For the past few months, almost every day, I’ve been receiving unwanted calls to my mobile phone. When I look up the numbers I see search results telling me that they’re for a diabetes equipment testing company. I’ve also seen it mentioned that people who did answer the call and asked to be taken off the list got more calls from even more numbers, presumably because the rogue calling company now knows they have a “good” number. I’m on the do not call list, and I’ve been keeping a log of every unwanted call. I’ve been reporting them as complaints on donotcall.gov, but the calls continue, from the same handful of numbers and it appears there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Why?

With all of the advancements in modern technology, why can’t I block a nuisance number from calling me? There’s Spam filtering for emails, so why isn’t there a way to report these numbers to the phone companies so they can deal with them? Is it because it would be too cumbersome to filter them at the phone company level? OK, then let my device decide if I want to take the call. Why isn’t there a way to tell my phone that if it detects a call from a specified number to reject it and to not even bother me with a ring or a missed call? I know that I have an ancient phone, but I’ve looked into it, and even with a snazzy iPhone, you can’t do it. I have seen some options from mobile phone carriers where if you pay a recurring fee you can set up blocking of certain numbers as a way to protect young children or to ensure that they only use the phone to call home, etc.

Why should I have to pay a fee to keep someone from pestering me? Someone smarter than me has to know of a way to make call filtering as easy as the “Report Spam” button in my email.