Somewhat related, but my girlfriend lives in Singapore, and I recently visited there while stopping by my parents' in Palau, which is a Pacific island. The internet infrastructure in Palau is pitiful, so when I tried contacting her by phone while there, and it turned out she blocked the number because it was weird (she said the number was a bunch of 8's. Coming from Palau's whacky telecom corp, it's not surprising). You never know if your loved one is stuck at the side of the road somewhere trying to get to you. I usually answer the phone and figure out who is on the line and I usually can determine who is a scammer and who isn't.

Then again, I don't get calls very often, so may be I have more patience with calls. Emails? I am probably much less diligent about determining their authenticity.