New Gadget Blocks 'Spam' Phone Calls

Smivs writes "The BBC report on a new gizmo that can block/filter spam phone calls. The system basically intercepts all calls. If it recognizes them as a friend or a member of the user's family — numbers on the so-called star list created by the user — it lets them through as normal. If the caller's number is on a zap list — numbers of telemarketers or other nuisance callers — the device answers it, and all future calls from that number, with an automated message which means the phone does not ring at all. If the system doesn't recognize the caller's number, or the caller withholds their number, it asks them who they are, puts them on hold and then rings the user's phone. The user has the option of taking the call, having the system take a message, or they can reject the call and add the number to the 'zap' list. Users can add callers to their 'star' list by pressing the star button on their phone at any point during a call." So wait, they can't spam me twice? If I press a button? And if they actually show their phone number on my caller ID? What about the auto insurance scammers that hit me 10x/week?

Comments

Partially useful

[Trailer Trash]

For me, this would cut out the "firefighters" and "police" charitable funds, and a couple of others that call locally. But the ones that really irk me are the "lower your credit card interest rates" that I get every few days, and it's different caller id each time. Usually falsified caller id. So I would still end up getting about the same number of nuisance calls.

What would be optimal would be the FCC doing their job and shutting the scammers down, but I'm not holding my breath.