I do not know of any person who does not hate them. They seem to
be sneaking into our lives more and more. Solutions are
available, or soon to be available to stem the tide, but they
will not end soon.
The Federal
Communications Commission announced new rules it said would
tackle the avalanche of robocalls we are receiving, but did not
offer anything that is not available now. It said it would vote
on a ruling that would allow phone companies to have
call-blocking as a default, implement strong call-blocking
services as the default setting for their customers and to make
it easier for us to block unwanted calls. "That means your phone
is only going to ring if the call is coming from somebody in
your list of contacts," said FCC chairman Ajit Pai.
Until that is finalized, here are a few things more we can do
now to eliminate the vast majority of them.
For IPhone users, in Settings, click on “Do Not Disturb” and
“Allow Calls From” then “All Contacts.”
For Android, in the Phone app, click the three lines on the top
right of the screen, select Settings then Block Numbers, then
click on "Block Unknown Callers." Only numbers from your
contacts will ring.
There does not appear a way to have phone mail blocked from
anyone, but if we can at least eliminate the ring, it is a good
first step to eliminate distractions and you can listen to voice
mail at your convenience and add the number to contacts if it is
someone you want to hear from.