On occasion, you may suspect that someone has blocked your phone number, either accidentally or intentionally. When sending an SMS or an iMessage (if you are using an iPhone), it is impossible to determine whether or not the recipient has received a message. As for phone calls, it is slightly easier to see if you have been blocked.
To find out if you have been blocked, the first thing you will have to do is call the person you suspect to have been blocked by. As soon as the phone starts to connect, be attentive and listen to the number of ringtones that you hear before the call is ended.
If you hear one, or none and the call ends or you are redirected to voicemail, there are two possibilities. Firstly, they may have their phone turned off, or be using the ‘do not disturb’ function, which prevents them from receiving calls whilst active. Alternatively, your number has been blocked by that person.
To determine which it is, first wait a while and call again to confirm that the line was not busy. If after a few hours the phone continues to redirect you to the answering machine or abruptly ends the call, proceed to the next steps.
Firstly, you will want to try calling from another phone. If the ringtone is normal or the caller answers, you will know that your number has been blocked. Secondly, you can try hiding your number before calling the person that you want to contact. In this article we explain how to do just that. If you hear several tones, it is most likely that your number is blocked.
How To Block a Phone Number
If you want to block one or more phone numbers, there are several ways to end the unwanted calls:
If you have an Android device, in this article we explain in detail how to do it. If you are using an iPhone, Blackberry, or another type of phone, here you can see step by step how to block calls and messages.
This document, titled « How To Know If Your Number Has Been Blocked », is available under the Creative Commons license. Any copy, reuse, or modification of the content should be sufficiently credited to CCM (ccm.net).
