Have you ever tried reaching out to someone on their cell phone number, and it just seems to you that you keep reaching a dead end? Have you ever thought of the possibility that it’s deliberate from the person’s angle? Maybe he or she is not really keen on speaking to you and could have blocked your number from their own end?
Well, it does happen. You are frantic to put a call through to someone for whatever reasons, but the person has already blocked your number, and you can seem to reach them.
Though, it’s quite helpful too to block a person’s number when the person seems to be disturbing you with incessant calls, when sales agents keep bogging you about one promotion or the other, and just when you do not wish to be on talking terms with a person for some time or anymore.
4 ways to know when someone blocks your number
But when you are at the receiving end, how do you know when your number has been blocked by the other party? Here is what to do:
1. Try calling the number to verify
Now you can carry out a little experiment just like we did and see the outcome for yourself. To know if a person actually blocked your number, you might need to call the person’s number to see how many times it would ring before it goes to voicemail. So, you call the person, and it only rings once. Then, you get a call diverted to voicemail service with an invitation to leave a message.
Once the above action happens, that’s just one of the signs you need to indicate that the recipient most likely blocked your number. However, from experimenting with an iPhone, we switched off the iPhone, then tried calling the number, and it rang just once and went to a voicemail message.
That being said, the challenge with this option is that there is a likelihood the recipient of the call had his phone switched off or on auto-divert.
If the recipient actually blocks your number and you send a voicemail, the recipient still receives the message under the blocked messages or deleted messages folder. That way, the recipient can read through and still decide whether or not they want to respond to you.
How to confirm if your number is blocked?
To be sure the recipient blocked the number and not that it’s on call-divert or switched off, do this:
- Use another person’s number to call the recipient to see if it rings once and goes to voicemail or rings multiple times.
- Go to your phone settings to locate the “Caller ID” and switch it off. Once you switch off the caller ID, you would have immediately escaped detection.
- You can choose to include your country code in your number, especially with a landline, and then dial the recipient to see if it rings through.
Now, in any of these situations, if the recipient’s phone is On and then it rings multiple times, that means the recipient blocked your number. But if it rings once, you get a busy tone, or the call cuts off, or you receive the same voicemail request, then the chances are that the phone has been switched Off or on auto divert and not your number blocked by the recipient.
If the recipient blocks your call, then it’s either he or she picks the unknown number, allowing it to ring multiple times without a response because it’s an unknown number or no familiar caller ID.
2. Send the contact a text message
One other way to confirm if your number has been blocked by contact is to send an SMS to the recipient and check the delivery status. Though on Android devices, it’s not easy to tell if your message has been read by the recipient.
That’s especially with third-party apps like Sideline, Burner, or Hushed. You can confirm the status of your SMS and verify if the recipient has read the message. That’s how to find out if someone blocked your number from texting and make an accurate conclusion.
Now, how to tell if someone blocked your number on iPhone?
For iPhone, the iMessage feature makes it easier to confirm if a message has been seen by the recipient or not yet. In fact, iMessage on iPhone can show that the message has been delivered but not read.
That said, the recipient can read the message without you knowing if they did not activate the “show messages as read” on their iPhone. But with the Read Receipt feature, once a message shows “Read” it’s one way to indicate that your number was not blocked by the recipient, probably because he or she has a very tight schedule.
3. Send a WhatsApp Message
If your contact is on WhatsApp, it can provide a means to confirm if your number has been blocked by the contact. To verify that, send the recipient a Whatsapp text and then ask for a reply to the message, then study the checkmarks to confirm the status.
The first check means a message “sent”, and the second means a message “delivered”. But if it has only one checkmark, that’s indicative the contact has blocked your number, even on Whatsapp. But where the check marks turn blue, it means they have seen your messages and may not or do not want to reply.
4. Delete the contact’s number from your phone list
Using an Android phone
- Go to the contact app and click on the contact’s name.
- On the Contact Homepage, go to the top right corner and click More.
- Click Delete on the pop-up message.
- Then go to compose a message, and where you indicate the contact, type the contact name on the “to” section for contact name and number.
- Check to see what appears.
- If your contact’s name comes up as a suggestion, then the recipient did not block your number, but if not, it’s indicative your number has been blocked.
Using an iPhone
- Open the contact app to locate the target.
- Go to the top right corner to click on “Edit”.
- Scroll to the bottom to delete the contact and click delete on the pop-up to confirm.
- Go to compose a message and type the contact’s name on the “to section“.
- Check if the name appears or not. If it does, then you are good, but if not, your number has been blocked.
Another possibility
Several possibilities can occur regarding a recipient not picking up your calls or replying to your text messages. One of these possibilities is that once the caller activates “Do not Disturb Mode” on their device, it stops all calls and text messages from going through. So this might not be targeted at any particular person.
You can, however, in this case, try much later to see if it would go through, but the same process with a single ring and voicemail or deleted messages will occur if the “DND” mode is still active.
