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I've wanted to solve this problem. I think employing a similar method to what the call centers are doing when you call them back (e.g. press a number of keys)

I've wanted to solve this problem. I think employing a similar method to what the call centers are doing when you call them back (e.g. press a number of keys) is the answer. When you receive a call from a number not on some whitelist, the dialer has to enter some numbers to even get your phone to ring. The problem is, I can't find any APIs to access your phone at the operating system level to access the call before your phone already is ringing. It'd be very easy to randomly generate some audio with a random sequence of numbers (ala 2FA). If anyone knows how to do this, please, please, please let me know. I'm dying to fight back, as are some people on my team.

bobbiechen 8y ago
One way without using the phone API directly is through Twilio using their APIs for handling DTMF tones and call forwarding. This would probably cost something like 2 cents per minute [1] plus whatever your phone service charges (if you're just calling your existing phone) and hosting costs for your server. I was originally tempted to say you could save on this cost by hanging up on verified callers and calling them back directly, except I realized that's about the same as rejecting all calls and calling back the ones who leave meaningful voicemails / texts. I think you could get it down to 1.2 cents per minute (+server costs) if you also write a mobile app to handle all your calls via VoIP. Then you also need to factor in your cost for data if not using wi-fi. And also possibly of interest - a few days ago, Google also announced a call screening service for the Pixel [2] which transcribes call audio in real-time for you to read and possibly pick up and join the call. This one has the advantage of being able to screen out actual humans working in call centers to spam you with calls (which is less common than the robocalls in my experience). [1] https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223132367-How-Much-am-I-Charged-for-Call-Forwarding-with-Twilio- https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223132367-How-M... [2] https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/10/09/call-screen-will-let-pixel-users-see-whos-calling-want-answering/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/10/09/call-screen-will-le...
- knicholes 8y ago
  Yeah, but that would require a person use a different phone number, right? Or are you saying the customer just forwards all of their calls to Twilio which... somehow forwards it back without the call getting forwarded?

bobbiechen 8y ago

One way without using the phone API directly is through Twilio using their APIs for handling DTMF tones and call forwarding. This would probably cost something like 2 cents per minute [1] plus whatever your phone service charges (if you're just calling your existing phone) and hosting costs for your server. I was originally tempted to say you could save on this cost by hanging up on verified callers and calling them back directly, except I realized that's about the same as rejecting all calls and calling back the ones who leave meaningful voicemails / texts. I think you could get it down to 1.2 cents per minute (+server costs) if you also write a mobile app to handle all your calls via VoIP. Then you also need to factor in your cost for data if not using wi-fi. And also possibly of interest - a few days ago, Google also announced a call screening service for the Pixel [2] which transcribes call audio in real-time for you to read and possibly pick up and join the call. This one has the advantage of being able to screen out actual humans working in call centers to spam you with calls (which is less common than the robocalls in my experience). [1] https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223132367-How-Much-am-I-Charged-for-Call-Forwarding-with-Twilio- https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223132367-How-M... [2] https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/10/09/call-screen-will-let-pixel-users-see-whos-calling-want-answering/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/10/09/call-screen-will-le...

knicholes 8y ago
Yeah, but that would require a person use a different phone number, right? Or are you saying the customer just forwards all of their calls to Twilio which... somehow forwards it back without the call getting forwarded?