While most of us use FaceTime to chat with family and friends, there are people who use the app to annoy other users. Some users have complained about a large number of spam calls and prank calls they receive through Apple’s FaceTime and are not even able to block all of those numbers.
As reported by Ars Technica, a significant number of users have been receiving unwanted calls from FaceTime frequently in recent weeks. The people behind the spam calls use Group FaceTime to call up to 31 users at the same time. When someone hangs up, a different number calls that user immediately, so it’s hard to ignore the prank.
In the Apple support community, dozens of users reported having received several unknown calls on FaceTime. “Since then, I’ve received about 7 more calls over the course of the day,” said one user. “When I realized what it was, I hung up and he called 11 more times,” said another person. Similar reports have also been found on Reddit.
The high volume of callbacks appears to be the result of other people receiving the call, dialing everyone back when the initial call fails shortly after the call is answered. As more and more people receive subsequent calls, they also start making callbacks.
Although you may think that this can be resolved with the lock button, it is not as simple as it looks. Because FaceTime calls should work just like regular phone calls, you must block each Apple ID or number individually. There are no options to block multiple numbers at the same time or even to receive calls only from people in your contact list.
Unfortunately, there is not much that affected users can do now. Sure, users can disable FaceTime in the settings, but that also prevents them from using the app for anything else – and it definitely shouldn’t be the only option for anyone who has been receiving these annoying calls. Hopefully, Apple will add more filters for FaceTime calls with a software update in the future.
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