How to Block Your Comcast Robocalls

Comcast is a parent organization of Xfinity, a company providing telephone, Internet, wireless, and cable TV services to the American consumers. Like every other communications company in the U.S., Xfinity is no stranger to the scourge of robocalls. The issue is rampant, and there’s still a lot that needs to be done by the authorities and telephone companies about consumer protection. According to Robocall Insights, 3.02 billion robocalls were made in May 2020, which accounts for nearly 11 spam calls per person!

Relying on the SHAKEN/STIR suite of protocols, Comcast/Xfinity rolled up its sleeves and collaborated with other major U.S. carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile to authenticate calls made between their respective networks. You can read some more tips on Xfinity robocall protection on their Support page.

How to Block Robocalls on Xfinity Landline

Xfinity Voice has teamed up with a third-party service Nomorobo to block unwanted robocalls from your landline, including telemarketing calls and illegal robocalls such as scam calls. Nomorobo will screen incoming phone calls to your landline number at a network level and disconnect them if they are coming from an illegal robocaller or telemarketer. Your phone will ring only once so that you’re aware the robocall has been stopped.

To activate the service on your Xfinity landline, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Nomorobo sign-up page and follow the instructions for signing up
2. Choose Comcast XFINITY as your landline carrier
3. Enter your email address and click Next
4. You’ll receive an email from Nomorobo with an activation link
5. Click on the link to activate your account
6. On the Setup Your Carrier step on Nomorobo’s website, go to Xfinity Connect
7. Sign in with your Xfinity ID and password
8. Click on the Voice tab
9. Click on the Settings icon in the top right corner
10. Enter the Nomorobo phone number (provided by Nomorobo during the setup) into the Advanced Call Forwarding field and select Add. This should be listed as a default number
11. Return to the Nomorobo website and go to the Your Phones tabs
12. Click on the Test button next to your number and request a test call to make sure everything is working ok

How to Block Robocalls on Xfinity Mobile

To circumvent robocalls on your Xfinity cell phone network, Comcast/Xfinity announced on their corporate blog in June 2019 that all Xfinity Mobile customers can download the Hiya robocall-blocking app on their smartphones for free.

The Hiya app allows customers to receive alerts about potential spam calls and block them. Users will also be able to identify calls from some common callers (like businesses and government agencies) to know who is calling. Hiya also comes with a “neighbor spoofing” blocker, which enables users to block particular area codes if they notice a lot of unwanted calls coming from these areas.

To download Hiya as an Xfinity customer, you should:

1. Download the Hiya app from your smartphone’s app store
2. Open the app and follow the setup instructions
3. Go to Settings
4. Go to Protect and set up the desired settings

Do You Know Which Robocalls Are Illegal?

Robocalls are ubiquitous and often bothersome, but not all of them are harmful or illegal. In fact, certain types of robocalls can prove very useful. Find out which robocalls are which are placed against the law in the table below.

Are You Eligible for a Comcast Robocall Settlement?

All illegal robocalls should be reported to the Federal Trade Commission by submitting a filled out webform, and the same applies to unsolicited calls you receive on your Comcast network. To report, you’ll be required to provide the caller ID number, in addition to any other numbers the robocaller instructed you to call back.

To file a lawsuit or request a settlement from the people behind the illegal Comcast robocall, you can get in touch with a lawyer or law firm that specializes in consumer protection. Still, it’s likely that you will not know who the individual or company behind the call is. This is when DoNotPay comes into play with its revolutionary Robo Revenge feature.

Don’t forget that DoNotPay can also help you with paying or lowering your Xfinity bills. If the company has in any way wronged you, you can send demand letters to Comcast in small claims court.

Why Robocall Scam Schemes Are so Rampant

Did you know that USA Today noted it takes only one “successful” scam robocall out of 100,000 to make the whole thing profitable for the scammers? Robocalls are incredibly cheap to run and provide the “convenience” of anonymity. Why go rob a bank or mug unassuming tourists, if you can just set up a simple software and swindle some wide-eyed individuals? More often than not, scammers are bothering and cheating the consumers with impunity. This seems to be the key reason why illegal robocalls are so prevalent, despite the FTC, the FCC, and major telephone companies doing all in their power to stop them.

The schemes also seem to be getting more complex and expensive. Even though it seems that fewer consumers are getting scammed compared to previous years, those few that fall prey to the fraud seem to be losing more money, noted Ian Barlow, the Do Not Call program coordinator at the FTC in a statement for Consumer Reports.

Learn How to Recognize Scam Comcast Robocalls

The key to dealing with Comcast robocall scams, as it frequently does, lies in prevention. By educating consumers and training them to identify a scam call when they receive one, we could collectively manage to put an end to Comcast robocalls and all others once and for all.

What are the most important takeaways for you and your loved ones to remember? We have listed the key characteristics of the most common robocall schemes.

1. Fake identity
2. Requests for payment/personal or financial information
3. Call transfer to a human operator

Fake Identity

Scammers often pretend to call on behalf of someone else, like a company or an agency you’re probably familiar with. Their language can be vague and imprecise — for instance, scammers behind Google listing robocall schemes often say that they “work with Google” or are “Google specialists.” Many other well-known companies and organizations have been targeted by such calls, including the Social Security Administration, the IRD, AT&T, etc.

Can you verify with 100% certainty the identity and legitimacy of the caller behind the supposed Comcast robocall? If you’re feeling even a shred of doubt, hang up the phone.

Requests for Payment/Personal or Financial Information

If the caller behind the robocall is honest and trustworthy, they will never ask you to share your personal or financial information through an automated phone call. Authentic companies are aware of the risks associated with robocalls and the sharing of sensitive information in such a way, so they would never put you in that precarious position.

