blaming you (but I'm not blaming Apple either), but Call Screening isn't an "AI" that blocks scammers. It does and was shown exactly as you described at WWDC

Its meant to prevent you having to get the nuisance of getting the phone call immediately unknown, wondering whether or not to pick up the phone, and then answer, "hello? Hello? Who is this? Who are you?" Etc.

The phone call comes in, and the phone remains silent. Only once they've sent a voice message (hopefully) detailing who they are, then then call comes through in an iMessage style pop up, where you can see who they are and if you want to answer the phone. This is way faster and less of a nuisance, especially considering you can actually type to respond to them and they can leave a message or hang up.

I think it's a good feature, but I can imagine if you thought that it would automatically filter calls out for you then you would be disappointed. I wouldn't trust an algorithm to do that regardless (personally lol).

Also if you're getting nearly a dozen spam calls a day, and I feel bad for you if my read of that sentence is accurate, then your number is already marked as active most likely.

Have you tried one of those call filtering apps from the App Store? There are a few, some are better and some aren't as good.

I admit I might have been expecting a bit much but I seem to recall that they believed call screening asking the caller for their name and reason for calling before letting the call through would help prevent scammers from getting through because an automated message wouldn't be able to answer questions but that lasted exactly 0 days.

I initially thought scammers would just use AI to answer those questions but the work around actually didn't require any tech upgrade to their system. Just start the automated message with "Hi, this is Bob calling about your lone approval" and the call just sails on through."

I've looked into third party solutions but the ones that seem to work by reviews (although not 100%) involve a subscription at a higher rate than what I think is justified. Plus I'm not convinced that these companies aren't also working with the scammers. It makes me think of the notoriously bad public housing construction in Russia, which is most of Russia's housing. Russians often hire the same guy to fix the problems that did the shoddy original construction they just accept that as being part of life.

 

[Eric]

I've recently turned on the "Ask Reason for Calling" feature and it rocks, if it's anyone who wants to talk to you they just say it and the phone puts them through and you can choose to take it or not. So far it's worked like a charm.

 

[Cmaier]

I've recently turned on the "Ask Reason for Calling" feature and it rocks, if it's anyone who wants to talk to you they just say it and the phone puts them through and you can choose to take it or not. So far it's worked like a charm.

yep. And I found after doing that for a week, my 7am spam calls (two per morning for weeks) stopped. The only legit call that triggered it was when the doctor called to tell me to pick up my wife after her colonoscopy, and I saw the text on the screen as the doctor was talking and picked the call up and all was good.

Combine this with my carrier’s call filter app and generally I’m happy.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I've recently turned on the "Ask Reason for Calling" feature and it rocks, if it's anyone who wants to talk to you they just say it and the phone puts them through and you can choose to take it or not. So far it's worked like a charm.

yep. And I found after doing that for a week, my 7am spam calls (two per morning for weeks) stopped. The only legit call that triggered it was when the doctor called to tell me to pick up my wife after her colonoscopy, and I saw the text on the screen as the doctor was talking and picked the call up and all was good.

Combine this with my carrier’s call filter app and generally I’m happy.

Interesting. I tried that and spam calls still got through. Caller ID just says something like "Maybe: Mary" and message still left.

 

[Cmaier]

Interesting. I tried that and spam calls still got through. Caller ID just says something like "Maybe: Mary" and message still left.

The “message” is what they said in response to the prompt asking them who they are and why they called. It displays on the screen as they speak, and gets saved as if it’s a voicemail when they are done. This can be helpful, since you may not be next to your phone when this is going on.

 

[Roller]

yep. And I found after doing that for a week, my 7am spam calls (two per morning for weeks) stopped. The only legit call that triggered it was when the doctor called to tell me to pick up my wife after her colonoscopy, and I saw the text on the screen as the doctor was talking and picked the call up and all was good.

Combine this with my carrier’s call filter app and generally I’m happy.

I still get spam calls, but most of them hang up and don't bother leaving a message after they hear the prompt asking why they're calling. The ones I really want to answer tend to leave a voice mail, so I can either respond immediately if I see what they're saying or call back later if I'm not available.

People often act surprised if I pick up while they're recording, but that's the same as call screening with answering machines back in the day. IIRC, that behavior was considered rude and anti-social, but I think it's more acceptable these days because of the volume of nuisance calls. The funniest technique to handle phone spam was in a Seinfeld episode:

 

[Herdfan]

I've recently turned on the "Ask Reason for Calling" feature and it rocks, if it's anyone who wants to talk to you they just say it and the phone puts them through and you can choose to take it or not. So far it's worked like a charm.

I have mixed thoughts on this. One of the things I do is deliver purchased vehicles to customers.

So I call lots of people who do not have me in their contacts and even though they know I am coming about half the time my call is rejected.

I love the idea of the tech, but it also depends on the human factor which can and does fail.

 

[MEJHarrison]

I took it to the extreme of blocking all calls that aren't in my contacts which is only slightly less annoying.

That's how mine is set. And I take it one step further. If the call is from a scammer, or someone who calls repeatedly without leaving voice mail, I just block the number altogether. But I'm the guy who tried to get an iPhone with only a data plan and no voice plan back in the day (I couldn't). I despise phone calls. I only answer my phone for my mother and wife. Everyone else can leave voicemail. If they truly know me, they're expecting that anyway. Except for my brother. He knows I hate phone calls, calls anyway and gets voicemail. I think it's a battle of the wills. He won't text and I won't answer calls. Needless to say, we don't speak very often.

 

[Eric]

I have mixed thoughts on this. One of the things I do is deliver purchased vehicles to customers.

So I call lots of people who do not have me in their contacts and even though they know I am coming about half the time my call is rejected.

I love the idea of the tech, but it also depends on the human factor which can and does fail.

All you have to day is say something like "Hey it's Eric" and the person on the other end will see it and then press the accept button. It's pretty slick actually.