How to Stop Spam Calls & Emails as a Travel Nurse

Key takeaways

• Why it happens: Hand your number and email to a few agencies and they get shared and sold across recruiter databases — spam starts within 48 hours.
• Recruiter calls are legal: You consented in the fine print, so spam filters let them through. Revoke it — reply STOP to texts, block numbers and tell each recruiter to add you to their do-not-call list.
• Clean up what's already out there: Mark emails as spam (don't just delete), unsubscribe, and switch on your carrier's free spam tools plus your phone's built-in filter.
• The only permanent fix: Use a burner phone number and a private email for every agency sign-up, so your personal info never enters the pipeline.
• Set expectations: You won't hit zero, but you'll decide when to check the recruiter inbox instead of being interrupted 20 times a day.

Why travel nurses get so much spam

You sign up with a couple of travel nursing agencies. Within 48 hours, your phone is ringing off the hook and your inboxes are drowning in "exciting new opportunity" messages from companies you've never heard of.

It isn't just you. This is how the travel nursing recruitment industry works. Treating your personal contact info like a commodity to be traded.

Here's what's happening: every time you submit your name, number, or email to a job board or staffing agency, that information gets added to recruiter databases. Those databases get shared across agencies and with their partners too.

Oftentimes your personal contact info is sold. Companies make money from your data. 🤮

Some platforms hide it in the fine print — you unwittingly agreed to let them share your data when you checked the "I agree to terms" box. Agencies use auto-dialers. Recruiters compete to be the first one to reach you.

Give your personal phone number to 5 agencies and you might end up hearing from 20, because each one has multiple recruiters and every single one of them has your number now. 😭

It's genuinely infuriating that this is accepted as normal in this industry. You're a nurse trying to find a good contract. You shouldn't have to spend your days screening calls & slogging through spam to connect with employers you're actually trying to reach.

When I jumped into travel nursing I gave out my personal contact info to a few job websites. Within a couple days my phone & email were blowing up with calls, texts and emails from companies I never contacted. 🤬

I felt so violated and overwhelmed. I was silencing unknown calls, and blocking texts and emails 24/7 for weeks. Plus, all the messages were generic ads with no job details or pay, just attempts to lure me onto phone calls - I hate un-necessary phone calls!

This was back in 2016 before agencies were forced to participate in pay transparency. I've learned A LOT about blocking spam since then.

Spam is one of the most-complained-about cons of travel nursing. But it is manageable.

This problem isn't exclusive to travel nursing — anyone whose personal contact info lands in a data broker's hands ends up in the same situation. But travel nurses get hit especially hard because they're actively handing over their personal contact info to multiple agencies in a short window.

The fixes in this article work for anyone dealing with nonstop spam.

2 tracks here. If you're already drowning — 10+ calls a day, inbox a disaster — start with the next section on stopping the recruiters who already have your number.

If you're just getting started in travel nursing, skip to the prevention section. You can sidestep most of this spam-onslaught before it starts.

Stop the recruiters who already have your number

If you've already handed your personal contact info to an agency or job board — and most nurses reading this have — this is where to start.

You can't filter your way out of this one — the calls are legal, so your phone's spam tools let them through. When you submitted your personal contact info, you technically gave consent to be contacted under federal telemarketing law.

But you're not stuck. You can take back the consent you gave when you signed up.

That's the solution: un-consent, then manually lock out the stragglers.

• Reply STOP to the texts. For an agency you actually recognize, text back STOP — or "opt out," "cancel," "unsubscribe," "end," "quit." As of FCC rules that took effect in April 2025, those words legally revoke your consent, and the company has to stop contacting you — texts and auto-dialed or recorded calls both — within 10 business days.
• Screen everything. Send unknown numbers to voicemail and let them prove they're worth a callback. A real recruiter with a real job leaves a message, texts or emails you. Auto-dialers almost never do.
• Block the repeat offenders individually. It's whack-a-mole — agencies rotate through dozens of numbers — but block the ones that keep hitting you. iPhone: tap the number in Recents → Block this Caller. Android: tap the number → Block / report spam.
• Tell them to add you to their do-not-call list. This is their own internal list, not the national donotcall.gov registry — the national one exempts agencies you've already dealt with, but a direct request to the company is a separate thing they can't ignore. If you end up on a call with a recruiter, say it flat out: "Remove my number and put me on your do-not-call list." The FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule requires them to honor that immediately, business relationship or not. Follow up in writing if you can, so there's a record.

