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Phone Carrier Apps Can Help Fight Robocalls -- Sometimes, Even For Free (cnn.com)
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.
"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.
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????
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.
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.
Because once everyone has paid for it, the carriers will approach the telemarketers and say "We'll let you bypass the spam blocking tool we sold to our customers if you pay us $x/mo." What's that saying about the only winner in a war being the guy who sells weapons to both sides?