Docs / Reading verdicts · 6 min
Reading verdicts
What allow and block mean, and the response logic behind them.
The response
Each lookup answers with verdict (allow or block) and reason (the human-readable reason, including the carrier line type). The dashboard logs every verdict with the caller number, the reason, and whether it was a cache hit.
How scoring works
CallerSift interrogates live telephony data to determine what kind of line is calling. A multi-source, high-availability intelligence pipeline powers the check, so an upstream disruption never stops scoring. Every fresh verdict also lands in a shared intelligence database: a number anyone on the network has scored answers instantly, at no cost to your balance.
Response logic
- Your lists first: a number on your workspace allow or block list is decided instantly, before any scoring. Manage lists on the Lookups page.
- Allow, mobile and landline: real reachable consumer callers go straight through.
- Allow, personal numbers and unclassified lines: likely real callers, never blocked on a guess.
- Block, VoIP (fixed and non-fixed): disposable and burner-app numbers, the top fraud vector.
- Block, virtual numbers: a mobile- or landline-looking number carried by a VoIP wholesale platform blocks; real consumers do not ride those carriers.
- Block, toll-free, corporate routing (UAN), voicemail-only, pager: not real consumer callers.
- Block, premium-rate and shared-cost: revenue-fraud and solicitor number classes.
- Block, out of region: CallerSift screens US and Canada callers only, so any other number blocks before a lookup even runs.
- Block, dialer velocity: a caller hitting several different CallerSift campaigns within an hour is dialing lists, not responding to your ad. The block lifts by itself once the burst ages out.
- Block, network-reported: a caller any CallerSift customer reported as fraud blocks across the whole network for 180 days.
- Block, unrecognized line types: new carrier classes block by default until reviewed.
- Allow, lookup failed or timed out: a check that did not run never blocks a genuine caller.
Verdicts cache for a day per number, so repeat callers answer instantly and cost your balance nothing. Spot a fraud caller the rules let through? Report it from the Lookups page and it blocks network-wide.