One caveat on replying STOP: it only works on real companies. If a text is an obvious scam or phishing attempt — not an agency you recognize — replying anything just confirms your number is live. Report those as junk and block them instead.

One of my nurse friends reached out to agencies when she was considering travel nursing for a minute before she changed her mind. She STILL receives calls on her personal phone number - to this day! One time, she answered an agency call on a day she felt feisty and got the recruiter to admit that her profile clearly states "Not interested". But did that stop them? Nope! 🙈

Here's the honest limit: none of this touches the agencies that bought your info but haven't called yet, and you can't claw back data that's already been sold. Revoking consent cleans up who's bothering you right now.

The only permanent fix is getting your personal number out of the pipeline entirely — which is what the prevention section below covers.

How to stop spam calls on your cell phone

5 steps, from fastest to most effective:

1. Turn on "Silence Unknown Callers" for immediate relief (But not if you're expecting calls from unknown numbers like a new agency, or your doctor's office...)
2. Enable your phone's built-in spam call filter
3. Activate your carrier's free spam-blocking tool
4. Register at donotcall.gov
5. Stop giving your personal phone number to agencies in the first place

I want to be honest with you about steps 1-4: they work on random robocalls and telemarketers. But recruiter calls from travel nursing agencies are a different beast — you gave those agencies prior express consent in the fine print, so filters don't see them as spam. That's a fun loophole, isn't it? 😝

These 5 steps clear the random robocall layer piling up on top. The recruiters who already have your number need the un-consent moves up top — and getting your number out of the pipeline for good is the prevention section below.

Enable built-in call blocking

iPhone

• Settings → Phone → "Silence Unknown Callers" (on iOS 18 and later: Settings → Apps → Phone) — sends all unknown numbers straight to voicemail, immediately
• Settings → Phone → "Call Blocking & Identification" if you want to block specific numbers instead

Silencing unknown callers/call-blocking is tempting when you're getting 15 calls before noon. But it silences/blocks calls from ALL unknown numbers, including any prospective employers or important calls you might be waiting to hear from.

Turn on call-blocking during your off-hours. Turn it off when you're actively job hunting. Don't leave it on 24/7 if you're mid-job-search.

Android

• Phone app → Settings → "Caller ID & spam" → enable spam filter
• Samsung — Phone app → Settings → "Block numbers" → enable "Block unknown/private numbers"

Use your carrier's spam tools

All 4 major carriers have free spam-blocking tools and none of them make it easy to find. Activate yours.

Register at donotcall.gov too. It won't stop recruiters — companies you've contacted or done business with are exempt from the registry — but it chips away at the random telemarketing noise stacking on top of the recruiter calls.

What's the code to block all spam calls?

There isn't one universal code. But these carrier-specific options actually help:

• T-Mobile — Dial #662# to activate free spam call blocking
• AT&T — ActiveArmor handles it; download the app
• AT&T/T-Mobile — **61*[destination number]# reroutes unanswered calls to a number you specify after a set number of rings (dial ##61# to cancel it). It's not a "send to voicemail" shortcut — you have to give it a destination number.

None of these stop a recruiter who already has your personal phone number — you handle those by revoking consent, covered up top. These just cut down the random robocalls layered on top of them.

How to stop spam emails

Mark spam, unsubscribe from the ones that allow it, and block the rest. Do this consistently for 1-2 weeks and your inbox can turn around.

Here's how to do it across Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and Apple Mail.

Train your email provider's spam filter

Most people delete spam emails. That's the wrong move.

Deleting removes the message but teaches your filter nothing. Your filter learns from what you actively flag.

Mark every recruiter blast as spam for 2 weeks straight and watch what happens to your inbox. It's tedious at first and then it's not so bad.

