Phone calls may have been the primary method of communication between people for some time, but messaging apps have changed everything forever. To the point that the youngest begin to feel telenophobia when making and answering calls. And perhaps that is why commercial calls, which were already annoying in their origins, are now more so because they are more “visible” with respect to the total volume of other calls.
But there is a way to avoid receiving these commercial calls, or at least minimize them so much that they stop being so annoying. We are going to tell you several methods to get rid of them from your Android phones, although some method (the one from the Robinson list, for example) is completely universal. Let’s go, let’s get rid of unwanted calls.
The universal solution: the Robinson List
The Robinson List has existed since the 90s and was born as an advertising exclusion service that users can access for free. The operation is quite simple since it consists of a directory in which we register so that companies do not send us notifications of any kind or receive telephone calls. And although not all companies comply with what we request, it is true that it becomes a great filter when it comes to avoiding receiving commercial calls as it eliminates a large number of them.
To join this list, we only need to visit their website and provide our personal data (full name, ID, gender, email and launch date). Once we have given this information, we choose which means we want to block from companies seeking to contact us. Logically, we will choose the mobile phone and from that moment we will no longer receive commercial calls to the mobile. Or we won’t get many of them.
Avoiding business calls from an Android
To avoid commercial calls on Android there are different systems that we are going to detail one by one. We are going to start with a very popular application such as Truecaller and then we will show you how to block mobile numbers from your Android. So let’s go there with TrueCaller, probably the best when it comes to knowing who the hell is calling you with that phone number you don’t know.
Note: there has always been controversy with the use of TrueCaller because it uploads data to its servers, such as our contact list. Its use depends on each user but we cannot fail to recommend it as it is, without a doubt, the best app to manage and identify SPAM calls on the Android market. And probably the mobile market in general.
TrueCaller is an app that tells us who is behind that unknown number that is calling us on our mobile and can block phone calls classified as SPAM for us. To do so, all you have to do is install the app on your mobile, grant it the necessary action permissions (manage calls and manage SMS messages) and give it our phone number. This is done to verify our number through an automatic system.
If you want, you can make TrueCaller become our default phone app to make calls or send messages, but that is already in the hands of each user.With TrueCaller we can block phone calls and also messages, but one of the most important things is that it will reveal the origin of the call.
So if we see that an unknown number is a business call, we can block it and it will be the last time you contact us. The same works for messages. And also, in TrueCaller we can make a backup of your settings and call history in Google Drive to pass the history from one phone to another without problems. Best of TrueCaller? That is collaborative. If we report a number that no one has reported yet, that information will be automatically available to other users of the app. Collaborative Anti-SPAM.
If we don’t want to use TrueCaller, we can always turn to Android’s native number blocking. It is present in the different proprietary layers such as One UI, MIUI, EMUI, ColorOS and company, although the access path may change slightly between phone brands, but the fact is that it is there and we can use the system to decide which numbers not they will be able to contact us again never. Not until we voluntarily unlock them.Google itself tells us how to block numbers using its own Google Phone app. To do this, simply carry out the following process:
- We open the Phone app of our Android mobile.
- Click on the three vertical points that display the menu, in the upper right part of the screen.
- We access ‘Call history’.
- We click on any number that we want to block.
- We choose ‘Block or mark as SPAM’.
- Ready.
If what we want is to block calls from any hidden or private number (those that are shown as an unknown number), we can do the following, again with the Google app:
- We open the Phone app of our Android mobile.
- Click on the three vertical points that display the menu, in the upper right part of the screen.
- We access ‘Settings’.
- We access ‘Blocked numbers’.
- We activate the ‘Unknown’ option.
- Ready.
And by following that same route until reaching ‘Blocked numbers ‘, we can unblock any phone number we want at any time. The method is the following:
- We open the Phone app of our Android mobile.
- Click on the three vertical points that display the menu, in the upper right part of the screen.
- We access ‘Settings’.
- We access ‘Blocked numbers’.
- Click on any number that we want to unblock and click on ‘Delete’ and then on ‘Unblock’.
- Ready.
They call you, but at least you know why using the Google phone
Some time ago, Google introduced its verified calling tool. It was a system by which the company had to indicate the reason for the call to the Google assistant before passing the call to you. The system was released first in English, as is often the case, but it is also available in many countries and is included in the Google phone app for Android.
Although this function does not prevent companies from calling you, at least with it you get to know the reason for the call of those unknown numbers to which you do not know whether to pick up or not, and you can even tell Assistant to hang up without having to speak to anyone if you don’t want it. Activating this system is simple (if it is already active on your phone) and is done, as we have said, through the Google phone app. The steps are the following:
- We open the Google Phone app.
- Click on the three vertical points that display the menu, in the upper right part of the screen.
- We access ‘Settings’.
- We access ‘Caller ID and spam’.
- We activate ‘Verified calls’.
- Ready.
For the moment, companies do not have the obligation to specify the reason why they are calling us, but at least the system will try to clarify it before passing the call to us. We’ll see if it changes in the future, but at least we have here an attempt to filter calls that we are not interested in at all.