Phones have long been a familiar device for everyone. People use them every day for a variety of functions. Starting with searching for something on the Internet and ending with making phone calls.
In today’s world, ordinary phone calls are slowly being replaced by various messengers and applications for video calls. Fewer and fewer people are using the standard phone function of voice calls.
However, if you call your friends all the time and use your phone a lot, you’ve probably experienced negative experiences with calls.
For example, when strangers call you and offer you services you don’t need. Or you have received calls from various fraudsters who have tried to find out your account information in order to get hold of your personal information and use it for their own purposes.
Modern operators are trying to protect users from such intrusive calls. That’s why there are such functions as Spam Risk
What is Spam Risk
If you see a Spam Risk message on the caller ID screen of your iPhone or Android smartphone, this may mean that your mobile operator has identified the number as a fraud phone. In this case, you should ignore the call.
The Spam Risk feature is a designation used by AT&T as part of their system for automatically blocking fraudulent calls. It’s called AT&T Call Protection and was introduced back on December 20, 2016.
The purpose of this feature is to automatically detect and block fraudulent numbers, as well as to detect suspicious Spam Calls.
If you use another carrier, they have their own analogs to this feature. For example, alternative inscriptions from which it is also better not to take calls are: “Spam”, “Telemarketer”, “Fraud Risk”, “Fraud Probability”, “Potential Spam”, or something similar. All of these mean that your cellular carrier has flagged the call as potential spam
What is Spam
Spam is a special term that refers to unwanted messages that come in with high frequency. For example, constant calls from scammers or advertisements for products you don’t want or that are repeated too often.
The term originated as a reference to the Monty Python comedy sketch, which applied to a large number of messages that disrupted early online services, and then to junk e-mail on the Internet in the 1990s.
Since then, the word SPAM has been applied to any unsolicited message or phone call that advertises products or tries to elicit personal information from you or is simply not informationally useful.
Why you are getting calls from numbers on the Spam Risk list
Most often it happens because you might have left your phone number or other personal information on a suspicious site where the owners gave your personal information to fraudsters.
Be very attentive when you leave your personal information on unverified sites. It can create a lot of problems for you. Especially if you indicate your main phone number or e-mail.
Is it possible to block spam calls
If you get annoyed with constant calls from numbers marked as Spam Risk you can easily and quickly turn them off so they don’t bother you. You can do this on both iPhone and Android Smartphones. To do this you need to
How to mute calls on your iPhone
- Go to the Settings app
- Then you need to click on the option Phone
- Find Silence Unknown Callers in the list and then flip the switch beside “Silence Unknown Callers” to the “On” position.
How to silence calls on your Android Smartphone
You will have to install a third-party app for android. It’s called Phone by Google. There you can activate the Verified Calls feature so that the app will automatically check for unknown numbers and block spam.
After that, all calls from the Spam category will be automatically rejected. You can see who called you later in the Phone app on your Android smartphone or iPhone.
In the case of the iPhone, it will also be possible to listen to the voicemail where the blocked callers could leave their messages to you.
Can Spam Risk be assigned by mistake
Since the process of adding numbers to the Spam list is automated by your operator, there is always the possibility that an error will occur and the algorithm will assign the number of a regular person as “Spam Risk”.
In this case, if you were expecting an important call and got “Spam Risk” instead, tap the Phone app on your Android or iPhone and check the list of recent incoming calls.
If you find familiar numbers on the list, you can safely call them back. Also, if you or your friends notice that your number is marked as Spam Risk, you can contact your cell phone carrier to fix it.
The best way to prevent this is to add all-important numbers to your contacts. That way you can find out exactly who called you and you won’t have problems with blocking spam by mistake.
