“Hi, I’m (Insert fake name here). I work for the Internal Revenue Service. You are 10,000 dollars in debt and if payments are not received, fines are punishable by up to 5 years in prison.”
Anybody that has a phone of any type has received a Spam call or Robo call just like this, and it can be frustrating to say the least. “Where do these calls come from?” and “How did these spam/robo callers even get my number?”, are very common questions that can’t be answered unless there was deeper investigation. We can tell you how to stop them. Many people believe these Robo/spam calls aren’t that much of an issue or are unaware of it. However, billion dollars have been scammed annually and 450K complaints from annoyed cell phone users have been
In the world of electronics that we live in today, we are fortunate enough to have many different forms of protection from Spam/Robo calls that have varying degrees of security to keep these calls out.
Most forms of security for your phone come from the carriers you use. You just need to ask as they aren’t in plain sight.Verizon and AT&T have experience keeping spam/robo calls out. For example, for $2.99/month a line, Verizon has a feature called “Call Filter”. It can block spam/robo calls and is a great tool to keep them from calling your device obnoxiously. Some of the features of Verizon’s “Call Filter” technology include,
- Spam filter and block list – which prevent unsolicited calls
- Spam detection – which tells you if you should answer or not
- Caller details – shows the name of the caller along with their city and state
- Custom profile capabilities – allowing you to upload your information to share with other Verizon
As Verizon and AT&T are very similar, AT&T has a feature called “Call Protect”.
What’s nice about AT&T’s “Call Protect” feature is that there is the free version and the paid version for $3.99/month per line. In the free version of “call protect” you are limited to only having features such as,
- Automatic fraud blocking – Detecting and blocking calls from likely
- Suspected spam warning – identifies telemarketers and other suspected spam calls
- Personal block list – lets you block unwanted calls by number
On the other hand, the paid version includes all the free versions security features plus the features that can’t be had unless you have the paid version. These other features are,
- Enhanced caller ID – identifying unknown caller details
- Reverse number look up – provides details when you enter a U.S. number
- Custom call control – letting you choose call categories to accept, block or send to voicemail.
On the contrary, there is an app called “RoboKiller” for those who are not with Verizon or AT&T. Robokiller App is an App available in the Apple Store or Google Play Store for $0.99/month. This app includes many similar features as the other two protection systems like,
- Marking spam calls
- Fingerprinting each unique voice while identifying phone #’s with the same fingerprint
- Blocks all unwanted calls while allowing personal block & allow listing
- Provides spoofing protection and SMS Spam protection