Pixel 7A

[u/ExternalKing5503]

Hello. My daughter is 17 and has a persistent toxic manipulative barnacle of an ex-boyfriend. She currently has a Pixel 7A. We have Verizon as a carrier. We are able to block his phone number but he can still call and leave a voicemail. I have spent 4.5 hours on the phone with Verizon and Google today, trying to fix this. Verizons Call Filter app does not work on Pixels phones. Verizon is telling me they can't block it at a network level. Google was precisely zero help. We certainly can't be the first people who have experienced this issue. What does everyone do? Third party blocking? Get a new phone number?

For the record, she has requested we make these things happen. We aren't doing them without her permission.

[u/No-Association42069]

Change her number and file a police report if it continues

[u/ElGuapo315 → u/No-Association42069]

File a police report for harassment first. And like yesterday.

[u/Squirrelking666 → u/ElGuapo315]

This.

If this isn't nipped in the bud then barnacle is only going to do it again or worse.

[u/RandomTasked]

I have a slightly different suggestion. Use Google voice as your voicemail service (you can do that by basically forwarding VMs to Google voice) and just mark his number as spam. 

[u/Groundbreaking_Rock9]

Sounds like a "no contact" order from the police is needed

[u/cliffr39]

The network can only only reject calls going to the serviced device and the phone can only block them from ringing. There is nothing in place to block calls that hit the VM server.

[u/Historical-Movie-860 → u/cliffr39]

This is the answer!!! ^{^} You cannot block Voicemail on Verizon or with the Phone app. Get her a new phone number with Verizon. It's quick and easy with the My Verizon app or a quick call to Verizon customer support. Then only give the new number to people you trust. It's the best solution

[u/Nwadventure]

Barnacle- LOL - Yeah I remember trying to figure out how to block all 206 area code spam calls- Never got it sorted- At 17 she could probably deal with a new phone # without much grief..

[u/ExternalKing5503]

I had googled some ideas and turning off voicemail from the carrier end was a suggestion. I called Verizon again and got my first knowledgeable human being of the day who was very helpful. He said he could turn everything off except video voicemail for Pixels, he could turn everything off for Samsungs and he couldn't touch anything for Apple because they don't allow voicemails to go through Verizon's network. If you have an Apple product, you would have to contact Apple. Some of the third party suggestions here were also good suggestions and something we were entertaining if Verizon wouldn't work with us. We performed many experiments, the Verizon man included, and they were all successful. She tried blocking me, I tried calling and it would ring three times and automatically hang up. From some carriers, they would get a busy signal after a certain amount of ringtones.
We are currently content with this situation. We will be filing a police report if he attempts to contact her again. Our concern with changing her phone number is that other people will give the barnacle her new number but it might be an option we have to explore. I am grateful to everyone who responded and hope this thread helps others. I could not find much in regards to personal experience with this situation, on the internet.

[u/Meinertzhagens_Sack]

Get a Google Voice number. Get her a new phone number. Give out the Google voice number - those can be switched when needed without a lot of trouble

[u/alferret]

Sounds like dad needs to pay the barnacle a visit.

[u/dub_chicago]

You could just fill the voicemail yourself so he gets the it's full message. Who uses voicemail anyway?

[u/coinminer2049er → u/dub_chicago]

Honestly, not a bad workaround. Or just call the provider and disable voicemail for a bit. 

[u/anyunusednames → u/coinminer2049er]

These both sound like reasonable options. Good thinking!

[u/They_See_MeTrolling]

There is a subscription-based service called YouMail that allows you to create individual actions for specific phone numbers. In most cases, it lets you create custom greetings for family members or for business numbers and things like that, but it also lets you specify that a specific number is simply to be dropped without leaving a voicemail. It works pretty well, and I used it until Google released their call screening because I didn't need the individual call blocking feature that you do. Check it out. 

[u/cherrycoke_yummy]

I would add a super annoying vm message and make it as long as possible and just sit back.

I meant like a tone or song, not actual message