6 ms·

Just not willing to do this. I never want to miss a call from someone talking about an emergency with a family member, the FAA calling about an unclosed flight

Just not willing to do this. I never want to miss a call from someone talking about an emergency with a family member, the FAA calling about an unclosed flight plan, a recruiter (if job hunting), a delivery person, etc. I answer virtually all unknown numbers except the ones T-Mobile puts in as “Scam Likely.” What I do not understand is, given that the phone is a computer, why there is not an on-phone IVR which can solicit a brief intro. I mean, I had tech that could do that for a landline 25 years ago.

booleandilemma 7y ago
My strategy is: if I don’t know the caller they can leave a voicemail. If it’s not important enough for a voicemail, it’s not important.
- stOneskull 7y ago
  Same here. Makes sense. If it's important at all they'll leave a message.
- grawprog 7y ago
  The problem with this for me is my voicemail is now so full of spam messages from numbers I don't answer or block that I can't ever get any useful messages if there are any. A lot of the time my inbox remains full and I can't actually receive new voicemails. It's just gotten to the point where the new voicemail icon has become a permanent fixture on my notification bar I totally ignore.
  - freehunter 7y ago
    Visual voicemail is one of the best things I've ever seen. Especially with transcription turned on.
    - grawprog 7y ago
      I've never heard of this before. Unfortunately after checking it out, it looks like my carrier only offers it for iphones. This does look like a handy feature though.
      - dboreham 7y ago
        Hmm...I worked on this 25 years ago. Baby steps...
      - matwood 7y ago
        Google Voice will transcribe any VMs and send them as a text. The transcription is good enough to know if it's someone you need to call back or add their number to your block list.
        grawprog 7y ago
        I appreciate the suggestion, but I've disabled all the google things on my phone and don't plan on re-enabling them any time soon.
        chadlavi 7y ago
        this is also done automatically in iOS through the phone app
        matwood 7y ago
        I should check that out sometime. I've been using the GV one since long before it was offered on iOS.
        scruple 7y ago
        It can't transcribe the Chinese scam calls that I get 5x daily, though. I've taken to answering every call again recently because my family has some health stuff going on. Otherwise, I have to physically listen to every voicemail to ensure that I didn't miss an important call because someone in the hospital had a thick accent or any other benign software issue related to NLP problems.
  - ansible 7y ago
    That's weird. I get calls from scammers occasionally, but they don't ever leave VM.
    - grawprog 7y ago
      There's two I get regularly. One is from people pretending to be the Canada Revenue Agency. The other is a message in Cantonese, that according to my coworker who gets them too, is from someone pretending to be from the Chinese embassy basically saying the same thing as the fake CRA one. That you owe money and a lawsuit is being prepared under your name, without actually mentioning your name. The one from the 'CRA' is almost comical. It sounds like something a child would say. I've talked to the government enough to know how they talk. They also don't use odd voice concealing effects typically. I actually called the number the CRA one left back once and a person with a French accent answered pretending to be from the CRA. I just said if they called my number again I was going to report them to the rcmp and then hung up. It stopped for a few months after that. I'm assuming if it was actually Canada revenue, they would have called back. All I was getting were the Cantonese ones. The CRA ones only started again recently.
  - aeternus 7y ago
    The concept of a 'full' voicemail is also backwards. It should be implemented as a circular buffer, if full, the oldest gets replaced.
    - ZeikJT 7y ago
      I wholly disagree. The system as it works today is miles better than a circular buffer. People trying to leave new voicemails are informed that there is no more room and thus they know that if it is important they should try calling back later. If it just deleted old entries then it's possible someone left an important message and assume you'll hear it but then it just gets silently deleted. Imagine if PC storage devices worked this way, it'd be chaos.
  - simonblack 7y ago
    Use the 'this number not in use' tones (http://www.k3pgp.org/telezap.htm http://www.k3pgp.org/telezap.htm) as I described in my reply to 'SomeHacker44' above. That cuts out many (most?) garbage voicemails.
pavel_lishin 7y ago
> why there is not an on-phone IVR which can solicit a brief intro. Google has that, but I'm not sure if it's on-phone. I'd wager someone could write an app to do this. I would probably pay $50 for an on-phone version of Lenny; basically a voice-based chat-bot that keeps spammers occupied, without having to conference another number in. ( https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3b7na/the-story-of-lenny-the-internets-favorite-telemarketing-troll https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3b7na/the-story-of-lenny... )