Gmail

1. Select the email
2. Click the three-dot menu → "Report spam"
3. Or select multiple emails in bulk → spam icon in the toolbar

Outlook

1. Right-click the email → "Mark as junk"
2. Adjust sensitivity in Settings → View all Outlook settings → Mail → Junk email

Yahoo

1. Select the email
2. Click "Spam" in the toolbar
3. Go to More Settings → Filters to build rules for repeat senders

Apple Mail

1. Select the email
2. Click Message → "Move to Junk"
3. Turn on "Filter messages from unknown senders" in Preferences → Junk Mail

Every flag is a data point. Skip it and the same garbage shows up tomorrow.

Unsubscribe and block senders

Here's a small win: the CAN-SPAM Act requires every marketing email to include a working, easy-to-find unsubscribe link. That applies to travel nursing agencies too. Find it at the bottom, click it, done.

1. Scroll to the bottom of the email
2. Click "Unsubscribe" or "Manage preferences"
3. Complete the form — by law, agencies have up to 10 business days to honor it. Most clear out faster, but give it the full 10 before assuming it didn't work.

For agencies that ignore your unsubscribe request and keep going anyway, block them directly:

• Gmail — Open email → three-dot menu → "Block"
• Outlook — Right-click → "Block sender"
• Yahoo — Open email → More → "Block senders"

One thing to watch: only click unsubscribe on emails from real companies you recognize. On phishing emails, clicking anything — including unsubscribe — can confirm to the sender that your address is active and actually make the problem worse. If it looks sketchy, report as spam and don't touch it.

Handy Gmail shortcut worth knowing: in the Promotions tab, Gmail often shows an "Unsubscribe" link right next to the sender name. You can batch-clear recruiter lists without opening a single email.

☕️ Batch-unsubscribing junk email is a satisfying way to kill time waiting at your next dr appt.

Is it better to block or delete spam?

Block it. Report it as spam. Don't just delete.

Deleting removes one email. Reporting as spam blocks the sender and trains your filter to catch similar messages going forward. It takes 2 extra seconds and the compounding effect over a few weeks is real.

I used to make this mistake too. But our spam-ful existence requires decisive action - don't be afraid to spam/block unknown messages. If anybody real actually needs to get ahold of you they'll try again some other way.

The prevention approach: burner numbers and private email

The only thing that actually fixes this at the root: stop giving out your personal contact info.

You shouldn't have to do this. In a reasonable world, signing up with 1 staffing agency wouldn't mean your personal phone number spreads like wildfire across an entire industry. But here we are.

I still get sporadic travel nursing calls and voicemails on my personal phone number from companies I've never heard of, years after I stopped giving out that number. Luckily my spam flow is down to a minimum now that I've moved all travel nursing contacts to my burner phone numbers and private emails.

But you should see the influx I still receive on those travel nursing burner phone numbers and private email addresses - we're talking 10+ texts & calls per day. I keep those permanently silenced and only reply on my schedule. 📵

Learn from my mistake - I wish I had gotten my burner phone number and private email set up before I started reaching out to travel nurse agencies. And countless nurses share my regret.

If you're just getting started, set this up before you apply anywhere. If you're already overwhelmed, use it for every agency you contact going forward.

And it's not just agencies. Any time you'd hand your personal contact info to an unknown entity — travel nurse housing sites like Furnished Finder or Craigslist, a stranger's rental listing, random online sign-ups — use your burner number and private email there too. A landlord you've never met or a site you'll use once has no more claim to your personal phone number and email than a recruiter does.

It's basic data privacy: the fewer places your personal contact info lives, the less it can be shared, sold, or leaked.

Use a burner phone number for agencies

A burner number is a secondary phone number that rings your real phone. You give the burner to agencies — they call it, it forwards to you. You stay reachable.

Your personal phone number never leaves your hands.

When you're done job hunting or ready to block spam forever you disable the burner. Your personal phone number doesn't go anywhere, ever.

USE YOUR BURNER NUMBER EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU SIGN UP WITH AN AGENCY — or hand your number to any unknown entity, housing sites included.

Options for getting one:

• Google Voice — free Google number that forwards to your cell; easy setup, but they sell your data.
• Burner apps — paid apps with disposable, replaceable numbers

Check out my step-by-step guide to setting up a burner phone number for the full walkthrough including which apps are worth it.

