Hands-On Tech 252 Transcript
Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Hands-On tech. Let's take a look at how we can stop all those spam callers. It's about time, right? Stay tuned. This is Twit. Hello and welcome to Hands-On tech. This is the show where I, Mikah Sargent, take your tech questions and do my doggone best to answer them. Today we have a great question that I think comes up a lot. This is a little bit Apple leaning.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:29]:
I will warn you, however, some of this stuff can apply on Android as well. Omar has written into us and says, hi, Mikah, I'm a big fan of your show. Well, thanks, Omar. I'm writing to ask you what we can do with scam calls. I get over 25 a day. Just last night, in a 10 minute period, I received 15 calls. First of all, Omar, that's awful. That's way too many.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:52]:
That's ridiculous. It should stop. I checked out a paid service and they wanted $129 per year. I was about to sign up with them and I thought to ask you first. The more I thought about it, I felt like the iPhone might have or should have a way to stop these calls. Please give me your thoughts. Well, first and foremost, yes, your iPhone does have a way to help you cut back on these calls. It's a popular feature that we were all very glad Apple added to the system.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:22]:
And it's a feature called Silence Unknown Callers and you can access it in in your Settings app. So on an iPhone, if you go into the Settings app and you scroll all the way down from that sort of main screen of the Settings app to the apps section, you will need to scroll down until you find your phone. Once you find the phone app in that section within this area you will see an option that says Silence Unknown Callers Screen unknown callers and some of the features therein. So let's talk a little bit about them. First, Screen Unknown callers. If you have this feature turned on, what happens is it will give you the option of having someone call you and get screened first. Okay, so let's talk about the three different options. There's never.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:12]:
There's ask reason for calling and there's silence with never. What happens is that calls from unsaved numbers will ring and then those missed calls will be displayed on the recents list. So what does that mean? It means that it's going to work the way that you would expect it to. When someone calls you 15 times, it's going to ring and then you'll see that missed call. There's a new feature Ask reason for calling. This makes it so that when someone calls you and they're not saved in your contacts, when you answer the call, then, well, you won't answer the call, but your. Your phone will answer the call and ask that person, hey, why are you calling? What are you calling for? I'll let you. The person on the other end.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:50]:
No meaning in this case, me. So let's say I don't know. Angela from Scranton, Pennsylvania, calls to ask me if I want to renew my vehicle warranty, right? When Angela calls, it rings. I don't see or have to interact with Angela at all. My phone will go, hi, what are you calling for? Angela says, I'm calling for this. And then I get a notification that tells me what Angela's calling about. And then I can choose to pick it up and have that conversation. The last one is silence.
Mikah Sargent [00:03:23]:
What happens is in this, this is the kind of the classic way of handling this, the silence unknown callers way. Basically, if a number is not saved in your contacts, it does not ring and it goes straight to voicemail and then will be put into the recents list. Love this feature. Have used it for a long time. But the problem with silence unknown callers is that you may get calls from people who you actually do want to talk to, but because they haven't been saved in your contacts, because it could be a doctor's office where the number is different from what you, you know, from the number that you have saved, or if you order from DoorDash and then the delivery driver is trying to contact you, those people will also be silenced and sent to voicemail. So you wouldn't be able to get those. So that's why I, as much as I liked the Silence Unknown callers feature for getting rid of spam calls, I did not like it for the aspect of missing calls that I needed to. So what I would end up having to do is go in and turn the feature off when I was expecting a call from someone.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:28]:
And that's just kind of annoying. With Screen unknown Callers, I recommend the new feature, which is the Ask reason for calling option. I think it's very handy and does make a difference. Now with this, you also have some call filtering options that are built in. With call filtering, you can set it so that any people who call who are not in your contacts will automatically be moved to the unknown callers list. Okay. So it filters them out into a separate thing. Then depending on your carrier, you may also see a section in call filtering that is called spam and what this does is that if a call is identified as spam or fraud by, by your carrier, then it will automatically be silenced, it will automatically be sent to voicemail and it will automatically be moved to the spam list.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:18]:
Okay? So your carrier and your phone can work together to help cut back on those calls that are coming through. Now on top of that, there is a feature that is built into your phone called Live Voicemail. And what Live Voicemail does is that when someone is calling you, it will send it to voicemail as it as it would in any of these cases if you're not answering. But now you'll actually get to see as they're leaving their voicemail, a live transcript of that voicemail. And so what you can do there is see, oh, here's what they're saying. I do actually want to talk to this person and be able to go through and have that conversation. Now if you have Live Voicemail turned off, then the Ask reason for calling feature is not something that's going to work. And so that is something that you need to be mindful of as well.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:15]:
Now, Omar, that is the way to go about doing it with just your iPhone. And there are similar call blocking, call filtering features in Android as well. But let's talk about what are some other options for helping to cut back on calls. Something that I have been able to do over time to reduce the number of spam calls I receive. This episode of Hands on Tech is brought to you by NetSuite. Every business is asking the the same question. How do we make AI work? For us, the possibilities are endless and guessing it's too risky. But sitting on the sidelines is not an option.
