
How do you screen calls / distractions on your smartphone? - dontbenebby
Like many people, I get a lot of spam calls.<p>My original workaround was using &quot;Do Not Disturb&quot; mode in iOS, and a whitelist of people who could break through. This seemed to greatly reduce, but not eliminate the calls.<p>However, the whitelist also  blocks recruiters, job interviewers, or people calling from a different line.<p>Also, I give out my Signal number to a lot of loose ties, and DND only applies to voice calls&#x2F;SMS not Signal - so often when I intended to only be reachable by my close friends and family I&#x27;ll instead be pinged by someone wanting to chat.<p>How does HN screen their mobile calls&#x2F;messages? I love the utility of my smartphone, I&#x27;d never trade it for a dumb phone. But I wish there was a better way to set some kind of medium mode between &quot;turned off&quot; and &quot;accessible to anyone who has my contact info&quot;.
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simonblack
If I don't see a known number or known contact when the phone rings, I let it
go to VoiceMail.

I have an answering message for VoiceMail that contains two things: the tones
that signify "this number not in use" and the terse 'leave a message'.

The tones kill off the autodiallers that most scam/cold-call diallers use. The
'leave a message' is for the few real people that are on the other end of the
line.

Anybody who doesn't leave a message will be ignored, and only the (very few)
voicemails that I select to answer will be followed through.

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jakamau
It's a bit of a low tech filter, but I intentionally selected a phone number
with an unusual area code. It's an area code that I will most likely never
travel to or do business with.

With the glut of spam calls that attempt to spoof local exchanges, whenever I
see a phone call that uses my phone numbers area code and local exchange I
know I can ignore it.

If I received a phone call from a geographically close region I can be
relatively certain they have my phone number for a reason.

