Consider changing your phone habits with these Do’s and Don’ts that help stop robocalls
We all want to stop robocalls, but the explosion of robocalls is forcing us to change the way we handle our phone calls. It’s time to break your old phone habits and adapt to today’s robocall reality.
When Your Phone Rings:
Don’t Answer any call from a number you don’t recognize, let it go to voicemail.
The days of answering any call that rings your phone are gone. The new way to handle phone calls is to block numbers you don’t recognize with a robocall app or send them to voicemail.
Don’t Answer any call that says “Blocked”, “Anonymous”, “Restricted”, “Private” or “Unknown”. Let these go to voicemail.
They are almost certainly robocalls. Any interaction with them will not help you stop robocalls. If you answer, they’ll know your number is live, they will continue to call you and they will sell your number to other bad guys.
Don’t Answer a call from your own number. It’s not the phone company calling. It’s a robocall scam.
Hint: If you had called yourself, you’d already know about it. A good robocall app will automatically block numbers and stop robocalls made to look like your own phone number.
Don’t Bother trying to manually block numbers by adding them to your phone’s block number list. Phone numbers are cheap. Even legitimate businesses use dozens of numbers to call you, making it useless to try to manually block numbers. They use too many numbers for you to individually block numbers using your phone’s block number list. A good robocall app will automatically block numbers from thousands of known robocallers without you adding them to your block number list.
Don’t be a Missed Call Dialer. It may sound crazy, but about 1 in 10 people don’t use voicemail or block numbers that they don’t recognize. Instead, they check their missed call list and call the numbers they don’t recognize to see who called them. Don’t do that.
If You Accidentally Answer a Robocall:
Do Hang Up – Immediately! Do not say anything. Do not answer questions – especially if they ask, “Can you hear me?”.
Do not press any button except the End Call button. Just hang up!
Tempting as it may be to give them a piece of your mind or to press 2 to be removed from their list, don’t do it. It will not help you stop robocalls. Robocallers don’t care how angry you are, and they cannot be trusted to remove your number from their list.
Do File a Complaint. If you do answer a robocall, you’ll have enough information to file a complaint with the FTC. It’s easiest to do this online at www.donotcall.gov. Your complaint won’t stop robocalls right away, but our complaints add up and arm government agencies, phone companies and robocall app providers with the information needed to stop robocalls over the longer run.
Before Your Phone Rings Again:
DO Register with the Do-Not-Call list if you want to stop robocalls from legitimate businesses.
The Do-Not-Call list lets you register to block numbers for both cellphone and landline phones. To register a cellphone, just call 888-382-1222 from the cellphone you want to register and follow the prompts. You can also register either your cellphone or a landline online at www.donotcall.gov.
Do Get the YouVOXX Call Blocker App. YouVOXX is different than other robocall apps. It helps you stop robocalls and block numbers from unwanted callers – Plus, it blocks their voicemails, too. In fact, YouVOXX is the only robocall app that blocks both the call and the voicemail by sending robocalls to perpetual ringing.
That’s important because to stop robocalls, the only thing a robocaller should get is ringing. Anything else, including sending the call to voicemail like other robocall apps do, only encourages robocallers to try again.
Why? Because when you or your voicemail answers a call, the telephone network signals the caller that your number is active. But if you block the call and block the voicemail, all the caller gets is ringing. If the call just rings and voicemail never answers, the phone network never signals the robocaller that your number is active. After a couple of tries with no sign of a live number, robocallers take your number off their list. Your phone company calls it ‘ring no answer’ and it’s the only way to truly block numbers and stop robocalls.
Most robocall apps don’t really block numbers and stop robocalls. Those robocall apps that block the call at your phone but then do nothing to block voicemails are double trouble! First, the robocall app didn’t really block the call – it forwarded the call to voicemail. Then, when your voicemail answered, the phone network signaled the robocaller that your number is live. Robocall apps that send calls to voicemail don’t stop robocalls. Instead, they force the phone network tell the robocaller that your number is active!
Some robocall apps say they block numbers and stop robocalls because they answer the call and play a fake “Out of Service” recording or use “answer bots” designed to waste a robocallers time with automated conversations.
While this may feel like sweet revenge, it does nothing to stop robocalls. To the contrary, any robocall app that answers a call forces the phone network to signal the robocaller that your number is active, inviting them to try again later.
Your robocall app must block numbers by blocking the call at your phone AND it must block the voicemail to truly stop robocalls. YouVOXX is the only robocall app to block numbers this way – with perpetual ‘ring no answer’.
The YouVOXX robocall app helps stop robocalls with:
- Totally Free, Unlimited RoboCall Blocking to block numbers from calling your phone
- Optional Voicemail Service with Voicemail to Text that also blocks voicemails to truly stop robocalls