An Effective Method of Blocking Robocalls and Other Unsolicited Calls
How often have you been interrupted from what you were doing by a ringing phone, only to hear a recorded message offering to lower the interest rates on your credit cards or mortgage? Recently, I have been interrupted several times a day by such annoying calls.
If you have registered your phone on the National Do Not Call Registry, you know how ineffective that is, mainly because it lacks enforcement capability. Existing call blockers are at best only partially effective because of the availability of caller ID spoofing technology. As a last resort, you can turn off the ringer of your phone for some peace and quiet and listen to your recorded messages at your leisure, but in doing so, you risk being unable to respond to urgent time-sensitive calls in a timely manner.
The greatly increased volume of unsolicited calls in recent years can be attributed to the availability of automated calling technology. The recorded message asks the callee to press a certain key if he or she is interested in the product or service promoted by the telemarketer. Thus, with an automated caller, the telemarketer need only respond to the callees that express interest. Therefore, even with the low response rate to robocalls, the use of automated calling is a viable business model. The opportunity cost of the time lost by those interrupted by these robocalls appears to be of no concern to the telemarketers; otherwise, they would respect the Do Not Call Registry.
To address this problem, I have devised a call screening phone that blocks robocalls as well as other unsolicited calls; a detailed description can be found in my patents. The technology can be implemented in either a landline phone or a mobile phone and requires no action on the part of the telephone service provider. The flowchart below shows the steps taken by the phone to screen the calls.
All of the screening is done prior to the phone ringing, so the callee only needs to respond to prescreened calls. When the phone receives an incoming call, it first checks to see if the caller’s phone number is on the callee’s whitelist. The whitelist normally contains the phone numbers of all of the callee’s contacts as well as any automated services to which the callee is subscribed, such as one that provides severe weather alerts. Callers that are on the callee’s whitelist bypass further screening.
If the caller is not on the callee’s whitelist, the phone plays a recorded message (Message 1) consisting of three parts, each with a specific purpose.
The first part identifies the callee and is designed to screen out callers who have dialed the callee’s phone number by mistake.
The second part informs telemarketers that the callee is not interested in their product or service.
The third part is a challenge question, which is designed to block robocalls. In also screens out calls made by children playing with the telephone who dialed the callee’s number by accident.
An example of a Message 1 is the following:
This is the John Doe residence. If you are calling to sell a product or service, ask for a donation, or conduct a survey, then we are not interested. Otherwise, enter the number of days in a week.
The challenge question should require a numerical response and be one that a human caller can easily answer but beyond the capability of any automated system that could be cost-effectively used for robocalling. Even if and when there comes a day when automated systems have the capability of understanding and answering such challenge questions, the call screening phone would still be effective in blocking robocalls by virtue of the fact that such an automated system would presumably be likewise able to understand the second part of the message warning telemarketers away and be likewise deterred.
If the caller correctly answers the challenge question, the phone rings, and the callee has the opportunity to take the call. Otherwise, the caller is disconnected.
If the callee is not available to take the call, the phone can record the caller’s message like a phone with a built-in conventional answering machine.
When will the call screening phone be available? I am actively soliciting manufacturers to license the technology for what is virtually certain to be a lucrative market. Any takers? If so, email me at sdkorn@yahoo.com.