Extremely intrusive junk calls

[EveningStars]

I've experienced them on and off in the past, but nothing like this past month.
I am using an iPhone 13 and am with O2.
Have been with Virgin and TalkTalk in the past, same stuff.

But recently it's really getting intrusive. I am receiving at least 4-6 calls per hour from junk callers based in London, Londonderry and Scotland. They are clogging up my call list and I am sick to death of having to delete and block them. I never answer them, and sadly thanks to iCloud all of my bloody devices go off when one comes in.
I have the ringer off, but the alerts are there, it has even started to get in the way of my work. Sounds a bit extreme but I do need access to my phone for work, and these are constantly butting in, turning off my apps to shove it to the front.
I don't want to turn off iCloud just to get this crap off all of my computers. Sadly the software just presumes I need everything to stop when one comes in.

Could there be a reason for this increase? I would appreciate any advice about how to deal with it.

Apparently I can silence them and send them to voice mail but I don't WANT them in voicemail, wtf. Agghhh!

I don't have a solution, but I get you.

DH has just taken a call on his mobile from someone who started by asking DH about his frozen Bit Coin account. When the scammer then went on to try and pump him for information about how he trades with Bit Coin, when he keeps his funds yada yada DH challenged him about the frozen account the scanner refused to talk about how he knew. In the end DH cut him off.

Absolutely uncontrollable scamming and it's happening more and more.

We have BT call minder which does a 100% job of filtering unknown numbers but nothing is available yet for mobiles. There should be!

Thanks daisychain, sounds infuriating. I used to take them in my stride but it's terrible at the moment. Just having to block them at moment but they still fill up my recent calls list. Each time i block one, it calls back!

Suspect a new phone number is the only solution

I had this for a while with lots of spam international calls. Same as you I never answered them & then one day I did by accident & they increased exponentially! I just kept blocking them over & over & eventually they stopped. I haven’t had one for ages now. All a bit of a mystery & very annoying but hopefully they will eventually die down again.

I have an iPhone and if the caller isn’t listed in my contacts it goes directly to voicemail. You’d be surprised how many spam calls etc never leave a message. Best thing I did was setting it up. I reckon if it was a legitimate caller they’d leave a message.

Turn on the “Silence unknown callers” setting on iphone.
If you do answer don’t speak first as auto diallers will then drop the call thinking it’s not been connected.
Register with the TPS (telephone preference service)
Block the numbers so they can’t call again.