Any phone have this option. At least my iPhone have it. I’m pretty sure Android have it too.
If it’s not from a known contact, it’s probably not urgent and they can leave a message.
If it’s not from a known contact, it’s probably not urgent and they can leave a message.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207099
« Turn on Silence Unknown Callers »
Debt collectors, doctors' receptionists, local police departments...all of these can be relatively urgent calls and will likely not be known contacts.
This feature is not blocking calls, it just disable ringing / vibrating. You get the notification of a missed call.
Nobody can expect you to be available at any time, even police officers. If they really need to speak to you now, they’ll come at you.
A big difference between spam callers and normal callers is that normal callers are extremely easy for you to contact back. Spammers want to call you, but don't want you to know who they are.
It's actually a good security practice to not give out any personal information to people who call you. It's easy to spoof your doctor's office's phone number and start the conversation with "please validate the last 4 of your social so we know it's you". The only way for me to validate that it's actually my doctor's office is for them to give me some info about me that isn't public knowledge, which they won't do until I've already given them private info.
Even if I did pick up when they answer, all I'd say is "Hey, I'm not comfortable giving out information to people who call me. I'm going to go look up your number and call you back, so I know you are who you say you are."
The only time I ever have an issue with calling back is when my doctor needs to talk to me directly, but I recognize my doctor's voice. Someone could spoof my doctor's voice, but I heavily doubt that anyone would go through that much trouble to get my SSN or anything. I'm just not that interesting of a target.