Anyone else noticed a big spike in the number of unwanted calls that have started recently again after practically nothing for months. Most of them are from mobile phones now and I listen to see if anyone leaves a message, but none do so I know its no one important and those I speak with come up with their name on the screen anyway. This is a landline, the mobile number is not given out except to the nurse,bank and family.
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Absolutley. Our land line and both our mobile phones go off reguarly every day. We place them on silent, so all we here is the hum of the phone rather than the ring tone. We then block the numbers at the end of the day.
Cheers - Steve
If you have an Android phone, thereās a very useful call screening option. The caller hears a recorded message inviting them to say who they are and what they want. This is then transcribed (and translated if you wish) and presented in text on your screen. You can then either take the call or reject itā¦
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I read about a man in the US who kept getting these calls so one day he put on his best James Earl Jones voice and told the caller that he had come through to the CIA and that his call had been traced and he would receive a visit. He never got another call from that number again. My sister tells insurance cold calls she has no arms or legs and dosnāt need car insurance, end of the matter.
This is real bugbear to me. I made the mistake of loking around at Mutuelles so now I am plagued by calls from them.
I canāt find this option. Iāve looked in the phoneās āSettingsā and for some reason Play Store does not come up with the app for Free Mobile. A steer would be much appreciated
Itās not an app - itās part of the Android operating system. However, it will only work in France if you have a sim from a Fremch provider (so you should be fine with Free).
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Open your phone dialler.
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Click the three dots menu in the top right
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Select āsettingsā
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On the screen that appears, click āCaller ID and spamā
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On the next screen, turn on āsee caller and spam IDā and turn on āfilter spam callsā
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Click the back arrow (top left corner)
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Click ācall screenā
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Click āsee a demoā
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Select voice - simple choice between male or female.
And thatās it. The next time you receive a call from an unknown or suspected spam number it will be screened.
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Thanks Brian. I see that I already enabled āsee caller and spam IDā and āfilter spam callsā and it does mark some calls as āSpamā. I didnāt find ācall screenā thoā but if that is just a demo, no matter.
Thanks for the info Brian. My caller ID and spam is greyed out. Any thoughts why please?
Many possibilities. Starting with the easiest, it could be that you donāt have a French SIM or that you havenāt set your phoneās location to Franceā¦
Reminds me of this 
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Thanks Brian, definitely have a French SIM (as well as UK) and thatās the default.
Under Location I have that off, so I tried switching it on and it made no difference - still greyed out.
And you seriously put your mobile number on these sites when you enter details for a quote? 
My mobile number is 0700000000.
Bloctel.fr - serms to work. I have only had 2 cold calls in the years since Iāve been here.
The second one I had forgotten what bloctel is called and said āvous ne pouvez pas māappeler je suis sur la liste rougeā, and the caller couldnāt get off the line fast enough.
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Not that location - itās the location to which your Play store is set that controls which services you receive.
- On your Android device, open the Google Play Store app.
- At the top right, tap the profile icon.
- Tap Settings and then General and then Account and device preferences and then Country and profiles.
- Tap the country where you want to add an account.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to add a payment method for that country.
Note that your profile can take up to 48 hours to updateā¦
Bit dim about this sort of stuff, me. 
When the phone rings on my FR # I donāt answer unless I see a caller ID which I want to answer.
My outgoing message [a Google voice translation] tells callers my to my FR phone that my FR is bad and that if they need a response they should send an SMS, not leave a voice-mail. This seems to work.
Thanks Brian, Iām discovering stuff I never knew! Somehow my phone knows my location is France already - itās ticked - so canāt be that. In fact Iām not going to worry too much about this. I almost never give out my mobile phone number and hence almost never get spam on my mobile. I was just curious to see if I could follow your instructions. Thanks for the help.
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Sorry, Sue. I donāt have any other easy-to-follow suggestions, Iām afraid.
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No need for apologies I know so little about my phone Iām grateful for your very clear instructions.
We get loads on our Free Mobile. Spam calls and calls to previous owners of the number (I presume). On the rare occasions I pick up, I speak in the plummiest English I can muster. They generally hang up.
Mine is sometimes 0712345678
However, a lot of sites have started sending an SMS to the phone to confirm the number before fully registering you - which is a pain, but presumably brought about by enough people entering fake numbers.
Some of these phone scammers are getting a bit thick in the braincell dept. My DIL picked up a call on her mobile supposedly from her bank but when she asked who was calling, meaning the bank, the caller just garbled something unintelligable which alerted her immediately. She played along but everytime they asked for info, she kept asking which bank it was calling her and the caller replied your bank, she asked what is the name of the bank and he said, your bank, so getting cross she said that he was a bad scammer if he thought people were going to tell him something and that she has a dedicated conseilleur anyway who is not a man and hung up.