This issue is at least a year old and started with iOS 11. Do Not Disturb let’s telemarketing calls zing through regardless of the DND settings. Apple Support has provided no solution, so I’m asking has anyone solved this? Second level question is why should users have to waste time troubleshooting phones that should just work?
Mac mini, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2)
Despite how it may appear, Apple is not in charge of the universe or even just the internet. They can't control spammers, scammers or the people who advertise MacKeeper.
I second Lawrence's recommendation for NoMoRoBo. I took his recommendation quite a while ago and have been very happy with it. It's well worth the two dollars a month.
For clarification, when I asked earlier you said that you had Repeat Calls ON. In your most recent post above you say it is OFF. which is it?
What is the setting for SILENCE: Always, or When Phone is Locked?
Do you have Settings>Do Not Disturb>Repeated Calls enabled?
Set to when phone is locked.
I finally solved this problem and, while I am not recommending you do the same, it was the only option I had left after numerous attempts to get DND working properly. What I did was this:
1) I upgraded my phone to one made by a company owned by Alphabet.
2) That meant saying good bye to my Apple Watch and that was the hardest thing to do.
I set my new device's DND to the same settings as I'd tried time and again to have work on my iPhone and, wonder of wonders, my new phone has been telemarketer-free for a week now and counting.
I consider this a sane alternative, since everything I tried, and numerous, time-consuming calls to Apple Support did not resolve the issue. I'm going to sit it out until Apple gets stable software again and then I'll be back. When I checked back over my daily notes, I found that since September of 2017, I had to upgrade five Apple devices plus a Mac in my universe 12 times before I stopped keeping track. That's way too much time. So, that's a solution that worked for me and it's painful as I've been an Apple junkie since the Apple II. Again, I am not suggesting everyone jump ship. I just needed to in order to stop putting so much time into tech maintenance and pay attention to other things that need my attention.
Yes, it is enabled, and that was keeping repeated calls from these callers from getting through. Thanks for pointing that out, as I left it out of my original question.
The thing is, that having to disable repeat calls keeps people that might have a legitimate reason to break through, say a family emergency, from reaching me. It's a trade off I've had to make as I receive at least two or three calls a day, including weekends, from telemarketers. One actually calls me multiple times a day. Apple should fix this as it's not unreasonable to expect the iOS software features to actually work.
For some reason my question isn't getting the kind of responses I had hoped. Let me start with a clear statement of the issue:
1) Do Not Disturb was working fine on my iPhone 6 Plus (one of 5 devices in my home) until a few iOS updates ago, and was successfully blocking unwanted calls of any nature.
2) I have set Do Not Disturb to be on from 12:01 AM to 11:59 PM, essentially all the time. Only calls from those in my Contacts are allowed.
3) Repeat calls is off.
4) Sometimes the phone shows the moon icon, at others it does not, even though the settings remain unchanged.
5) A soft reset does not correct the problem.
6) A factory reset does not correct the problem.
My understanding of DND, and as verified by Apple support, is that these settings should keep unwanted calls, save those from certain agencies and types of businesses allowed to legally punch through. This is not the case.
Therefore, the following two assumptions are reasonable:
A) Do Not Disturb is no longer working on some subset of the iPhone population—likely some older devices.
OR
B) Telemarketers have found a way to pierce through DND.
This leaves only two conclusions:
—Item A, above, seems the most likely of the two.
—Item B, while less likely, is possible.
In either case it means Apple's iOS 11.x through 11.4 has a hole that needs patching.
I hope this makes my quest for a fix to this problem sufficiently clear:
If anyone has a solution, other than chucking out more $$ for a third-party app, that makes DND work as it should, and according to how Apple indicates DND should work, I'd like to know what it is.
As a footnote, I used both Nomorobo and Robokiller prior to locking down my iPhone with DND (when it worked) and found Nomorobo the better of the two as it effectively blocked most robocalls and works about 99% of the time in background where I do not have to do anything with it. It is also a buck less than Robokiller a month.
It is set so that repeat calls do not come through. That, I believe is the Off setting, as On would allow repeat calls to get through.
Have tried Manual and this, too, does not keep these calls from getting through.
At this juncture, I think I'll just cough up the two bucks a month and put Nomorobo back on the device as it does catch most of these. It's not that I don't have the two bucks, it's that I feel I shouldn't have to pay for a utility that I would not need if the op system were working as it did a few updates ago.
We got off to a rough start, my fault, and I'd like to thank you for your suggestions and follow up. I'll check back if you leave another idea. Thansk.
One more question: If you want DND on all the time, why don't you just set it to Manual and turn it on?
Exactly what should Apple do to fix it? I'm sure they would love to know how they can single-handedly stop the scourge of telemarketing calls that are taking over the world. Believe it or not, you are not the only one with this problem.
See if your carrier has a telemarketer blocking app. Most US carriers do. And another option is the nomorobo app, which works very well. It does cost $1.99 a month.
Why/How are telemarketers breaking through DND?
