1. The Do Not Call Register
The Do Not Call Register is a free government service, run by the ACMA, that Australian telemarketers must check before calling. Registering your home, mobile and business numbers at donotcall.gov.au takes a few minutes and applies indefinitely.
It has limits worth knowing. Registration does not bind overseas operations that ignore Australian law, and some callers are exempt: charities, registered political parties, educational institutions, and research or survey callers. Those exemptions explain most of the calls that continue after registering.
2. Your carrier's blocking
Australian carriers block a large volume of scam calls at the network level before they ever reach a handset, and most offer an additional caller-blocking or scam-filter feature on request. It is worth asking your provider what is available on your plan — the network sees patterns across millions of calls that your phone cannot.
3. Your handset
Both iOS and Android can silence calls from numbers that are not in your contacts, sending them to voicemail with a notification. This is the single most effective setting for people who receive several unwanted calls a day, and genuine callers still reach you through voicemail.
- Block each offending number individually as it arrives, so repeat diallers lose the line.
- Turn on 'silence unknown callers' if your day does not depend on calls from strangers.
- Keep voicemail on, so legitimate callers still have a way through.
4. What you do on the call
Diallers are looking for engagement. Answering, speaking, pressing a key to opt out, or confirming your name all mark your number as live, and live numbers get sold on. Say nothing, hang up, block, and report the number so the pattern is visible to everyone else.
Where to report it in Australia
Reporting a call twice — once officially, once publicly — is what stops the next person answering it.
- Scamwatch (run by the National Anti-Scam Centre) at scamwatch.gov.au collects scam reports and publishes national trends.
- The Australian Cyber Security Centre at cyber.gov.au handles cybercrime reports, including phishing links sent by SMS.
- Your bank's fraud line, immediately, if any account, card or code was discussed.
- The number's page on NumberCheck, so the next Australian who searches it sees your experience straight away.