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Mikah Sargent [00:08:03]:
Well, along with the built in options, you'll remember that I said that carriers often also have filtering and your phone can actually work directly with those or, or your phone number can sort of work indirectly with those. What do I mean by that? Well, the major carriers have special call filtering options that you can use and activate on your plan. For Verizon, it's called Call Filter and there is a free tier available. AT&T has a feature called Active Armor and there's a free tier available. Often many of their plans will include an Active Armor subscription and some of them don't. And so you do have to pay monthly for it. And then T Mobile has something called Scam Shield, which is also, which is actually just completely free, so you don't even have to pay extra for it. So those three major carriers have some of the features that you can use.
Mikah Sargent [00:09:07]:
What I recommend doing is a search, an online search, you know, AT&T active Armor, Verizon Call Filter, T Mobile Scam Shield, and find that info on the specific page for From Verizon, from AT&T From T Mobile to learn about how you can set it up in your own account. There's also just because of the nature of the carrier being responsible for the blocking, it means that in many cases it's going to catch that call before it ever gets to you. So whereas the live voicemail and all the filtering and all that jazz requires the stuff to happen right there. The great thing about these carrier options is that it's before it even gets to you. So it just adds that extra thing that you need to kind of feel like the spam is actually working one or the spam is actually being blocked. The other option that you have is the Do Not Call Registry. Now it to be fair, there are many a scammer or spammer or telemarketer who does not follow the law. And so it's not going to completely clear you of all spam.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:17]:
But I will tell you that I have signed up for, for me with AT&T, I have Active Armor turned on. I am also on the Do Not Call Registry. And those two things together have made a difference. They, they truly have made a difference. It is great because it will help to reduce Telemarketer calls and if telemarketers are still contacting you and you have registered with a do not call list, you have legitimate grounds for recourse in that instance. And so you can, I feel like you can have a bit more empowerment that you would not otherwise get by being part of this Do Not Call registry. Lastly, another option for you, Omar, is to use a third party app. Now I've used third party apps in the past and there are caveats.
Mikah Sargent [00:11:10]:
Most importantly is a privacy caveat. Depending on the service and how it works and where it sort of cuts into your calls, you need to be aware that it has every opportunity to log what calls you're getting. Okay, so if it's logging what calls you're getting, then what does that mean? Well, now it has that information, it could sell that information, it could use that information to market to you, that kind of a thing. So be very mindful of the privacy policies for these different services. But two that I have used in the past that have made a difference in different ways, they're not exactly the same, are Haya Hiya and Nomorobo. N O M O R O B O Haya and Nomo Robo both have free tiers available and they will help you cut back on spam calls that you mentioned in yours that you had thought about paying the $129 per year service. Check these out first and see if the free tiers will work for you. But please start from the top of my suggestions.
Mikah Sargent [00:12:20]:
Start with the built in iPhone features then. Well, actually I want to reword that as I'm talking through this. Start with the carrier options. Right. There are almost always free tiers available for you as a, as a carrier subscriber and because it's at the network level it's going to cut back on so much. Then go to the built in iPhone features because those features do have the downside of potentially making it so that you miss calls that you do actually want to take. Sign up for that do not call registry and then head to the third party apps. If you're still getting calls at that point, you won't see things happen immediately.
Mikah Sargent [00:13:01]:
Okay, some will happen immediately, but some will not. Give it a week or two of trying out these features and then when things feel different, they should. If they don't, then you know, you need to kind of move to the next step. But when things feel different, maybe then go, okay, this was enough of a filter that I don't need to do more. Right. So Omar I want to thank you so much for taking the time to write in with that question. It's a great question that can apply to so many people and those are always ones, you know, those are always questions that I really thoroughly enjoy. So thank you so much for that, folks.
Mikah Sargent [00:13:35]:
If you would like to get in touch with us to have your question answered on Hands on Tech, be sure to reach out hot@twit.tv. That is where you go to subscribe to the show. Look forward to hearing from you soon. And I'll catch you again next week for another episode of Hands on Tech. Bye bye.