- cblades 7y ago
  I don't understand what's meant by on-phone, but the google feature asks the caller to introduce themselves and why they're calling, and transcribes the response for the user to read in realtime. I use it for every number I don't know, and so far it's been 100% successful (in the sense that, afaik, no one who I wanted to hear from has hung up on Google Assistant).
- ChrisArchitect 7y ago
  heard a review of this app a few days ago that reminded me of Lenny https://www.robokiller.com/ https://www.robokiller.com/ - apparently the conversations it spews out are pretty hilarious also. Annoyingly I can't figure out what the subscription rate is, but can try it for a week for free
  - pavel_lishin 7y ago
    Oh! This, this could be what I'm looking for.
  - ibarrac 7y ago
    I've been using this for the last 3 weeks and it works really well. It has blocked 21 spam calls up to now. After the free week they charge $30 yearly or $4 monthly. You can set the spam calls to be answered with selected funny time-wasting recordings, but since that would be embarrassing if I get a call from a professional contact, I set them to be answered with a plain fax tone. Now I am back to being able to pick up all calls that ring.
beams_of_light 7y ago
I've done this for my home phone number with Twilio using Studio. The last 2 options forward the call to mine or my wife's cell numbers. Everyone seems to hang up when they hear the IVR - neither of us have gotten a call forwarded from Twilio in over 2 months.
joncrane 7y ago
I have a Google Pixel XL, and it has a built-in call screening feature from Google. It seems like exactly what you're looking for.
eatbitseveryday 7y ago
> why there is not an on-phone IVR which can solicit a brief intro I believe Google Voice has this option. You enable it and it records them saying who they are, which is played to you to accept or reject.
technofiend 7y ago
I realize this doesn't do much for your cell number already in the wild but if you want to migrate people over to a number that screens before routing to you, it's possible to do on the cheap. I ported my landline number to Callcentric partially just to rid myself of the AT & T $75/mo charge and partially because of Callcentric's call handling. Callcentric (and I'm sure others) allow call routing rules which include inputs for spam ranking, whitelist and IVR routing. You can upload your contacts, whitelist those for passthrough and then send anyone else to a simple "please press <fixed digit|random digit> " prompt first before routing to you if they pass the test. https://www.thetelecomspot.com/grandstream-ht801.html https://www.thetelecomspot.com/grandstream-ht801.html If you prefer to own the hardware yourself, it's possible to do the same by loading asterisk on a raspberry pi. https://brezular.com/2019/01/02/asterisk-on-raspberry-pi/ https://brezular.com/2019/01/02/asterisk-on-raspberry-pi/
goguy 7y ago
How many calls are you actually getting? Even if it's one a day, who h seems extremely high, is it really that much effort to lose the 5 seconds it takes to answer and hang up straight away?
- apollo_ 7y ago
  anecdotal: I've been getting 2-5 spam/scam calls per day. I cancel any incoming call that I don't recognize or am not expecting. The alternative is disruptive (leaving my desk, finding an empty conference room, answering, etc). The interruption costs far more than the time it takes to resolve.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Piskvorrr 7y ago
  Depends. At some point, I was getting one about every two hours. Got a call rating/blocking app then, and hey presto, they all get blocked automagically. Machine v. machine: fatality! Apparently word gets around, as even the attempted calls decreased after about a month. (And yes, I would probably be juggling significant state at the usual calling times; pushing and popping all that is far more than 5 seconds, even if that were completely lossless)
simonblack 7y ago
Set up your phone such that when you don't answer a call from a number you don't recognise, it will go to voicemail. Set up your voicemail answering message to contain only two things: the tones that signify "This Phone Number Not In Use" (see http://www.k3pgp.org/telezap.htm http://www.k3pgp.org/telezap.htm) and a terse voice message, such as "Leave a Message", which imparts no usable information to the caller. Now when the call goes to voicemail, two things happen: First, any robocallers will hang up when the hear the 'Not in Use' tones. Second, any humans will hear the 'Leave a Message' and they now have two options which are to hang up, or to leave a message asking you to call back. You merely have to scan the voicemail messages and call back only those ones you choose to answer. The other 80% or more have been discarded 'automatically' before you get to hear them.

