Did you know the average American gets around 28 spam calls per month?

Keeping in touch with your friends, family, and coworkers has become even more paramount in the past year. Making sure all is well with your loved ones or at work gave us much-needed peace of mind. It’s also reassuring to hear your phone ring, thinking someone is checking up on you.

The relief immediately turns to annoyance once you answer your phone, only to hear one of the many pre-recorded messages you’ve heard from spam calls before. These are among the tech problems plague everyone wants to avoid, but someone always gets caught up in. Once you get one robocall, you know more are coming over the next few days.

What’s great is that it’s easy for you to stop spam calls. Read what we’ve prepared below to know how you can filter these annoyances out.

Keep Your Personal Information Private

While the FCC implemented initiatives to combat robocalls, it’s still up to you to prevent most of them. One of the best ways to prevent them from ever happening to you is by keeping your phone number private. Keeping it to yourself prevents scammers from knowing of your profile.

Only give out your information to reliable institutions, like banks and government offices. Scammers rely on knowing that your profile exists to send robo calls to pester you. Otherwise, they’ll start calling random numbers and wait for an answer.

This is why you should never answer unexpected calls from unknown numbers. Scammers have automated programs that call hundreds of random phone numbers a day. More often than not, nothing answers, forcing them to move on to the next number.

If you answer, though, it lets them know your number is active. They’ll keep sending more calls to push their agenda on you.

It’s not too late if you answer them accidentally, though. Being fast enough to end the call passes yours off as an inactive number. If that doesn’t work, though, consider call blocking.

Block Numbers Manually

Once a scammer knows your number is active, they’ll keep sending you spam calls. Blocking them is the only reliable way to stop spam calls from becoming a nuisance.

There are different ways for you to do this on unique platforms. Android users can block numbers by manually adding the number to the device’s blacklist.

To access this list, tap and hold the device’s “Logs” icon until more options appear. Select the “Report Spam/Block” buttons to prevent the number from reaching you again. Doing this also helps Android develop its spam detection algorithm.

If you’re an iPhone user, tap on the “i” icon next to the spam number and select “Block Contact”. Your device will stop all future calls coming from this number from here on out.

iPhone users can also set their phones to the “Do Not Disturb” mode. Here, your device prevents all notifications from going through. Robocalls and other tech troubles won’t plague your screen anymore.

What’s great is that you can still get calls from selected numbers. Under the “Do Not Disturb” menu, you can select the “Allow Calls From” option and tap on “All Contacts”. By doing so, all the calls you get will only come from numbers you already know of.

Use Your Phone Carrier’s Features

Nowadays, most phone carriers know of the scourge of nuisance calls. They provide services that help counteract this scourge. These services vary depending on your carrier.

AT&T has a Call Protect app you can download to your device. It detects and blocks potential spam and known numbers used for fraud. They also provide a personal list for you to add numbers to block.

Verizon offers a service called Call Filter. Here, users can report spam calls so Verizon’s systems can add the number to their growing database. They also provide a premium option, Filter Plus, that expands the network to serve 3 lines or more.

Phones under Sprint, and T-Mobile as an extension, have Scam Shield. The service allows the user to register numbers in their database. Users need only to dial a special number to register said numbers to the list.

Do you want to learn more about the scourge that nuisance calls brought about? Check out this guide for more info.

Download Third-Party Blockers

Does your carrier not provide a service that prevents spam calls? You can download third-party apps to prevent these calls instead. Many apps do a better job than most services, but do so at a price.

Among these features is call intercepting, which has the app answer the call for you. Hearing an automated response discourages scammers from calling your number again. It’s a great way to avoid being exposed to any scam floating around at the moment.

What’s great about third-party apps is that they can learn. They collect the data from the spam calls they intercept, and use it to build a better blocking algorithm. With a community behind it, you’ll be safe from even the most recent scams and spam numbers.

Join the National Do Not Call Registry

The National Do Not Call Registry exempts your number from any public telemarketing list. Registering reduces the number of calls you get.

You can register by going to the Do Not Call website and entering your phone number. You can input up to three numbers at once to become exempt from most spam calls. You’ll need to wait up to 72 hours before finishing registration.

Deal With These Annoying Tech Problems Today

Spam calls need not bother you once you learn to keep them at bay. Next time you get a call, you know it’s from a number you know and trust. Prevent these tech problems from growing and live worry-free today!

Do you want to learn more about how you can secure your personal information? There are other ways for scammers to pester you, besides spam calls. Know all you can through our guides, and learn how to protect your digital profile today!