Call Transfers to a Human Operator

Once you interact with a scam robocall by pressing a key on a keypad, you might get transferred to a “live operator” involved in the scam operation. This is a technique used by scammers that allows them to convince people to wire funds immediately or give out their payment information.

Retaliate on Illegal Comcast Robocalls With DoNotPay

We’ve created DoNotPay’s Robo Revenge feature so that you can square accounts with those persistent scam Xfinity/Comcast robocalls. With Robo Revenge, you can give the wrongdoers a taste of their own medicine.

By providing a temporary credit card number linked to DoNotPay’s free virtual credit card, you’re tricking the callers into believing you’ve fallen into their trap, when in fact, it’s them who are being misled!

At some point during the Comcast robocall, you may be transferred to a “live operator” and asked for your credit card details. Here is how to take revenge on the scammers with the help of DoNotPay, one step at a time:

1. Access the DoNotPay website in your web browser
2. Click on the Robo Revenge option and select the Create Your Card icon
3. Provide the pseudo credit card number linked to DoNotPay’s virtual credit card to the callers
4. Expect the scammers to attempt a transaction using the virtual credit card number
5. DoNotPay will get access to the scammers’ information and share those details with you
6. DoNotPay can then send a request on your behalf to the scammers and require compensation/settlement

Bear in mind that Robo Revenge currently works only if the scammers are based in the U.S. If you get an illegal robocall from overseas, winning a lawsuit or receiving a settlement becomes a distant possibility. That’s because the scammers’ illicit activities belong to the jurisdiction of another country.

What to Do if You Get an Illegal Robocall

While you may not be able to send demand letters to all individuals behind illegal calls, there’s plenty you can do to fight back in other ways. Collective efforts to combat the scourge of scam calls are not in vain—in March 2019, the FTC has shut down four separate operations responsible for billions of robocalls.

Learn what to do if you get an illegal robocall on your Comcast or Xfinity network, and how to help the authorities in the fight against them.

Please note that listing your number on the Do Not Call Registry doesn’t immediately reject all robocalls. A number of robocalls are allowed to get in touch with you regardless of your listing in the Registry. Find out here what the Do Not Call exceptions are.

How to Block Illegal Robocalls

You’ve registered your number on the Do Not Call Registry, but the robocalls keep getting through. The problem is that those behind scam robocalls don’t hold rules and regulations in high regard, particularly if they’re running their operations from some overseas countries with a more lenient understanding of the law. There is no single silver-bullet solution against illegal robocalls, but you can greatly reduce their number. Read our comprehensive guide on how to stop robocalls with the help of the following tools and technologies:

1. Robocall-blocking device
2. Robocall-blocking apps
3. SHAKEN/STIR protocol suite
4. Manual blocking of selected numbers

Robocall-Blocking Device

If your landline is getting inundated with annoying robocalls, it’s time you amp up your spam-defense. VoIP landlines that run via the Internet can be protected by software programs managed by your network carrier, but traditional landlines will benefit the most from a robocall-blocking device such as the CPR V5000.

This small contraction can do wonders in the fight against phone scammers and other similar nuisances. You can customize its settings so it blocks off selected area codes, filters out spam calls and calls without a caller ID, etc. Don’t forget to ensure that the Caller ID service on your phone is switched on so that the robocall blocker knows which calls to ward off and which to allow.

Robocall-Blocking Mobile Apps

Robocalls on your smartphone are nothing but annoying. Luckily, cell phone users today have a multitude of fantastic mobile-blocking apps at their disposal. Our preferred options include Nomorobo, Hiya, and Truecaller.

SHAKEN/STIR Protocol Suite

In an effort to protect consumers from the risks of robocall fraud and abuse, telephone companies in the U.S. have committed to adopting a technology known under the acronym of SHAKEN/STIR (sometimes also referred to as STIR/SHAKEN). This is a system of frameworks mandated by the FCC with the aim of combating spam calls and call spoofing. By using digital certificates, phone companies such as Comcast need to verify that the calling number is a secure one and that it hasn’t been spoofed—in other words, that the appearance of the call number hasn’t been altered.

If the incoming call is identified as spam or spam-likely, the phone company, which is verifying the call on a network level, can block it off. It can also allow the call to go through but warn you that it might be a scam or spam.

Manual Blocking of Selected Numbers

You don’t need a robocall-blocking service or feature with all the bells and whistles if you only want to stop one specific phone number from calling you. Use your smartphone’s built-in feature to block off that one persistent caller.

To block callers on your iPhone, you should:

1. Open the Phone app
2. Tap on the Recents tab
3. Select the ‘i’ symbol next to the number that you want to block
4. Choose Block this Caller
5. Confirm this action

Android smartphone users should do the following:

1. Open the Phone app
2. Tap on the three dots in the top right corner
3. Select Call Settings
4. Choose Reject Calls
5. Enter the number you want to block by selecting the “+” button
6. Confirm this action

Make It Easier on Yourself With DoNotPay

Life can get so busy for us all. We need all the help we can get to save some easy money and buy ourselves more time, don’t we? If you agree, open our app on your web browser.

DoNotPay can assist you with many things, including:

• Skipping the queue while on the phone with customer service
• Appealing traffic tickets
• Dealing with bills you can't pay right away
• Managing credit card issues
• Canceling subscriptions or memberships
• Requesting refunds for delayed or canceled flights
• Disputing speeding tickets
• Suing people and companies in small claims court
• Setting up a DMV appointment
• Looking for recompense for other illegal robocalls
• Challenging parking tickets