TrueCall Device Protects Against Unwanted Phone Calls
Two British inventors have created a device to save phone owners from annoying and malicious phone calls.
The so-called TrueCall system can actually learn to distinguish between welcome and unwelcome callers.
"TrueCall is designed to give people control of their landlines," said John Price, who co-designed TrueCall alongside Steve Smith.
"You can bolt the door and close the curtains but your landline is the weak link in your privacy," he said.
Users can set up a star list, which consists of the phone numbers belonging to friends or family members. All incoming calls from the star list are allowed to ring through to the landline by TrueCall.
Also, with TrueCall, users create a zap list – numbers of telemarketers or other nuisance callers. The device answers calls from the zap list and all future calls from that number with an automated message, which means the phone does not ring at all.
If the system doesn’t recognize the caller’s number, or the caller withholds their number, it asks them who they are, puts them on hold and then rings the user’s phone. Users then have the option of taking the call, asking TrueCall to take a message or the call can be rejected altogether and added to the zap list.
David Hickson is a veteran campaigner on the issue of silent calls.
"The device is a great idea for people who are bothered by a lot of nuisance calls and want to have a virtual receptionist in their home to manage their calls," he said.
However, Hickson said the problem won’t go away altogether.
"There is a lot more that Ofcom can do. It has powers but it could use these much more effectively," he said.
Overall, the British public receives an estimated 1.5 billion silent calls and 1.5 million malicious calls each year.
The most common scam tries to get the receiver to call a premium rate phone line while another – known as vishing or voice phishing – tries to collect personal information over the phone.
Some 60% of UK households are signed up to the Telephone Preference Service, set up to reduce the number of nuisance calls received.
Telemarketers have become wiser by creating so-called robo-calls which use automated system to deliver millions of pre-recorded messages.
"We welcome anything the industry does on its own initiative to reduce the problem of silent, abandoned or malicious calls," said a spokeswoman for Ofcom.
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