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The calls are becoming intolerable. Spoofed to my area code and prefix too. I'd rather not pay, but it looks like I may need to, in order to get the ability to whitelist my contacts list. For t his, most are only a couple bucks per month.

• For iOS, Nomorobo is $2 per month. My VOIP service, Ooma, offers Nomorobo for free.
• Truecaller is another one, but they had a data leak some couple years ago.
• I also see one called Mr. Number, and another called "Hiya".
• And finally, there's my mobile service provider, Verizon. They have one that's $3 per month and it sounds like it works the same as Nomorobo, Mr. Number, and the others.

It's difficult to trust any reviews online; most of the publications are names I've never heard of.

Suggestions? I want to be sure that my contact lists don't find their way onto the internet and I'd like to avoid even having my contact lists stored on the service's servers, especially if those servers are located in sketchy parts of the world...

I use the Caller Name ID app through Verizon. It doesn't block everything but it does a pretty good job of identifying spam. In general it feels like a never-ending battle. Most of the people I want to talk to text me anyway. I've gotten to where if the number isn't one I recognize, I don't answer. It's pathetic what robocalls have done to the voice phone system in the US.

derFunkenstein wrote:

It's pathetic what robocalls have done to the voice phone system in the US.

Blame AT&T and SS7, with a side helping of the 1984 divestiture mandate. Back when AT&T designed and implemented SS7 they owned and controlled all of the points of system entry/exit and they clearly never gave a single thought to what might happen if they lost control of them. Since SS7 was designed without any inherent security authorization measures, we now know what happened.

derFunkenstein: Yep, that's the Verizon solution that costs $3 per month, or $36 per year. I hate subscriptions, but this will probably come down to a coin flip between this one and the others I listed above, unless somebody comes up with a good alternative.

Captain Ned: I don't know what any of that means.

The question is, will this ever be solvable, or do we all have to start paying $20-$40 per year now to send these calls to voicemail? That seems like such a waste of money and energy.

Unless I’m expecting a call from a number not on my contact list (like a workman scheduled that day, for example) I don’t pick up numbers I don’t recognize. I get several spam calls per day, but never pick them up. If it’s a legit caller I miss, they’ll leave a message.

Luckily companies are (barely) starting to do something about this. Google just built spam blocking/filtering into Android this past year thank goodness. I barely get any calls that actually come through now. It's awesome. That addresses your question I think. It's solvable but will take a little bit of time for Apple/Google/Carriers to figure out all the tricks and build those into their services. Honestly though Google's solution, whatever they're doing, works pretty dang well for me.

As for iOS, they're still a little bit behind in this regard. There are solutions though as you have mentioned above. I think you'd be happy with any of the 3rd party apps (at least, happier than you are now). I don't trust Verizon to really do anything except provide me the service tbh. I try to avoid using anything they make if I can.

Nomorobo 19.99/year
RoboKiller 24.99/year
TrueCaller Free (worth a shot, but then again it's free and you're giving them access to all your calls and contacts so maybe read the TOS thoroughly)

(those are all iOS links to the App Store for your convenience )

FireGryphon wrote:

Unless I’m expecting a call from a number not on my contact list (like a workman scheduled that day, for example) I don’t pick up numbers I don’t recognize. I get several spam calls per day, but never pick them up. If it’s a legit caller I miss, they’ll leave a message.

Yeah...that doesn't help. Ignoring calls doesn't work.

I should have explained:

I don't even want the phone to ring for spam callers. A ringing phone takes me out of the moment. Even if on vibrate only, it still destroys my concentration in whatever task I'm currently engaged; pulls me out of my train of thought in the call I'm currently in with somebody else. The somebody else being a live human that I WANT to talk to, and the spam caller being a non-human.

Most of those robocalls end up failing anyway. About 60% of the time, the human doesn't come on the line and the call gets dropped. The other 40% are a combination of that giggly girl futzing with her headset before launching into her spiel (it's all a put-on anyhow), the "Windows Takinekal Support" callers from India, or the lady saying that the warranty is about to expire on my 15 year old car. And that's when I haven't won a cruise, oh joy!

