@Upfront6891 -- I have a different understanding of how Shaw does "spam-blocking".
> The workaround is to disable spam control within your privacy settings in the Shaw Portal.
First, for E-mail (not telephone) you have the choice within your Shaw E-mail to set your "preference":
1. label message as Spam and send to Junk folder
2. discard message immediately (will not appear in Trash folder)
3. label message as Spam and keep in Inbox folder
Which setting are you using?
Second, there exist public lists of "bad" IP-addresses -- those IP-addresses that are known to try to send "spam" E-mail messages. Shaw's mail-server checks the sender's IP-address against those lists, and scores "points" if the IP-address is listed. Please see: www.dnsbl.com for details about "block-lists" and "black-lists".
Third, Shaw checks the E-mail ID in the "From:" field. If a message cites a non-registered domain-name, e.g., info@shaw-offers.ca and if Shaw gets a response like:
Connecting to CA.whois-servers.net... Not found: shaw-offers.ca
the message is immediately rejected.
Fourth, Shaw scans the body of the E-mail. Finding phrases like "widow of Nigerian prince" and "risk-free transaction" and "millions of dollars" scores more points against the message. If the point-total is too large, then the message is classified as "spam", and is processed according to the above "preferences" that you have set.
> If these company's numbers are not the list, they will be sent directly to voicemail.
Moving on, telephone scammers use a "trick":
1. They call your telephone-number. If you have a "modern" telephone handset, not the plain-old rotary-dial mechanical device, the first "ring" is absorbed, silently, by the handset. The Caller-ID information is then sent, before the second "ring", and your handset displays the Caller-ID information, and sounds its ringer for the first time.
2. Part #1 of the "trick" is that your phone-line now is "busy", waiting for the second ring. Part #2 is for the scammer to launch another telephone-call to the same number.
3. If you have enabled voice-mail, the telephone-company notices that your line is busy with the first call. The scammer "hangs-up" on the first call, before the second "ring", so that you do not hear any "ring" from the first call.
4. Meanwhile, the scammer's second call is routed to your voice-mail, by your telephone-company. Your "modern" handset has not yet sounded any "ring". If you subscribe to "call alert", your handset may "beep" to indicate that the second call is active.
5. Thus, you now will have a voice-mail message, and your modern handset has NOT produced any "ring" sound.
> businesses such as Fido, Rogers, Telus, Dell, Lenovo, and more are [usually] blocked.
I very-much doubt that any of those reputable companies use that "double-call" trick that the scammers are exploiting.
Check your voice-mail message. It probably is a "spoofed" message, e.g., "This is DILL SUPPORT. Please contact 1-800-YOU-MUGU because we need to verify your credit-card information, before we can ship your order". Scam!
P.S. with the increasing popularity of VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), it has become dead-simple for the caller to set the Caller-ID information to any value, including the 1-800 number of the CRA, or your credit-card company, or Shaw, to make it appear that you are being called from a legitimate source, not from the scammer. Be alert -- the world needs more lerts. 🙂
