The tone of the article sounded like a marketing blog post for Nomorobo (or whatever his company is called).
This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t
11–20 of 57 posts
Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t
#12People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replace…
If you pick up the phone and say "Please put me on your courtesy do not call list", legitimate companies will stop calling you. That leaves the you've won a free cruise/insurance/alarm scam companies, but they mostly don't call over and over again. The point is not to argue with them about whether they should be calling you etc., it is to advertise yourself as a dead lead.
I don't get any "legitimate" calls because I'm on the State and US National Do Not Call Registry.
All I get is illegitimate calls and have therefore resorted to calling my friends and colleagues: "I do not answer phone calls. Period. Ever. If you need me, arrange a Skype/Hangout/Facetime or even voice call in advance."
Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you pick up the phone and say "Please put me on your courtesy do not call list", legitimate companies will stop calling you. That leaves the you've won a free cruise/insurance/alarm scam companies, but they mostly don't call over and over again. The point is not to argue with them about whether they should be calling you etc., it is to advertise yourself as a dead lead.
I don't get any "legitimate" calls because I'm on the State and US National Do Not Call Registry. All I get is illegitimate calls and have therefore resorted to calling my friends and colleagues: "I do not answer phone calls. Period. Ever. If you need me, arrange a Skype/Hangout/Facetime or even voice call in advance."
Companies that have a relationship with you, charities, and political groups are all still allowed to call you (at least under national rules).
My suggestion will stop the companies and charities. I don't think anything will stop the political groups. 3 bad calls a week isn't perfect, but it makes the phone useful (this is about what I get here). If you want to argue about what legitimate means and pay for a useless phone, that's your prerogative.
Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t
#14People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replace…
I never answer my phone unless it's from a family member or close friend, or I'm expecting a specific call.
If it's somewhat important, they can email me later and schedule a call.
Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t
#15People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replace…
Is it possible to mute those numbers? Set a silent ring tone for any contact in a group maybe? Of course an app for this scenario would be better.
iOS give the user the ability to block a phone number, which I usually do when an unknown number calls. Like a commenter above, my process is reject and google, with the last step almost always being to block the number. I don't know how much good that does, though, because it's pretty easy for a company to work with a pool of numbers, so if I block one I can't necessarily block them all.
Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t
#16Its is funny seeing one of your college friends on a wired article. Aaron is a good guy.
Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t
#17People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replace…
Is it possible to mute those numbers? Set a silent ring tone for any contact in a group maybe? Of course an app for this scenario would be better.
There are a few Call Blockers that manage spam out there that do this. How well they do this is up for debate.
Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it possible to mute those numbers? Set a silent ring tone for any contact in a group maybe? Of course an app for this scenario would be better.
iOS give the user the ability to block a phone number, which I usually do when an unknown number calls. Like a commenter above, my process is reject and google, with the last step almost always being to block the number. I don't know how much good that does, though, because it's pretty easy for a company to work with a pool of numbers, so if I block one I can't necessarily block them all.
Android also lets you block numbers.
You can also register them as spam numbers, so any unsolicited SMS messages go into a spam folder. Not sure how much of a problem this is in the US, but here in the UK I almost daily get texts from PPI claim companies, dodgy law firms and the like.
Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't get any "legitimate" calls because I'm on the State and US National Do Not Call Registry. All I get is illegitimate calls and have therefore resorted to calling my friends and colleagues: "I do not answer phone calls. Period. Ever. If you need me, arrange a Skype/Hangout/Facetime or even voice call in advance."
Companies that have a relationship with you, charities, and political groups are all still allowed to call you (at least under national rules). My suggestion will stop the companies and charities. I don't think anything will stop the political groups. 3 bad calls a week isn't perfect, but it makes the phone useful (this is about what I get here). If you want to argue about what legitimate means and pay for a useless…
Woops, didn't mean to indicate your suggestion wasn't good. Was just adding to the conversation. Asking to "opt out" really does work, I have used this many times with success.
Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t
#20People complain about email being 'broken', but it's working great compared to phones. I'm at the stage where I automatically reject all phonecalls where I don't recognise the number, and then Google that number. 99% of the time I then end up adding the number to my Contacts with the name 'Spam'. Why isn't anyone fixing this? Bonus anecdote: I used to never use my work phone, but our work phones were recently replace…
Is it possible to mute those numbers? Set a silent ring tone for any contact in a group maybe? Of course an app for this scenario would be better.
Cyanogenmod lets you blacklist any number with 2 or 3 button presses from call history. It's actually the main reason I switched to Cyanogen - turns out the previous owner of my new number very abruptly changed numbers because of debt collection calls. Those 5am calls, as well as a multitude of other annoying callers like payday loan companies, made it well worth the switch. Today I'm up to 21 blocked numbers.
You can also whitelist just your contacts list, block area codes with wildcards, or block private numbers.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/07/31/cyanogenmod-10-2-to-...
For stock Android I recall being able to add the numbers to a contact and make them go to voicemail, but that was an annoyingly unusable workaround. There may be better options these days.