Robocall Blockers

By Lanie Carmelo, 7 August, 2022

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Does anyone use a robocall blocker? I'm looking for a good accessible one. I know you can silence all unknown callers but I'm not sure I want to have to add anyone who might possibly call me to my contacts. I tried Youmail, and it's the most accessible one I've found, but it didn't seem to block a lot of calls. Right now I'm using Hiya, but it's only partially accessible and the app's interface seems to have changed a lot recently. It used to tell me either in the app or in my phone app's call log if a number was spam, but now I don't see that. Any suggestions for others I should try?

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Comments

By Larry Thacker Jr. on Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - 12:29

I've used Nomorobo for the last few years. I almost canceled the subscription this year because I wasn't convinced it was doing much good. Then I stumbled into the junk folder in Messages and found all the political texts I didn't have to see. I kept it.

By Gar on Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - 12:29

Hi,
On the surface, no, Youmail will not block calls. Keep in mind, it is not designed to be a call blocker for your phone number. However, it does have features that can potentially reduce the number of spam calls you get over time.
As I understand it, YouMail will play an out of service tone to known spammers once they reach your voicemail. While this doesn't block a call in the moment, it does serve as a way for your number to be removed from the list of numbers in a database.
If you are willing to shell out some money for their YouMail solo plan, however, you can get a second phone number. Since that phone number is built into YouMail itself, and it forwards calls to your phone instead of the other way around, YouMail's call protections are much more robust. For example, unknown numbers can be prompted to enter a phone number before being permitted to ring through. Since robocalls can't do this, they will not ring at all.
I have tried other call blockers in the past, but either they were inaccessible, difficult to use, or most recently, just crashed on launch and would not run entirely.
I did consider Robokiller at one time, but I read something about unexpected long distance charges which talked me out of it.
Hope this helps.

By Lanie Carmelo on Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - 12:29

This confuses me a little since it mentions blocking calls in the Appstore entry, and I thought in the app itself, although I also remember it being able to play the out of service messages. I'm trying not to pay too much since I don't have a lot of money, but I might come back to this idea.