As the year comes to an end, you might be feeling the pressure of the holiday season. You have a lot on your plate, from spending time with your loved ones to celebrating your festive traditions. With so many things to do and so little time, you don’t need any extra hassle from annoying spam calls or emails. That’s why we have prepared five tips to reduce spam and enjoy a more peaceful holiday season.
1) Send spam calls straight to your voicemail
To send scammers straight to voicemail on your iPhone, you need to have iOS 13 or later installed. Some phone carriers let you detect spam calls and silence them, while some carriers only show you the caller’s business ID information when calling.
You can also silence unknown callers, which is a great option to send any call from someone you don’t know directly to voicemail.
- Open your iPhone Settings
- Scroll down and tap Phone
- Tap Call Blocking & Identification
If your phone carrier offers it, you can toggle on:
- Silence Junk Callers – this option will automatically silence calls your phone carrier thinks is spam or junk
- Business ID – this option will display the caller’s verified business ID so you have a better idea if it’s a junk caller or someone you may know
- Open your iPhone Settings
- Scroll down and tap Phone
- Tap Silence Unknown Callers
When this is toggled on, any call from someone who isn’t in your contacts, recent calls, Siri Suggestions, or texts will get sent straight to Voicemail.
MORE: WHICH APPS ARE COLLECTING THE MOST DATA ON YOU?
Google devices like a Pixel that is updated or is from 2018 or later have a feature to filter out spam calls automatically. You can block (and sometimes report spam) calls in your phone’s settings.
Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer
- Open the Phone app on your Android
- Tap the three dots for more menu options on the top right
- Tap Settings
- Tap Caller ID & Spam
- Toggle on “Turn Caller ID & Spam”
- Turn on “Filter spam calls” or “Block spam and scam calls,” which will send them straight to voicemail
2) Stopping robocalls
Mobile apps can also share your personal information with data brokers. Even your online browsing habits are valuable to data brokers. Your data profile can be sold to many different buyers, including targeted advertising and marketing companies, as well as government agencies. You can request that data brokers remove your information. But with hundreds of them in the U.S. alone, it can be a daunting task. That’s where removal services come in.
Invest in removal services
A service like Incogni can help you remove all this personal information from the internet. It has a very clean interface and will scan 195 websites for your information and remove it and keep it removed.
Special for CyberGuy Readers (60% off): Incogni offers A 30-day money-back guarantee and then charges a special CyberGuy discount only through the links in this article of $6.49/month for one person (billed annually) or $13.19/month for your family (up to 4 people) on their annual plan and get a fully automated data removal service, including recurring removal from 175+ data brokers. I recommend the family plan because it works out to only $4.12 per person per month for year-round coverage. It’s an excellent service, and I highly recommend at least trying it out to see what it’s all about.
Use the code: CYBERGUY at checkout to get an exclusive discount – click here.
How to remove yourself from the Internet
Using the National Do Not Call Registry
The National Do Not Call Registry is a free program that blocks telemarketers from calling you within 31 days of registering.
- You can call the Registry at 1-888-382-1222 from the phone number you wish to include in the “do not call” list.
- Alternatively, visit donotcall.gov and click the “Register Your Phone” button.
- Enter the phone number you want to register
You can register up to three phone numbers at a time. Be sure to provide your email to acknowledge the confirmation and begin eliminating robocalls. Remember that the Do Not Call Registry does not stop all unwanted calls, such as those from political organizations, charities, and debt collectors.
MORE: OOPS! YOU CLICKED ON A SPAM EMAIL AND ADDED YOUR INFO TO WHAT LOOKED LIKE A LEGIT SITE
3) Using alias emails to keep spam out of your inbox
- StartMail email address
- 10 GB of email
- Unlimited aliases
- Access email on any device
- Import your contacts easily
- No ads, no tracking
- Send encrypted emails to anyone
Best Private and Secure Email Providers 2023
4) Unsubscribing from emails
UnsubscribeManage subscriber options
MORE: STOP BEING BOMBARDED BY UNWANTED GROUP CHATS AND EMAILS ON YOUR EMAIL
5) Stopping spam texts on your phone
Both Android and iPhone allow you to block any unknown or potentially dangerous numbers from texting you.
iPhone
iPhone gives you the option of both filtering unknown numbers, as well as blocking them.
To filter unknown numbers:
- Open Settings
- Tap Messages
- Toggle on Filter Unknown Senders
- When you open your messages, you can tap Filters on the top left of the screen.
- You will find that your texts have been divided into three categories, “All Messages”, “Known Senders,” “Unknown Senders, “ and “Unred Messages.”
- All messages from an unknown number will be sent to Unknown Senders, and you will not receive a notification.
If you received a text you know to be suspicious, then the thing to do is to block that number, preventing them from being able to contact you again.
To block a spam number:
- Open the spam text message
- Tap on the profile Icon with the number underneath it
- Tap info
- Scroll down and tap Block this Caller
- Tap Block Contact
Android
Android similarly offers two services to help you evade spam text messages using Spam Protection, as well as simply blocking certain numbers.
Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer
To enable spam protection:
- Open the Messages app
- Tap the tree dots icon in the upper right-hand corner
- Tap Settings
- Tap Spam Protection
- Tap Enable Spam Protection
To block a phone number:
- Open the Spam Text Message
- Tap the three dots icon in the upper right-hand corner
- Tap Add To Blocklist
Samsung
To enable spam protection on a Samsung Galaxy A32 5G, you can follow these steps:
- Open the Settings app
- Scroll down and click on Apps
- Tap on the Messages app
- Scroll down and click App notifications
- Toggle on the Spam protection option
This will enable the spam protection feature for the Messages app, which should help to identify and filter out spam messages.
You can also block specific numbers from the “Messages” app by following these steps:
- Open the Messages app on your phone.
- Find the spam message that you want to block.
- Tap and hold on message until a menu appears.
- Tap on the Block/report spam option.
- Confirm that you want to block the sender.
Once you have blocked the sender, you will no longer receive messages from them.
You can also block numbers from the “Settings” app by going to:
- Apps
- Then Messages
- Go to Block numbers
- Here, you can add the number that you want to block to the block list.
Spam blocking apps
There are also several highly recommended apps designed to block malicious texts, among our most recommended:
- Free for Android and iPhone
- Transcribes voicemails, saving you the trouble of listening to them
- Free reverse phone number database
- Caller ID, which even weeds out suspicious numbers
- Free for iPhone
- Focused on blocking spam texts from unknown numbers
- Allows you to create keyword-specific blocks
- Also blocks out email addresses and phone number ranges
- Creates separate folders of known senders, unknown senders, and junk
- Available for Android and iPhone
- Winner of the FTC Robocall Challenge
- Protects you from spam texts and callers
- $2 a month for each mobile phone
- 14 Day-free trial
Kurt’s key takeaways
Avoiding spam goes hand in hand with protecting your privacy online. A lot of data brokers have easy access to your information. It’s important that you keep your data safe and out of the hands of anyone who could harm you, your family, or your wallet.
What are some of the most common or annoying spam messages you have encountered? How did you recognize them as spam? Let us know in the comments below.
FOR MORE OF MY SECURITY ALERTS, SUBSCRIBE TO MY FREE CYBERGUY REPORT NEWSLETTER HERE
Answers to the most asked CyberGuy questions:
Copyright 2024 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved. CyberGuy.com articles and content may contain affiliate links that earn a commission when purchases are made.