Why are phone numbers auto adding to my contacts?

[Android Central Question]

Today I received a phone call from someone not in my Contacts - I have a Samsung Galaxy S8+. Her name showed up on my caller ID, however I do not subscribe with Verizon to the caller ID feature. When I hung up from the call, I realized the phone automatically added this person to my contacts. How did this happen and why? And how do I correct? I'm thinking it has something to do with Syncing Contacts, but I can't find it in Settings. Help!

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Caller ID is typically on by default, and comes with any plan, no matter how basic. Are you saying you manually turned off Caller ID?

Are you saying that when you open your Contacts app, you see the contact added to one of your accounts? Or are you just looking in the Phone app, under the Favorites/Recent Calls tab? Recent and/or frequent callers show up in that tab, in addition to any Favorites you set. The phone figures out which recent or frequent callers show up, regardless of whether they're in your contacts or not. These contacts aren't physically added to your Contacts app.

Please register on this forum, which will allow you to engage in discussion more easily, as well as post images. https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html

 

[Nik 1]

I don't think you are understanding the issue. Someone I don't know, not a person in my contacts, called me. This person's name and number automatically got saved into my contacts without me adding them.

 

[blackhawkhot]

I don't think you are understanding the issue. Someone I don't know, not a person in my contacts, called me. This person's name and number automatically got saved into my contacts without me adding them.

There's no way for the phone to do that or your smartphone is much smarter than mine.
You sure it wasn't a contact you added long ago?
Perhaps you accidentally dumb screen punched it in.

 

[Nik 1]

Positive. I did not add it. The woman's name showed up when she first called and I've never spoken to her before. I let it go into VM, she left a msg and the next thing I knew she was added into my contacts. Maybe it has something to do with the voicemail?

 

[blackhawkhot]

Positive. I did not add it. The woman's name showed up when she first called and I've never spoken to her before. I let it go into VM, she left a msg and the next thing I knew she was added into my contacts. Maybe it has something to do with the voicemail?

Interesting. My phone has most bloatware disabled. Could be a carrier apk or even a Android trick I never knew existed.
Not aware of any malware being sent in a voice data stream.
A quick search however found this:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.co...-channel-to-leak-info-spread-malware.amp.html

 

[Nik 1]

I think it's something with Verizon....I found another thread on here that hinted it has something to do with Google syncing calls and contacts.....

 

[blackhawkhot]

I think it's something with Verizon....I found another thread on here that hinted it has something to do with Google syncing calls and contacts.....

Yeah I keep sync disabled...

 

[B. Diddy]

I don't think you are understanding the issue. Someone I don't know, not a person in my contacts, called me. This person's name and number automatically got saved into my contacts without me adding them.

In order to understand the issue, I wanted to clarify exactly what was happening, because I can see how some people might think that a number in the Favorites/Recent Calls tab in the Phone app might think one of those recent callers was added to their Contacts, when in fact it was not.

If you go to contacts.google.com in your computer browser, is that contact listed there? If not, then you know the person is not being added to your Google Contacts, because Google Contacts syncs automatically with your cloud (unless you turned that sync off for some reason).

If that person is not in your Google Contacts in the cloud, then they were either added to the Phone Account (which doesn't sync anywhere), your Samsung Account, or they weren't added at all. Open your Contacts app (not the Phone app's Contacts section) and search for that person. Open that contact entry and look at its details. What account does it say it's saved to?