Oh, joy. After many years with an iPhone, today I learned how to stop spam calls with a single, not-really-super-secret move.
Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers
That’s it. Unknown callers now go straight to my recent calls list for me to (eventually) review. Most importantly, the phone doesn’t ring.
I initially had True Caller installed and enabled, which worked for a while. Spammers use throw-away numbers anyway, so it’s super-hard for tools like that to keep track. In Italy, we can enlist in a nationwide “oppositions register”. Once a phone number is registered there, national call services can’t call it. I signed up on the register’s opening day, which also worked for a few days. There are ways for spammers to go around the register, such as calling from abroad. I fell back to simply not answering unknown calls. That worked, but unsolicited calls still caught my attention and muting the phone helped only a little.
The Silence Unknown Callers option has probably always been there, unbeknownst to me. It’s a godsend. Now my iPhone doesn’t even try to ring anymore.