Calling and texting are essential for staying in touch in modern-day life. Sometimes, though, people may feel compelled to block numbers. If you’ve had a falling out with someone, they may have blocked your number as a way of quietly ending their relationship with you. Or, they may have blocked you by mistake, especially if you have an out-of-state phone number, assuming that you were a spam caller if they didn’t have your number saved.
If you’ve been trying to reach out to someone and haven’t been successful, you may wonder if your number has been blocked. Before you try a different method of contact, if you think you were blocked by mistake or simply give up on trying to make contact, you might want to know if you’ve really been blocked.
There are a few ways you can test out whether or not your number has been blocked. This guide will walk you through the easiest ways.
Figuring Out if You’ve Been Blocked
There are a few ways to test out whether you’ve been blocked. Here are a few signs.
Going to Voicemail
One of the first indications that you’ve been blocked is that all your calls go straight to voicemail. Most people don’t leave their phone switched off 24/7, so if you’ve tried to call them at a few different times of the day and it always goes to voicemail, that could mean you’ve been blocked.
If you’ve left a few voicemails stating your name and why you’re calling and don’t receive a call back, you probably have been blocked and they aren’t receiving your messages.
Text Messaging
When a number is blocked, you won’t receive calls or texts from that user. A good way to test whether you’ve been blocked is to send a text message. Make sure your message receipts setting is on. The receipts give a little bubble next to your message, indicating that your message has been sent, delivered, and read.
If you’ve been blocked, the message may be sent, but it will never give any confirmation that it’s been delivered. Your message never getting delivered could mean you’ve been blocked.
In some cases, you may also receive a notification telling you that your message was unable to be delivered, that could also be an indication that you’ve been blocked. However, it could also mean that the user is somewhere without service, or that they have turned off their ability to receive any messages temporarily.
Suggested Contacts
If you’re an Android user and use Google services you can try to use the “suggested contact” feature. This only works if the person you’re trying to contact also has an Android, uses Google services, and has your number saved.
If they meet that criteria, you can delete their contact information from your phone, then search their name. If the other person meets the three previous criteria, they will likely come up as a suggested contact. If they don’t this could mean they blocked your number.
What to Do if You’ve Been Blocked
It never feels good to realize someone you know has blocked your number. Your initial response could be anger or hurt, but retaliating in some way would only justify that person cutting you out of their life. Remember that everyone has the right to choose who they associate with and harassing someone due to a momentary hurt feeling could have lasting impact on your future.
Sometimes, if you’re trying to reach out to a friend or relative you haven’t contacted in a long time, it’s possible that they no longer have the same number, so you’ve been contacting a stranger. It’s also possible that they are no longer with us.
If you believe they blocked your number by mistake, assuming it was spam, you can try to reach out through another method, such as via email. In the email, give them your number so they can save it to their phone.
With spam calls on the rise, it can be hard to know who’s calling you after all. If you’ve also been receiving unwanted calls, you can also use free people search engines to find out the owner of the number.
Find Out if You’ve Been Blocked
The point of blocking someone’s number is to quietly cut them out of your life or simply to protect yourself from frequent unwanted phone calls. Despite the subtlety of this method, there are a few ways you can test out whether you’ve been blocked.
Once you know for certain, you can move on from a person who is not interested in having a relationship with you. Or, if you believe your number was blocked by mistake, you can attempt another method of contacting this person.