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This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

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Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#21

Post by charlesdm »

nmeofthestate wrote: post #5

People 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…

So true. I've also made it a habbit to no longer answer 'blocked' calls, since those tend to be spam.

If it's important, they'll usually leave a message or send an e-mail.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#22

Post by ljf »

mtmail wrote: post #7
nmeofthestate wrote: post #5

People 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.

Try this if you are on Android - working great for me: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mrnumber.b...

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#24

Post by danepowell »

ljf wrote: post #22
mtmail wrote: post #7

Earlier 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.

Try this if you are on Android - working great for me: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mrnumber.b...

Doesn't work on Android 5 / Lollipop.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#25

Post by 72deluxe »

nmeofthestate wrote: post #5

People 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…

That's precisely what I do haha. I also get that number forwarded automatically to voicemail.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#26

Post by ljf »

danepowell wrote: post #24
ljf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try this if you are on Android - working great for me: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mrnumber.b...

Doesn't work on Android 5 / Lollipop.

Working fine on my Nexus 4 with Lollipop - not had any issues lately, and still blocking calls for me since I've upgraded.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#27

Post by bradleyankrom »

GordonS wrote: post #18
bradleyankrom wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think spammy text messages have become a significant issue for consumers in the US -- at least on T-Mobile (my carrier). Around the holidays, I was getting half a dozen obviously junk/spammy/malicious text messages with links to .rus. It's died down considerably over the last couple of weeks, but I still receive them every few days. At least in TMO's case, part of the problem was that the messages weren't coming from reportable phone numbers, they were being sent via TMO's antiquated email infrastructure.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#28

Post by Vendan »

snarfy wrote: post #23

When I had a land line, I changed my recorded message to the three tones and "We're sorry, the number cannot be completed as dialed" message and eliminated pretty much all spam calls.

Hah, I did that, though it was just the tones and then a normal voicemail message. The robodial stuff at the time just listened for them, so it was quite effective.

Re: This Guy Found a Way to Block Robocalls When Phone Companies Wouldn’t

#29

Post by VLM »

bradleyankrom wrote: post #15
mtmail wrote: post #7

Earlier 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.

>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.

My experience with implementing this is most spammers are pretty dumb or aiming at dumb targets, so a VOIP asterisk rule will get hit hundreds of time over the years by the same company.

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