Set up a private email for job applications

Same principle, different channel. Create a dedicated email address for travel nursing applications only. All recruiter email lands there.

The setup I recommend: use a private email forwarding address that connects to your personal inbox without exposing it. Agencies email your private address, the messages forward to you, all your replies are sent under your alias email address, and your personal email is never revealed.

When you're done job hunting, you turn the private address off. No more recruiter emails. Your personal email was never touched.

• DIY email for travel nursing — Create an email address used only for agency sign-ups, ie. Proton Mail, Gmail or any other free email service. You can easily setup forwarding to your personal email address or keep separate inboxes.
• DIY email alias — Simplelogin.io gives you multiple email aliases that forward to your inbox, replies appear from your alias and you can turn off anytime.
• StellarNurse private email — Free with your StellarNurse account. Agency messages forward to your personal inbox. Your replies appear from your private email, recruiters never see your personal email, and you can turn it off anytime. Learn how your StellarNurse private email works.

Why this actually matters:

• Recruiter emails stay completely out of your personal inbox.
• You check it on your schedule, not every time someone hits send.
• Your personal email never ends up on any recruiter list.
• When the job search is over, shut it off and walk away clean.

How StellarNurse handles your privacy

I built StellarNurse around the same frustration driving this article — you shouldn't have to hand over your personal contact info and deal with spam overload just to compare jobs.

The whole site runs on 2 goals that sound obvious and almost nobody follows: show you as much pay and job data as we possibly can, and hand the agencies as little about you as we possibly can.

So every job listing and article here is open. Full details, pay included, with no account, no login, and no contact info handed over first.

Much of the industry runs it the other way — your name and number are the toll you pay to find out what a contract is worth.

I only ask for your information once you've decided you want to talk to an agency about a specific job.

Even then, your personal email is never shared. Your account comes with a free private address that forwards to your normal inbox — recruiters write to that one, your replies go back out from it, and your own address stays yours.

When you message an agency, what they receive is your first name and last initial, your specialties, your years of experience, your licenses, that private address, and your phone number.

Nothing else, and only the agencies you chose. We never sell any of it.

Your phone number is on that list, which is exactly why your profile tells you to get a burner number and shows you how.

Your personal contact info is yours. Read our full privacy policy.

How can I permanently stop spam emails?

Prevention is the only genuinely permanent answer. Use a private email for agency sign-ups and spam never touches your personal inbox.

For email that's already out there: mark it, block it, unsubscribe from it. Most nurses see a real improvement within 2-3 weeks of staying consistent.

But "permanently" stopping spam on an address that's already been distributed across recruiter networks isn't realistic. The only option that's actually permanent is never letting it in to begin with.

The 3 moves, in order

First, stop the recruiters who already have your number. These are the calls filters can't touch — you legally consented when you signed up, so revoke it: reply STOP to texts from any agency you recognize, and tell any recruiter who reaches you to put you on their do-not-call list. Screen unknown numbers and block the repeat offenders.

Then clear the noise sitting on top: mark emails as spam instead of deleting them, unsubscribe from agency blasts, block repeat senders, and turn on your carrier's spam tools and your phone's built-in filter. Register at donotcall.gov and dial #662# on T-Mobile — this won't stop recruiters, but it clears the random robocalls.

Then, most importantly: stop the cycle. Set up a burner phone number and a private email address and use them for every agency sign-up from here on. That's the only thing that gives you actual control.

Most nurses see a noticeable improvement within a few weeks. You won't hit zero — but you'll get to decide when to check the recruiter inbox instead of being interrupted 20 times while you're trying to sleep.

Travel nursing is worth it — the spam situation absolutely included. Create a StellarNurse account and you get a free private email address that forwards to your personal inbox without ever revealing it. When your search is done, turn it off. Your personal contact info stays yours.

Thanks for reading — I know spam is frustratingly violating, and I hope this saves you the weeks of headache it cost me. If you're drowning in it or just want to vent about agencies, get in touch anytime. I'm always down to talk travel nursing and data privacy.

Frequently asked questions