booleandilemma 7y ago

My strategy is: if I don’t know the caller they can leave a voicemail. If it’s not important enough for a voicemail, it’s not important.

stOneskull 7y ago
Same here. Makes sense. If it's important at all they'll leave a message.
grawprog 7y ago
The problem with this for me is my voicemail is now so full of spam messages from numbers I don't answer or block that I can't ever get any useful messages if there are any. A lot of the time my inbox remains full and I can't actually receive new voicemails. It's just gotten to the point where the new voicemail icon has become a permanent fixture on my notification bar I totally ignore.
- freehunter 7y ago
  Visual voicemail is one of the best things I've ever seen. Especially with transcription turned on.
  - grawprog 7y ago
    I've never heard of this before. Unfortunately after checking it out, it looks like my carrier only offers it for iphones. This does look like a handy feature though.
    - dboreham 7y ago
      Hmm...I worked on this 25 years ago. Baby steps...
    - matwood 7y ago
      Google Voice will transcribe any VMs and send them as a text. The transcription is good enough to know if it's someone you need to call back or add their number to your block list.
      - grawprog 7y ago
        I appreciate the suggestion, but I've disabled all the google things on my phone and don't plan on re-enabling them any time soon.
      - chadlavi 7y ago
        this is also done automatically in iOS through the phone app
        matwood 7y ago
        I should check that out sometime. I've been using the GV one since long before it was offered on iOS.
      - scruple 7y ago
        It can't transcribe the Chinese scam calls that I get 5x daily, though. I've taken to answering every call again recently because my family has some health stuff going on. Otherwise, I have to physically listen to every voicemail to ensure that I didn't miss an important call because someone in the hospital had a thick accent or any other benign software issue related to NLP problems.
- ansible 7y ago
  That's weird. I get calls from scammers occasionally, but they don't ever leave VM.
  - grawprog 7y ago
    There's two I get regularly. One is from people pretending to be the Canada Revenue Agency. The other is a message in Cantonese, that according to my coworker who gets them too, is from someone pretending to be from the Chinese embassy basically saying the same thing as the fake CRA one. That you owe money and a lawsuit is being prepared under your name, without actually mentioning your name. The one from the 'CRA' is almost comical. It sounds like something a child would say. I've talked to the government enough to know how they talk. They also don't use odd voice concealing effects typically. I actually called the number the CRA one left back once and a person with a French accent answered pretending to be from the CRA. I just said if they called my number again I was going to report them to the rcmp and then hung up. It stopped for a few months after that. I'm assuming if it was actually Canada revenue, they would have called back. All I was getting were the Cantonese ones. The CRA ones only started again recently.
- aeternus 7y ago
  The concept of a 'full' voicemail is also backwards. It should be implemented as a circular buffer, if full, the oldest gets replaced.
  - ZeikJT 7y ago
    I wholly disagree. The system as it works today is miles better than a circular buffer. People trying to leave new voicemails are informed that there is no more room and thus they know that if it is important they should try calling back later. If it just deleted old entries then it's possible someone left an important message and assume you'll hear it but then it just gets silently deleted. Imagine if PC storage devices worked this way, it'd be chaos.
- simonblack 7y ago
  Use the 'this number not in use' tones (http://www.k3pgp.org/telezap.htm http://www.k3pgp.org/telezap.htm) as I described in my reply to 'SomeHacker44' above. That cuts out many (most?) garbage voicemails.

