My Google Pixel uses AI to answer the call in the background, and will automatically report as spam and block these calls. I haven't gotten a spam call in over a year
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Asklemmy
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Hmm - I have a Pixel as well. I've been blocking / reporting but they seem to come from tons of different phone numbers. And for some reason the Pixel lets them leave a voice mail if they're blocked / known spam.
I've had Pixels for years and the call screener is my favorite feature. It confuses so many people.
As a researcher who often has to follow up participants damnnnn yooouuuu ๐ญ /lh I never know what to say to those things
The voice is very similar to mine, which really trips people up when I use it lol
Wait, where do I enable this? ๐ฎ
Edit: Found this guide, but Spam & Call Screen isn't available on my 8 pro. So I guess it's only regionally available. :/
Edit 2: Some people online seem to have the same problem. Assigning Phone back as Spam App in the phone settings, clearing the cache and force stopping the Phone app also didn't change anything.
I work for a mental health research study and often have to warm call people who expressed interest to book them in for a screening with us.
Finally encountered a Google AI response the other week and got scared and confused so I just hung up and sent an email ๐ฅฒ
I gotta get a pixel
Uh... does your phone still ring, or does it literally answer the call and the robot voice takes over. In both cases, I find that freaky
It answers the call behind the scenes without you needing to hear or listen. It pops up a notification saying that the call is ongoing with the screening AI, and you have an option to immediately stop the call or to pick it up. It also records a transcript of the call for you to listen to afterwards. It also doesn't screen every call, if it's a number in your contacts it lets it through to you as normal.
(I still find that really freaky, but appreciate the answer)
Brace yourself, because it's going to get a lot worse.
God I wish the whole administration would stroke out already.
Here's my tip, for Lemmy hopefully it will never get so popular as to not work any more.
Answer the phone for unknown numbers, don't say a g-d thing, just listen. Let them address you first.
If they ask for you by name go ahead and respond, if they call back answer with a generic "hi" greeting, don't let them have your voice or name before you know who they are and what their business is.
A robot will mark your number as a "dead line" and not call you again.
A person will either be trying to reach you (and know who you are) or trying to reach a living person, and not waste their time with an unresponsive line.
I do this all the time too. The new standard for polite calling anyone is to initiate the conversation if the line goes live as far as I am concerned. Never say anything for an unknown caller, and expect to get dropped or hung up on even if you are legitimate. If you're unwilling to call me twice or thrice, you didn't need to call me in the first place.
No
Nope. But I have my info stripped from the internet weekly and are on the do not call registries. I get spam from time to time of course but havenโt had any lately at all. I get FAR less than my wife. I also donโt sign up for crap to get discounts like she does.
I don't get too much of them. I recently installed Spamblocker from F-droid. It uses a list of reported spammers to warn you that a call might be spam. And it works.
It also helps that I don't have much family or connections outside the country, so if I see a weird countrycode I already know it is BS.
And I just don't get called very often. Luckily I am in Europe, which means that if I leave my number with a company so they can call me, they cannot sell that number to anyone else.
I think over the last 5 years I've had maybe 6 calls? Something like that. I immediately know what is up and don't even pick up.
I use an app called KnownCalls that sends anything that isn't in your contact list straight to voicemail. Added bonus: No ads, free app.
Just to throw this in. If you use this, check your voicemails.
I often have to call customers to check ambiguities in their orders and people just dont return calls. Our contracts clearly state that in the event that you cant be contacted we arent responsible for any errors.
For those on iOS you donโt need an app to do this.
You can go to settings -> apps -> phone -> silence unknown callers.
This will send them straight to voicemail and the call will show in the recent calls list.
What phone os do you have?
For me android automatically blocks 90% of spam calls nowadays. I can see them in the phone history, but my phone don't ring for them.
There is a setting in the Google phone app that's called "block unknown numbers" I think. Maybe give it a try
I did this and regretted it.
Many professional services withhold their number for obvious reasons. Turns out my doctor was trying to contact me and couldn't.
Oh, yeah. I had the same problem with Disney+ customer service. Well. It's better than this hell
I've been getting scam texts but in a group chat with other people. They're just sending the same scam over and over again.
Yep, I got a series of those recently claiming that I had unpaid paid tolls. Each messagr came through as a group text with two or three random numbers, which were immediately removed from the group after the text arrived. I've been wondering why they started doing this. I assume they're trying to exploit some kind of loophole in the carriers spam filtering.
I have unknown numbers forwarded directly to voicemail on iOS, but yeah Iโm getting a bunch too.
This is why I live on airplane mode
Not since my provider(Koodo) started offering Call Control. When humans call my number they get a recording that they have to enter a number that is randomly selected with each incoming call.
It goes in waves, I was a week or so ago.
I hardly ever get spam calls. Today, I got a call from a government robocaller and a call asking for someone else whom Iโm pretty sure had my number over five years before me. I thought these were legit but now, reading the comments, Iโm not so sure.
People are way too willing to give out their phone numbers. So many apps and websites require a phone before ever signing in. I will not use any service that requires a phone number.
Because so many things rely on phone numbers now, when I got my new number in 2020 I lost access to a number of things.
2FA SMS verification can be spoofed so itโs not a secure method.
The only spam calls or messages I get are from government reps. Apparently โfor government useโ is not illegal and itโs practically impossible to get taken off the list. If anyone has a tip for this, please let me know.
I've had to resort to "do not disturb" 100% of the time, with the "allow contacts to bypass DND"
Yea, I can't believe it is happening to so many people. I got so many loan calls today it is not even funny
No, but I'm curious, do you order online a lot, where you have to provide a number they can put on the package? I assume someone along the way makes money on the side by collecting/sharing these numbers. But maybe that's just my paranoia.
Get a call blocker app, tell it to block every single phone call, whitelist your contacts. If they are not in your contacts, but its important, they will leave a message.
Yeah and I can't block them because the number changes slightly, probably using virtual numbers.
Not quite as bad as 20 in 2 days but basically any time I get a phone call, it's probably safe to say that it's someone trying to sell me something. It especially sucks when you've been handing out your CV and applying for jobs and shit, so you have to answer calls from unknown numbers. But if it's anyone that I actually know, they'll use WhatsApp.
My phone number was owned by a non-for-profit, and I'm still getting their calls 5-6 years later. Google Pixel phones have a phone-bot that picks up calls, introduces itself as a bot and asks you why you're calling. So I just posted my phone number on my website to make sure people don't think that it's still the nfp
I never set up my voicemail account because that's ancient technology that shouldn't exist. Unknown calls don't ring and known spam is auto-blocked. I sleep well.
I have gotten a couple in the last couple of months.. which is a lot since other than that I haven't gotten one in like.. over a year
I've had 3 almost every single day for a month or so.
I got 8 in the span of about five hours today. Absolutely insane.
I've also been getting random number calls, and it's always a robot telling in my native language: "Finaly, I have found you..." and I never get to hear the rest, I just hang up, I have better things to do than listen to spam. The annoying part is that i have to answer, i get important calls from unknown numbers from time to time.
Edit: is anyone else getting this kind of calls in the EU?
Closest I've come is recently getting a random call and then the majority of the robocall voicemail is garbled garbage
I had to get a new number a couple of years ago. That "fixed" the issue for a long while.
I was able to get some cheap numbers on VOIP so now I give those out to businesses that require a phone number, so that I can kill them if the spam calls start up again. It helps quite a bit. I know some people also use Google Voice to emulate what im talking about.
Honestly, most people dont even call me anymore, they just txt or video call.