How to truly block spam phone calls

MichaelG · May 2024

My father has dementia and is eager to talk to every telemarketer. This has the phone ringing dozens of times a day, with him wasting lots of time talking to people selling services he doesn't need. Worse, the caller is sometimes a scammer, and Dad is gullible enough that he's given away his credit card and other sensitive information a few times. But we want him to have a phone so we can contact him. His flip phone basically has no blocking options. The home phone is now a Samsung smart phone, and I've found how to put that on "Do Not Disturb", so it only rings if the caller is on the Contact list. (I also usually manage to keep that home phone away from Dad. I live with parents now, but work outside the home during the day.)

Does anyone know a good solution to this? Is there a flip phone that I could set to "Do Not Disturb" and only let callers from an approved list through? Or some other way to set up a phone account to really keep the telemarketers and thieves blocked, but to allow approved callers through?

A flip phone would be best if possible because that's what he's used to, or anyway a simple-to-use phone like the Jitterbug he has now. [I hope I'm not breaking any rules about naming particular companies; I'm not trying to sell anyone's products.]

Thank you.

mabelgirl · May 2024

the RAZ phone allows only callers you enable to call. It’s a bit pricey but it has helped my mom stop calling banks and others she shouldn’t. It’s easy to use touch picture of person to call.

Pmmommie · June 22

I'm watching this as well. I've programmed my Dad's Galaxy to DND and it's only supposed to ring when a contact calls. My issue is that he looks at the call log and calls back each number. I have it to not show blocked numbers but, he sees the visual voicemail button and hits it, then starts returning calls. Any other suggestions?

If I cut off his phone, there are family members who will eat me up alive and accuse me of keeping him away from no contact family members.

H1235 · June 22

Does he have any financial stuff (credit cards, bank statements etc.). In my opinion he probably shouldn’t. What can a scammer get from him, if there is no possible way for him to give them money? You might find it easier to take away access to finances. Is there another reason these calls are a problem?

harshedbuzz · June 22

Tele-calm is a service that can block spam. I've not used it, but it comes highly recommended.

https://www.telecalmprotects.com/

If his judgement is so poor that he's continually risking financial ruin, he's probably not safe alone. If a scammer is successful at separating him from his life's savings, there's no mulligan. It's gone. Perhaps it's time to consider a day program or in-home companion/aide.

HB (whose dad lost $360K day-trading because mom was relucctant to take his phone/computer away)

SusanB-dil · June 22

The call registry cannot stop the scams.

Brother set up a 'child-phone' for our mom. She could only get and rec'v calls he had programmed in. Maybe see if your plan has something like that or similar.

Edit to add: highly recommend to put expired or already-used visa gift-cards in the wallet.

psg712 · June 22

Lots of good suggestions from everyone. This was a problem for my mom too when she still lived in her own home. Most of the money she gave away was to mail solicitations and scams, so I ended up forwarding her mail to my address. She was furious when she learned from a clueless mail carrier that her mail was being sent to me, but she couldn't figure out that she could just go to the post office and cancel the forwarding order.

Phone scams are harder to avoid. I ended up removing credit cards from her wallet and replacing them with expired gift cards. But that didn't stop her from signing up over the phone for several home warranties and car warranties for a vehicle she no longer owned. Ultimately all of this, along with other red flags, pointed to the fact that she was no longer safe at home alone.

CaliforniaGirl-1 · June 25

My LO also talked to everyone who called. Ultimately we installed a call blocker we bought on Amazon, which would only let a pre-programmed set of numbers ring through. Others received a message saying that if they thought there call should go through to call me or my brother (did not leave the numbers) and let us know. Never got any calls. We could have also had them leave a message but we didn't. It saved a huge amount of time, money and stress. Unfortunately it didn't stop my LO from calling out to advertisements seen on TV or calling financial services. This only worked on wireline phones

But it solved a big problem. At one point we replaced the phone with a picture phone with buttons programmed for family members and friends to use with the call blocker but that wasn't successful for us. My LO couldn't get the hang of just pushing a button instead of dialing a number.

There is a specializer cellphone on the Alzheimers store but I don't know how well it works and many of our LOs might just misplace it or not charge it. And there is also tele-calm which we did not use but sounds pretty good.

How to truly block spam phone calls

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