The simple setting you should disable on your phone to stop receiving spam calls

As of June 29, 2023, a new law came into effect in Spain prohibiting commercial calls without prior consent—the typical spam calls you receive (usually after hours) trying to sell you a product or service.

It's a fact that telemarketing companies used to engage in very aggressive marketing, often resulting in potential customers hanging up, angry about the time and location of the call to sell them something they didn't want. But not only that, this could happen several times in a single day.

It's true that techniques already existed to put an end to this "abuse," such as signing up for the Robinson List , but with the entry into force of Article 66.1 of the General Telecommunications Law, commercial calls "for commercial purposes without prior consent" were prohibited , and companies could be fined up to 100,000 euros.

However, it's not just businesses anymore; cybercriminals have also become experts in phone fraud, so every time our phone rings and it's an unknown number, being alert has become a must.

A simple and surprisingly effective way to stop receiving these types of calls is to set your phone number to private . This way, you're protecting your personal information, and when you make or receive calls, the number or any identifying information about the owner won't be displayed, significantly reducing the number of scam and telemarketing calls.

To avoid falling for this scam and bypassing the trick cybercriminals are using, you need to change your settings. On Android devices, the steps to follow are:

1. Open the Phone or Calls app.
2. Tap the three vertical dots to go to Settings .
3. In Settings, look for the Add-on Services option.
4. From the options, select Show Caller ID or Caller ID & Anti-Spam, and turn it off.

1. Open your iPhone’s Settings .
2. Select the Telephone section.
3. Look for the section of Show Caller ID and turn it off.