Ignoring calls is NOT working.

DancinJack wrote:

Nomorobo 19.99/year
RoboKiller 24.99/year
TrueCaller Free (worth a shot, but then again it's free and you're giving them access to all your calls and contacts so maybe read the TOS thoroughly)

Thanks!

When I created this thread, I didn't know there was one called RoboKiller! It sounds kind of funny that they have a feature to waste the time of the robo callers, but I'm not sure I really would want that; just in case it was an odd but legitimate call coming from somebody behind a phone system, such as from my job or a family member.

I've had good luck with Nomorobo but it is annoying to have to pay yet another subscription to fix issues that could be solved by lazy telephone carriers securing their systems.

BIF wrote:

FireGryphon wrote:

Unless I’m expecting a call from a number not on my contact list (like a workman scheduled that day, for example) I don’t pick up numbers I don’t recognize. I get several spam calls per day, but never pick them up. If it’s a legit caller I miss, they’ll leave a message.

Yeah...that doesn't help. Ignoring calls doesn't work.

I should have explained:

I don't even want the phone to ring for spam callers. A ringing phone takes me out of the moment. Even if on vibrate only, it still destroys my concentration in whatever task I'm currently engaged; pulls me out of my train of thought in the call I'm currently in with somebody else. The somebody else being a live human that I WANT to talk to, and the spam caller being a non-human.

Most of those robocalls end up failing anyway. About 60% of the time, the human doesn't come on the line and the call gets dropped. The other 40% are a combination of that giggly girl futzing with her headset before launching into her spiel (it's all a put-on anyhow), the "Windows Takinekal Support" callers from India, or the lady saying that the warranty is about to expire on my 15 year old car. And that's when I haven't won a cruise, oh joy!

Ignoring calls is NOT working.

Well then, as others have already said your options are to either pay for an application that blocks (most of) them; or try your luck with a free service like TrueCaller.

I've used the Verizon service and it worked fairly well; but none of them are perfect.

BIF wrote:

Captain Ned: I don't know what any of that means. ops

SS7 is the core routing software running the telephone switches that make up the US telephone system. It is fundamentally broken and is fundamentally unfixable without replacing all of the switching hardware (or converting the whole mess to IP).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signallin ... rabilities

Captain Ned wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_System_No._7#Protocol_security_vulnerabilities

The TL;DR for SS7 is like most protocols written in the 'good old days' of computing, it had no need for security. Therefore, anyone connected to it is fully trusted, as back then there were all of a handful of telephone operators. Now, anyone with a SIP trunk basically has unfettered access to the entire system.

It's very much like the issues popping up with BGP on the Internet. A system of joint trust works fine when you have a dozen operators all working via hand shake agreements, not so much when you have tens of thousands of operators, some of which are corporate/government rivals.

I decided to try out Robokiller. That one makes you sign up and authorize payment first, but payment doesn't happen until after the trial period.

We'll see.

Out of curiosity are you blocking the numbers already in iOS? I get a few spam calls here and there but just block the caller. Takes five seconds, it's free, and eliminates one of their numbers.

SuperSpy wrote:

I've had good luck with Nomorobo but it is annoying to have to pay yet another subscription to fix issues that could be solved by lazy telephone carriers securing their systems.

QFT.

I'm on Android that identifies the spam calls, so my whole phone screen turns red and the caller ID is "Spam Caller".

I'm also in the EU where I've added myself to an official, government-run, telesales and unsolicited call opt-out list. Spam/robot callers who persist in calling numbers on that list can be easily reported online to be followed up for prosecution.

So, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it's not a problem over here, but that simply isn't the case, because just like the DRAM cartel and other 'regulated' industries, it doesn't matter; Last year, the ICO fined a company £400,000 ($540,000) for making 100,000,000 unsolicited calls. That was apparently a record-setting fine, and yet when you do the math:

$540,000 divided by 100,000,000 cold calls means that they fined the offending company half a cent per call.

HALF A CENT.

I bet when they scam/profit potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars every time they successfully con someone into a dubiously-legal 'deal', that half-cent fine is a real slap on the wrist.