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Cellphones Spam AT&T Verizon

Phone Carrier Apps Can Help Fight Robocalls -- Sometimes, Even For Free (cnn.com) 69

Posted by EditorDavid from the filtering-phones dept.
Friday CNN reported on "what you can do right now to stop robocalls."

"Short of throwing your phone in the garbage, there's no way to avoid them altogether. But wireless providers and smartphone developers offer tools to filter out at least some unwanted calls." - Verizon's Call Filter app is free to download on iPhones and Android devices. The company announced Thursday the app will offer some free features -- including auto-blocking calls from known fraudsters, showing warning banners for suspicious calls, and a spam reporting tool. For $2.99 a month per line, the Call Filter app can use a phonebook feature to look up the names of unknown callers, and it can show a "risk meter" for spam calls.

- AT&T's Call Protect has similar free features and add-ons with a $3.99 per month subscription. (iOS and Android)

- T-Mobile phones come loaded with Scam ID, which warns customers about suspicious phone numbers. It's also free to activate Scam Block, which automatically rejects calls from those numbers. An additional app called Name ID offers premium caller identification for $4 per line monthly. (iOS and Android)

- Sprint's Premium Caller ID , which comes pre-installed, looks up unknown numbers and filters and blocks robocalls for $2.99 per line.

- Google's Pixel phones also give you the option to have your voice assistant answer suspicious calls for you. The phone can transcribe the conversation and lets you decide whether to answer.
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Phone Carrier Apps Can Help Fight Robocalls -- Sometimes, Even For Free More

Phone Carrier Apps Can Help Fight Robocalls -- Sometimes, Even For Free

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  • I have T-Mobile, and currently use Hiya and NoMoRobo for hobocalls (left amusing typo in there).

    They both work pretty well, but it seems like an app tied to a carrier might be able to work better in some ways, and reporting calls from multiple people in the network might cause a system-wide block on T-Mobile's behalf sooner than if they didn't know a particular caller was bothering a lot of people with unwanted calls.

  • You are being CONNED (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30, 2019 @02:44PM (#58358204)

    So, they charge your for caller ID which is a known defective product. Now they want to charge you again for an application that tries to make up for that known defective product.

    Isn't it time TO SUE THE TELLY COMPANIES????

    • Re:You are being CONNED (Score:4, Informative)

      by Mister Transistor ( 259842 ) on Saturday March 30, 2019 @03:10PM (#58358296) Journal

      Agreed. Those assholes are charging for "Caller name ID", then charge a monthly blocker fee, and that is limited in the number of calls it blocks.

      Assholes.

      I use an Android app called "Call Control" and it seems to be the best of the blocker apps. It does white and blacklists, and it has no limit on the number of numbers it blocks. The main feature I use it for is local NXX spoofing - you can enter a block of (Area)+NXX, which takes care of all the random fake "local" spam calls! Works great and it's free!

    • Exactly! Pay for something they should be doing. I ue Truecaller. The spoof your area code calls get through once, then added to the block list.

      • You can do that yourself manually without an app - just add the number to your address book (maybe a group called "scammers") and set the ringtone to silent. They can still leave voicemail though, which I prefer to blocking them completely because a spoofed number one day may be a real caller the next. Suppose the once-upon-a-time spoofed number is that of a local hospital ER for example - a total block could leave you unable to receive a message about someone you know who is ill.

        At least for domestic cal

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • try Hiya (Score:4, Informative)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Saturday March 30, 2019 @02:50PM (#58358226)
    my Samsung Galaxy S9 has it built in from the factory , plus there is an app at Google playstore for phones that dont come with it from the factory https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]

  • $3/mo to filter spam? Nope. Try again. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 30, 2019 @03:04PM (#58358260)

    Dear carriers, charging your customers even more money for a service that tries to solve this problem from their side isn't how this works.

    You should know the traffic that crosses your network. You already know your paying customers, and you should know your network peers. The problem you are having is that you don't know the traffic that is coming from your peers. You should be able to trust your network peer and their traffic, and your network peer should be able to do the same for you. If that's not true, drop that peer link. Over a few iterations, the shitty untrustable peers will be readily identifiable by name, and no one will work with them. Spam calls solved. You're welcome.

  • Charging people to protect them from the problem that they help create? Brilliant. Some one should find the executives from these companies and punch them in the face.

