There may be several reasons for wanting to block a telephone number. You may receive frequent unwanted calls from someone with a certain number. But blocking a number can also very well be a preventive action to avoid high telephone costs. This article describes the options available to block a telephone number
Avoid annoyance and high telephone costs by blocking numbers
Many people have already fallen victim to unwanted SMS services. Due to an inattentive moment, you can simply be stuck with an SMS subscription, without this really being the intention. And then text messages are regularly received with the most nonsensical information. You do nothing with it until the next telephone bill arrives. The costs of text messages appear to be sky-high.
Another reason to block a telephone number or a group of telephone numbers may be that you want to prevent high calling costs. If you lend out your mobile phone or if there are people in your house regularly (or unsupervised children), it may be advisable, for example, to block foreign numbers or to block paid 0900 numbers.
Or another situation: you are being stalked or otherwise harassed by one or more people. It is also useful to know that these numbers can be blocked.
How can you block a number?
There are several ways to block phone numbers. The options also partly depend on the provider of your telephone subscription. There are also differences between a landline telephone connection and mobile telephone numbers.
Possibilities for blocking numbers with a landline telephone connection
You can have foreign telephone numbers and 0900 numbers blocked. After blocking, these numbers can no longer be called from your landline. You can block the numbers by letting your provider know which numbers should be blocked. KPN is obliged to block telephone numbers as soon as you submit a request to do so. Other providers are not obliged to do this. The following groups of telephone numbers can be blocked:
- 00 for calling abroad
- 0906 for calling erotic numbers
- 0900 for calling telephone numbers for paid information
- 0909 for calling telephone numbers for so-called calling games
Possibilities for blocking numbers on a mobile phone
There are also options to block numbers with a mobile telephone subscription.
Vodafone offers the following options, among others:
- Blocking all incoming text messages. By performing this action, no SMS messages can be received. This eliminates the risk of expensive SMS subscriptions. This option can be enabled by requesting a so-called blocking code from Vodafone customer service. Then dial *35*blocking code*16# and no more text messages can be received. It is also possible to only disable paid SMS services. You can do this by registering your number at www.smsdienstenfilter.nl
- Also, all incoming calls or all outgoing calls can be blocked. This is possible by logging in to your own ‘my Vodafone’ account. Various blocks can be set in the settings
- With the same settings, only outgoing numbers abroad can also be blocked
KPN mobile offers the following options:
- KPN can also block the receipt of paid SMS messages via www.smsdienstenfilter. KPN also offers the option to block (free) advertising SMS messages from KPN itself. KPN does not allow blocking of other (free) advertising messages (see also this link)
- Block numbers that make unwanted frequent calls. This is possible by registering at least 10 moments when you were harassed. This information can be sent to KPN so that the number in question can be blocked.
Conclusion
Sometimes it can be very desirable to block a telephone number. This article describes the options available for landline telephone connections and mobile telephones. The options differ per provider. If you would like to know for sure what all the options are with your provider, please contact customer service.