How to Stop Unwanted Phone Calls to My Business
25 Sep, 2020 / Comments: Comments Off on How to Stop Unwanted Phone Calls to My Business / By Stuart McHenry
We answer the phones for a variety of companies in the home service industry. Those plumbers, HVAC companies, roofers, electricians, and home cleaning businesses get bombarded with unwanted phone calls. Business owners never want these calls and get frustrated when they received them.
With over 50% of phone calls now classed as unsolicited, unwanted phone calls are a necessary evil in the modern world that you must learn to live with. Ne’er do wells will continue to develop new ways to reach out to unsuspecting people through unsolicited phone calls, and some organizations and businesses have the legal leeway to call you without your prior consent.
These unwanted calls are generally a notorious problem that many industry players have sought to stem, from regulators to service providers, hardware providers, and third parties.
Each effort is targeted towards a particular group of callers, so you might need several tools in your tool belt to deal with all unwanted calls conveniently and effectively, no matter where they come from.
For instance, you can selectively block certain numbers on your phone or activate a blanket block on numbers that don’t fall into a set category. You can hang up the second you realize it’s an unwanted call, but sometimes, you might be thrown off balance within those few seconds you’re hooked to the call.
Are All Unwanted Calls Illegal?
Under FTC rules, every marketing agency, business, or organization is obliged to seek out prior permission before calling any public member. However, the rules make exemptions for certain calls, including purely informational calls relating to your activities, debt collection calls, political calls, calls from certain health care providers, and calls from nonprofit organizations. These calls may be live or recorded messages.
However, if the call is trying to sell you something directly, it’s most likely a scam. Scammers might use a spoofing technique to call you with numbers and caller IDs of reputable organizations or even law enforcement agencies, asking you to pay for some paperwork or some promotional offers or to provide some personally identifiable information like your credit card number or social security number.
Use Built-In Phone Features to Ward Off Unwanted Calls
Smartphones come with many built-in features that can help you easily stem the tide of unwanted calls. If you can identify specific numbers calling you occasionally without your consent, you can use the Block Number feature on your phone to block them. If you’re using an iPhone, open your phone app, hit the information (” i”) button next to the number you want to block, and then select the ‘Block this Caller” option. On Android, open your phone app, press down on the caller’s number, and then select the “Block/report spam” option.
Additionally, certain android phone models like Samsung Galaxy Android phones come with their unique spam blocking software. These software titles operate with algorithms that detect spam calls and give you the option of blocking them. To activate this spam blocking feature, open your phone app, select “Settings,” scroll to Caller ID & spam and then toggle it or turn on the “Filter spam calls” option.
If your phone doesn’t have unique spam protection software, you can find a worthy substitute in its Do Not Disturb feature. This feature allows you to block calls from callers who’re not on your contact list. On your Android phone, open your settings app, scroll to the Do Not Disturb feature, and then select “Allow calls from” ¬+ “All Contacts.” You can apply similar steps to activate this feature on the iPhone.
Deploy Call Blocking Apps
Call blocking apps give you a much more comprehensive range of automated filtering options to help you ward off unwanted calls without turning down some calls you’d like to pick. These apps use adjustable filters to automatically screen calls before you can pick them.
Most top mobile service providers, including Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T, have robocall blocking apps that compare numbers to an updated database of suspected robocall numbers. But most of the popular call-blocking apps come from third-party vendors. You can try some for free without paying anything upfront, including Hiya, Robokiller, Nomorobo, Truecaller, and The Call Control.
Turn to the FTC
The National Do Not Call Registry, as the name implies, is designed to protect registrants from getting unwanted calls from companies. Companies who want to call public members out of the blue must defer to this list as a regulatory requirement. But although registering on this list can help keep your name away from various legit companies’ target list, it cannot protect you from robocalls from menacing scammers.
However, you can help the FTC, and everyone else avoids falling for these scams by reporting the scammers. Every day, the FTC publishes an updated list of suspicious numbers reported by individuals.
Generally, it’s always advisable to reach out to authorities and experts for help with any privacy or security issue relating to your technologies. Reach out to us today for more expert tips on how best to ward off spam, phishing, and other malicious attacks.
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