  • Silent ringtone (Score:3, Insightful)

    by eford49 ( 3521375 ) on Saturday March 30, 2019 @03:07PM (#58358282)
    A silent ringtone as the default also works, if you don't mind having to maintain your own "white-list" by assigning a differnt ringtone for those you want to hear from. Best of all, this approach is free.

  • Nuke them from orbit.

    Or, in real life, don't have a phone number to begin with. They can't annoy you if they can't fucking call you. In short, fuck them all.
    All my contacts are on iPhone, so I do 100% of my communications via iMessage or Facetime audio.

    • Nuke them from orbit.

      Or, in real life, don't have a phone number to begin with. They can't annoy you if they can't fucking call you. In short, fuck them all.
      All my contacts are on iPhone, so I do 100% of my communications via iMessage or Facetime audio.

      I get iMessage robo-spams all the time, in addition to the calls.

  • did the phone companies allow robocallers to overwhelm their customers in order to sell protection?

  • So, Mobile Phone carriers are profiting from robocalls? What's next, buying a door for your house and for an extra $4.99 a month they'll come to your home and prevent any unwanted intruders?

    • So, Mobile Phone carriers are profiting from robocalls? What's next, buying a door for your house and for an extra $4.99 a month they'll come to your home and prevent any unwanted intruders?

      Doesn't Amazon already offer that?

    • Nah, your tax money pays for policing your neighborhood. Except in those tax-free places where only vigilante protection is available.

      It's more akin to paying a getaway car service to not deliver home intruders to your home. Skip the payment one month and you meet an entirely new set of "visitors".

  • Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    Wife: I don't want ANY spam!
    Man: Why can't she have egg bacon spam and sausage?
    Wife: THAT'S got spam in it!
    Man: Hasn't got as much spam in it as spam egg sausage and spam, has it?

  • Tried on three different browsers, get a 404 "Oh Snap" that page doesn't exist, when trying to activate the Scam Block.

  • The fireman is the arsonist?

  • I found an app on the play store called Calls Block. It is free and has allowed me to block all calls that are not on my contacts list. The calls are still able to leave a voice mail but most robo calls dont do that. I have been running it for about 3 weeks now and have not had any robo calls and without it I would get 3-4 a day.

    • You don't need a 3rd party app for that.

      Just set your contacts to have an audible ringtone and set the default ringtone to silent. Same behavior as what you describe without giving away your call metadata (and/or content) to a possibly untrustworthy third party.

  • If they know who the robocallers are, why should we have to pay to block them? Why are they even allowing their calls to connect at all?

    • Possibly because they might get sued for blocking any call without prior permission.

      There are still, I think, some clever individuals who make a decent profit by suing telemarketers in court for violating the DNC regulations. If those calls were blocked before they reached these individuals that income would be lost.

      Or more likely some spammer would sue claiming somehow "restraint of trade" (or pretending to simply be a customer who objects).

  • Set up a ringtone that is silence. Set the default ringtone as silence. Assign everyone in your contacts list a ringtone that makes noise. When friends and family call your phone will ring. When unknown callers call no interruption. Your screen flashes but no noise. People who need to get in touch will leave a voicemail. Few spam callers do leave voicemail. If you are expecting a call from an unknown number look at the screen if it lights up from the expected area code you can risk answering. Works well for
  • How can app help with junk calls on my landline phone?

    • How can app help with junk calls on my landline phone?

      Newer ATT handsets offer "Smart Screening" which operates pretty much the same as having a silent ringtone. Any numbers or ID's you "allow" ring thru but all others hear a message that your calls are being screened. Callers not previously "allowed" are asked to state their name and press "1". If they do that then their call rings thru and you can then opt to answer or forward their call directly to the answering machine.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )

        ATT handsets

        I thought all this started back in the '60s when people didn't want to have to have to pay the phone company for equipment?

    • VoIP providers may help. CallCentric has a good user-configurable filtering mechanism (included in the basic price, not an add-on).

  • Now that spam calls have become a profit center, we'll be stuck with them forever.
  • I've got a couple different auto-blockers installed, including Hiya and AT&T's blocker. They still seem to let two-three calls through per day. But the worst part is that, even with the calls they block, the robocallers will still leave voicemails (sometimes launching into their spiel, but other times, around three seconds of silence), so even though I don't get the annoying rings, I still get the annoying alerts. I understand that the former may be tough to block, since they seem like legitimate voicem

  • I don't use a smartphone of any type. But the free service, Nomorobo, provided by my cable-based Spectrum server works very nicely.

    https://newsroom.charter.com/p... [charter.com]

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