Guides

How to Stop Spam Calls and Robocalls by Removing Your Number from Data Brokers (2026)

2026-06-07 · byscento Privacy Team

If your phone rings all day with robocalls, fake warranty offers, and "your account has been compromised" scams, the calls usually start in the same place: a data broker that has your phone number on file and sells it to anyone willing to pay. Blocking each number after the fact is a losing game. The faster fix is to remove your number from the brokers feeding the callers in the first place.

How brokers hand your number to spam and scam callers

People-search sites and marketing data brokers build profiles that pair your name with your phone number, home address, age, and relatives. Telemarketers, lead generators, and outright scammers buy this data in bulk or scrape it from public profiles. Once your number is in circulation, it gets resold from broker to broker, which is why blocking one caller does nothing - the next one already bought the same list.

Scam callers in particular love broker data because the extra details make their pitch convincing. A caller who already knows your name, your city, and a relative's name sounds a lot more legitimate than a random robocall, and that's exactly what makes these scams work.

Step 1: Opt out of people-search sites that list your number

The most direct way to cut off the supply is to remove your number from the sites that publish it. Each major people-search site has an opt-out process, and most are free if you do them by hand. Start with the largest ones, since smaller sites often pull their data from these:

• Remove yourself from Spokeo
• Remove yourself from Radaris

These are the sites scammers and telemarketers reach first, so clearing them has an outsized effect. From there, work through the rest. We publish step-by-step opt-out guides for 600+ brokers so you can find the exact removal page for each site that lists you.

Step 2: Register on the National Do Not Call Registry

The National Do Not Call Registry is real, run by the Federal Trade Commission, and free. Add your number at donotcall.gov, and your registration does not expire - you never have to re-register. Legitimate telemarketers are required by law to stop calling registered numbers.

Here's the catch: the registry only stops law-abiding telemarketers. It does nothing about robocallers and scammers who already ignore the law, and those are the calls that bother you most. Political calls, charities, debt collectors, and surveys are also exempt. So registering is worth doing - it quiets the legitimate noise - but it is not a substitute for removing your number from the brokers that feed the illegal callers.

Step 3: Turn on your carrier's call-blocking tools

Your phone carrier and your device already have free tools that screen unknown and suspected-spam calls:

• Carrier apps and features - the major US carriers offer free spam-labeling and call-filtering tools you can enable through their app or account settings.
• Built-in phone settings - both iPhone and Android can silence calls from unknown numbers and send suspected spam straight to voicemail.

These tools reduce how many spam calls actually reach you, but they treat the symptom. They do not remove your number from the lists, so the calls keep coming - they just get filtered.

Step 4: Keep your number off the lists (this is the part people skip)

Removing your number once is not the end. Brokers continuously rebuild their databases from public records and from each other, so a profile you deleted in the spring often reappears by the fall. That is why one-time opt-outs fade and the spam calls drift back.

Under the CCPA and CPRA, California residents have the right to ask businesses to delete their personal information and stop selling it, and you can use an authorized agent to file those requests on your behalf. A growing number of states have passed similar deletion and opt-out laws. These rights are powerful, but exercising them across hundreds of brokers - over and over as data reappears - is the real work.

The practical approach

Do the free basics yourself: register at donotcall.gov, switch on your carrier's call filtering, and opt out of the biggest people-search sites by hand. Then handle the part that never ends - ongoing removal across hundreds of brokers - with help.

byscento scans the broker landscape to find every site listing your phone number, files the removals for you, and keeps monitoring so your number stays off the lists even when brokers try to relist it. Start with a free scan to see who is exposing your number right now.