Telephone spam is unfortunately something we encounter every day. Phishing and the inflated costs of intermediation in programs for co-financing photovoltaic panels, long ago took the proportions of the Egyptian plague. Are you wondering how to block a number and fight the call machines? Introducing applications for blocking bots and telemarketers.
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The black side of telemarketing
Technology is constantly moving forward and, unfortunately, also used by companies that make our lives difficult. Customer service centers , which no longer rely only on their own employees to convince us to buy a service or provide data, have moved with the times. Such an employee can only speak for a certain number of hours, his voice can get tired, and his enthusiasm fades after refusal.
So bots are used for conversations , but of course we are not talking about artificial intelligence straight from the Terminator. It is a set of pre-prepared recordings, questions and answers that are played by the person sitting in front of the program on the other side of the handset.
It is enough to click on the appropriate position in the panel, and a sonorous, always cordial and melodious voice will play the appropriate formula for the conversation. The operator chooses the appropriate dialogue paths depending on how the conversation is going, so that we have the impression of talking to a rational being.
Such a scheme of operation allows you to make calls without any restrictions or reflection. The case of Euro Call Center is particularly persistent and known to all . The headquarters of the company is in Ukraine, which in itself makes the exercise of the right to delete your data problematic. As a rule, we block the number, and after some time we get another phone …
However, before anything happens in this matter, it is worth taking matters into your own hands .
Telephone spam. How to block a number and fight bots?
We can tame telemarketing in a more comprehensive way. Applications that filter our connections are used to effectively fight bots and unwanted phones . Thanks to them, before we answer the phone, we will see if the calling number has been recognized as spam by other users or is in the database of undesirable numbers.
Optionally, we can even set automatic blocking of these types of calls. The only drawback of such a solution? This functionality requires the replacement of our system application for receiving and making calls (according to Google’s policy, the application responsible for receiving calls may block calls). This seems to be a small price to pay in view of the peace of mind we gain in this way.
Answer the phone 2019. Telemarketing in exile
Answering the phone once won the title of the mobile application of the year according to Bezprawnik. I am absolutely not surprised, because the popular octopus has virtually all the attributes and functions needed to effectively manage the receipt of calls, including:
- the ability to adjust the level of protection to your needs – from informing about an unwanted call to automatic blocking of unwanted numbers,
- blocking calls from hidden, foreign and premium numbers,
- creating your own lists of blocked or allowed numbers,
- offline protection with the option to update the database after reconnecting to Wi-Fi.
In addition to the protection level, we can also set the type of alert during the connection. We can easily replace the pop-up window on top of the system screen with the connection screen prepared by the creators or with a system notification .
What distinguishes the application from the competition to the greatest extent, however, is the high functionality and clear layout of the dialer . We will easily display your contacts, favorite numbers for quick calling and the entire call history, along with information about possible spam:
Let us not be fooled by the year mentioned in the name of this application – the huge database of spam sending numbers is constantly updated.
We can download the application at:
Pick up the phone 2019 [Google Play Store]
Truecaller. When we want to know who is really calling
The extremely popular Truecaller (over 500 million downloads!) Has also been collecting great reviews for a long time . As the name suggests, the creators put the main emphasis on identifying the numbers calling us. Surprisingly, with amazing accuracy, the application recognizes not only telemarketers and omnipresent spam , but also company and private numbers .
For this purpose, a gigantic database of numbers is used, created, among others, by by users. The creators require their own contact list during installation , so we get great functionality for consent to the use of data . These, of course, are processed only within the application, but I mention it because everyone has a slightly different approach to privacy.
Among the features that further distinguish Truecaller, it is worth mentioning the possibility of enabling automatic call recording and blocking not only calls, but also text messages created for phishing and installing malware.
We will download Truecaller for both Android and iOS devices :
Truecaller: Caller ID & Block [Google Play Store]
Truecaller: Block spam calls [Apple App Store]
Hiya ID. Phone spam on the back
Of the big three, it is Hiya who has made an incredible sensation lately and has great potential for further development. The number of application users in Google Play and Apple App Store is growing, and the signed cooperation agreement with Samsung resulted in the integration of the application with the Galaxy phone dialer .
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The program allows you to check the ID of each caller, but it works on a slightly different basis than, for example, Truecaller. First of all, it does not require granting access to the entire contact database, but only the list of calls .
A custom feature is the identification of the sender of the SMS, which comes in handy in the era of suspicious links and constant phishing attempts. Checking an unknown number is also possible by reverse phone search , which will tell us what to expect on the other side of the handset.
Unfortunately, while basic functionality is provided for free, advanced features remain payable . The Premium version allows, among others to identify private and business numbers and automatically block spam.
We can download the Hiya ID application here:
Hiya: ID & Call Blocker [Google Play Store]
Hiya: Spam Phone Call Blocker 4+ [Apple App Store]