Scams are on the rise. It can feel sometimes like you’re fielding 100 scam calls and texts a day, and at some point the feelings of annoyance they create may lead you to answering those calls and giving whoever is on the opposite end of the phone a piece of your mind. But some tech experts say that is the single worst step you can take when you see unwanted, strange numbers appear on your phone. Instead of answering spam calls, there’s a setting that you should enable to help deal with them.
Whatever you do: avoid the temptation of picking up the phone when a spammer calls you — it may actually make the problem even worse.
Why Shouldn’t You Answer Spam Calls?
One of the points of sending you a spam call (from the spammer’s POV) isn’t just to see if today will be their lucky day and they’ll be able to get personal information from you, it’s to simply see if they’ve reached a legit phone number. Spammers often use AI to rapidly generate thousands of phone numbers and try them out. When your number is on that list and they ring you, answering your phone only confirms that you are a real person and this number is a good one to keep in their database and try again (and again and again).
Here’s another frustrating fact: even if your actively decline the spam call, this still indicates to the spammer that you are a real person at the other end of the phone and they can try you back later.
So, what are you supposed to do to handle this madness?
Enable Silence Unknown Callers
You can let the spam phone call ring out and go to voicemail. But that’s also disruptive. A better idea, if you have an iPhone, is to enable a setting called “Silence Unknown Callers.” This setting automatically sends numbers that are not in your contacts list to voicemail. Go to Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers. Toggle this on. This gives you an effective plan of attack against spam that won’t disrupt your day.
