Call fraud and spam are at an all-time high. Despite the FTC’s efforts the protect consumers, spammers are using technology to mask their numbers and are calling from other countries to scam us out of money or information. It doesn’t even seem to help if you register your number to the national Do Not Call Registry. If you’re tired of getting spam and fraud calls on your smartphone, Samsung is here to help. Samsung and Hiya have partnered to offer automatic call blocking on your Galaxy S9 and S9+.
Hiya is a service that utilizes user feedback to identify spam callers. It builds a database that monitors all phone numbers that are reported as spammers and automatically blocks them from making a call to your phone if you activate it. It’s native to Samsung Galaxy devices that are used on the AT&T and T-Mobile networks in the US and can be added to Galaxy or other non-Samsung phones by downloading the apps.
Hiya is completely free to use and is well rated in both the App Store and Google Play Store. I use it on every single smartphone I own.
If you own a Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ and want to activate call protection on your phone, follow these quick instructions.
- Open the phone dialer app
- Click on the three dot settings button in the top right of the screen
- Click on Settings
- Open Caller ID and spam protection
- Click on the toggle to flip on Smart Call
Keep in mind, spammers find new ways to get your attention. They switch numbers or use caller ID block to subvert the Hiya database. Hiya’s database is only as good as the users who report bad callers, so do your part to report them.