pavel_lishin 7y ago

> why there is not an on-phone IVR which can solicit a brief intro. Google has that, but I'm not sure if it's on-phone. I'd wager someone could write an app to do this. I would probably pay $50 for an on-phone version of Lenny; basically a voice-based chat-bot that keeps spammers occupied, without having to conference another number in. ( https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3b7na/the-story-of-lenny-the-internets-favorite-telemarketing-troll https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3b7na/the-story-of-lenny... )

cblades 7y ago
I don't understand what's meant by on-phone, but the google feature asks the caller to introduce themselves and why they're calling, and transcribes the response for the user to read in realtime. I use it for every number I don't know, and so far it's been 100% successful (in the sense that, afaik, no one who I wanted to hear from has hung up on Google Assistant).
ChrisArchitect 7y ago
heard a review of this app a few days ago that reminded me of Lenny https://www.robokiller.com/ https://www.robokiller.com/ - apparently the conversations it spews out are pretty hilarious also. Annoyingly I can't figure out what the subscription rate is, but can try it for a week for free
- pavel_lishin 7y ago
  Oh! This, this could be what I'm looking for.
- ibarrac 7y ago
  I've been using this for the last 3 weeks and it works really well. It has blocked 21 spam calls up to now. After the free week they charge $30 yearly or $4 monthly. You can set the spam calls to be answered with selected funny time-wasting recordings, but since that would be embarrassing if I get a call from a professional contact, I set them to be answered with a plain fax tone. Now I am back to being able to pick up all calls that ring.

beams_of_light 7y ago

I've done this for my home phone number with Twilio using Studio. The last 2 options forward the call to mine or my wife's cell numbers. Everyone seems to hang up when they hear the IVR - neither of us have gotten a call forwarded from Twilio in over 2 months.

joncrane 7y ago

I have a Google Pixel XL, and it has a built-in call screening feature from Google. It seems like exactly what you're looking for.

eatbitseveryday 7y ago

> why there is not an on-phone IVR which can solicit a brief intro I believe Google Voice has this option. You enable it and it records them saying who they are, which is played to you to accept or reject.

technofiend 7y ago

I realize this doesn't do much for your cell number already in the wild but if you want to migrate people over to a number that screens before routing to you, it's possible to do on the cheap. I ported my landline number to Callcentric partially just to rid myself of the AT & T $75/mo charge and partially because of Callcentric's call handling. Callcentric (and I'm sure others) allow call routing rules which include inputs for spam ranking, whitelist and IVR routing. You can upload your contacts, whitelist those for passthrough and then send anyone else to a simple "please press <fixed digit|random digit> " prompt first before routing to you if they pass the test. https://www.thetelecomspot.com/grandstream-ht801.html https://www.thetelecomspot.com/grandstream-ht801.html If you prefer to own the hardware yourself, it's possible to do the same by loading asterisk on a raspberry pi. https://brezular.com/2019/01/02/asterisk-on-raspberry-pi/ https://brezular.com/2019/01/02/asterisk-on-raspberry-pi/

goguy 7y ago

How many calls are you actually getting? Even if it's one a day, who h seems extremely high, is it really that much effort to lose the 5 seconds it takes to answer and hang up straight away?

apollo_ 7y ago
anecdotal: I've been getting 2-5 spam/scam calls per day. I cancel any incoming call that I don't recognize or am not expecting. The alternative is disruptive (leaving my desk, finding an empty conference room, answering, etc). The interruption costs far more than the time it takes to resolve.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Piskvorrr 7y ago
Depends. At some point, I was getting one about every two hours. Got a call rating/blocking app then, and hey presto, they all get blocked automagically. Machine v. machine: fatality! Apparently word gets around, as even the attempted calls decreased after about a month. (And yes, I would probably be juggling significant state at the usual calling times; pushing and popping all that is far more than 5 seconds, even if that were completely lossless)

simonblack 7y ago

Set up your phone such that when you don't answer a call from a number you don't recognise, it will go to voicemail. Set up your voicemail answering message to contain only two things: the tones that signify "This Phone Number Not In Use" (see http://www.k3pgp.org/telezap.htm http://www.k3pgp.org/telezap.htm) and a terse voice message, such as "Leave a Message", which imparts no usable information to the caller. Now when the call goes to voicemail, two things happen: First, any robocallers will hang up when the hear the 'Not in Use' tones. Second, any humans will hear the 'Leave a Message' and they now have two options which are to hang up, or to leave a message asking you to call back. You merely have to scan the voicemail messages and call back only those ones you choose to answer. The other 80% or more have been discarded 'automatically' before you get to hear them.