Can you silence unknown callers but allow private (ID blocked) numbers to come through?

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Level 1

8 points

Can you silence unknown callers but allow private (ID blocked) numbers to come through?

Here's the deal. My wife is a physician who uses her cell phone to call back patients, nurses, hospitals, etc. She does not want everyone to know what her cell phone number is because she will start getting barraged with calls directly to her phone. She gets enough calls as it is. All calls are messaged through a county-wide call center that then contact her and she then calls the person back. So she has her phone number blocked. When she calls me it simply says "Private number" or something like that, I can't remember.

Can I use "Silence Unknown Callers" but allow private numbers to come through? Honestly I have not received a scan or robo call from a private number in years, if ever. They always have a phone number, usually spoofed, that pops up. I don't see an option to allow a blocked phone number through. I want to block numbers that are not in my contact list but allow private numbers through.

If not, it sure would be nice if this option were added by Apple to allow this flexibility that I need. While uncommon, I can't be the only one with this problem.

I hope I am posting this to the right forum, I don't use these forums often.

iPhone XS

Posted on Oct 9, 2019 3:51 PM

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Answer 1

Joseph_S.

Community Specialist

Oct 13, 2019 9:52 AM in response to acadonnelly

Hi acadonnelly,

Thank you for posting in the Apple Support Communities. I understand that you want to make sure that you receive calls from your wife when her number appears as a private number, and I’d like to share some information with you.

As it turns out, when Silence Unknown Callers is enabled, your iPhone will block phone numbers that you’ve never been in contact with and don’t have saved in your Contacts app. I recommend saving her work phone number in your iPhone to be sure those calls arrive as expected if the phone number is recognized. Keep in mind that if your iPhone can’t check the caller’s number and compare it to the list of phone numbers in your list of contacts, the call will be silenced. More information can be found here:

Detect and block spam phone calls

I hope this information is useful. Kind regards.

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Answer 2

acadonnelly Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 15, 2019 11:04 AM in response to Joseph_S.

You totally don't understand my issue. Because my wife has her cell phone number blocked, no phone number is "transmitted" with her incoming phone calls. My phone simply says "No Caller ID". Therefore adding her phone number to my contacts list is pointless, because her phone number is not associated with the incoming phone call because she has her number blocked. And honestly, all of her phone numbers are already in my contacts list.

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Answer 3

MoonJ.

Community Specialist

Oct 17, 2019 6:42 AM in response to acadonnelly

acadonnelly,

Thanks for getting back to us. Since the phone number can’t be compared to the list of phone numbers in your list of contacts, the call will be silenced. To prevent her number from being blocked, you would have to turn off Silence Unknown Callers.

If you’d like to leave feedback for this feature, please leave that here: Product Feedback

Have a great rest of your day.

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Answer 4

Shichimi

Level 4

3,138 points

Oct 17, 2019 7:13 AM in response to acadonnelly

This may or may not work, and I have no idea if Apple will allow you to do something unusual. Try this: On your wife’s phone, create a new Contact entry in your name for outbound calls to you. Prefix your phone number with *82. This should turn off Caller ID blocking for one call only.

Don’t modify your existing Contact, because this will prevent your wife from recognizing you when you call. Good luck.

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Can you silence unknown callers but allow private (ID blocked) numbers to come through?

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