No Cell Phone Call Block? No Problem!

Despite being a long time registrant on the Do-Not-Call list, once in a while I get random calls on my cell phone. If it appears to be Spam, I ignore the call. If it appears to be a wrong number, I call them back and let them know they've reached a wrong number - but that rarely stops the calls. (I've had a chinese school calling me for over two years every time "Ping Ying Something-or-other" misses school. Hopefully Ping Ying is ok because his (her?) parents have no idea!)

So I have this problem: Repeated calls from spammers and/or wrong numbers that I can't get rid of. Most cell phone companies do not offer a way to block calls from a specific number, but there's a free workaround that helps. It's very simple and pretty ingenious.

• First, download (or make) a silent ringtone. You can google "silent ringtone" to find one, or if you know how to make your own ringtone just record 30 seconds of silence. 
• Put the ringtone on your phone. 
• Create a new contact and call it "Ignore Me" or something similar. 
• Assign the silent ringtone to that contact. 
• The next time a repeated spammer, wrong number, or chinese school calls your cell phone, select their number from your recent calls list and use the "add to current contact" feature to add that number to your "Ignore Me" contact. 

Now whenever one of those numbers calls, you won't hear a thing. No ring, no nothing. And if you happen to see the call come in, the "Ignore Me" text will be displayed. - BRILLIANT solution.

It doesn't prevent the calls, it doesn't stop them, and some callers may still leave messages, but most of the time you won't even know they called. It's a pretty good interim solution until your cell phone/carrier implements call blocking.

I found the above information several months ago via multiple websites so I don't have a specific URL to credit for the idea.