My 80-something yo FIL with onsets of dementia has had several instances of almost giving away all his info to scammers. My wife is looking for an app/service that we can setup to further screen calls beyond what ATT/iPhone do automatically.

Little background info..... showing signs of dementia but not bad enough to prevent him from living alone. Has been a realtor for 40+ years and still "works" to keep him busy despite the fact that he hasn't actually sold a house in years. Because of his background as a realtor he has a habit of answering ALL calls whether he knows the number or not. Think this habit has led to a huge uptick in spam calls. He understands there are scammers and F's with some of them for fun but a few have fooled him into almost giving away his info.

Wife wants to avoid disrupting his day to day and feels that the easiest path would be something to screen/filter his calls. Is there an iPhone app/setting that will immediately send calls from any number not in your address book directly to VM?

chjoak said:

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My 80-something yo FIL with onsets of dementia has had several instances of almost giving away all his info to scammers. My wife is looking for an app/service that we can setup to further screen calls beyond what ATT/iPhone do automatically.

Little background info..... showing signs of dementia but not bad enough to prevent him from living alone. Has been a realtor for 40+ years and still "works" to keep him busy despite the fact that he hasn't actually sold a house in years. Because of his background as a realtor he has a habit of answering ALL calls whether he knows the number or not. Think this habit has led to a huge uptick in spam calls. He understands there are scammers and F's with some of them for fun but a few have fooled him into almost giving away his info.

Wife wants to avoid disrupting his day to day and feels that the easiest path would be something to screen/filter his calls. Is there an iPhone app/setting that will immediately send calls from any number not in your address book directly to VM?

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That's built-in. I have it enabled on my phone as we speak.

Quote:

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To turn on Silence Unknown Callers, go to Settings > Phone, then scroll down, tap Silence Unknown Callers, and turn on the feature. Calls from unknown numbers are silenced and sent to your voicemail, and appear in your recent calls list.

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Saw that when I googled. Some confusion whether that blocks numbers listed as "unknown" or any number not in contacts. Wife thinks that he already has that turned on but isnt 100%.

It's any number not in contacts. You can see it as a "missed call" but scammers rarely leave voicemail.

Tailgate88 said:

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It's any number not in contacts. You can see it as a "missed call" but scammers rarely leave voicemail.

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Agree 100% that this is the route, just setup the contact list for the numbers you want to ring and it'll set a "miss call" without ringing for everyone else.

thanks guys. gonna have my wife check her dad's phone and verify this setting.