The struggle to avoid telemarketers is real. For many years, I have been screening my incoming calls by not picking up the phone until I hear the caller speak on my answering machine. Since I’ve gotten caller ID, I can sometimes short-circuit the process if I recognize the caller’s phone number. Nevertheless, taking these precautions saps my time and attention.
I was intrigued to recently learn of a service called Nomorobo. In 2012, the FTC issued a Robocall Challenge, offering $50,000 in prize money to innovators who created solutions to blocked illegal robocalls. One of the winners was Nomorobo, a free service that works for both digital landlines and mobile numbers.
Signing up for Nomorobo is simple. One catch is that it’s not available for all carriers. For example, I was able to set it up for my two Time Warner landlines (my home phone and my business phone) but not for my AT&T Wireless mobile phone, since AT&T doesn’t support it yet.
According to Nomorobo’s web site (which has plenty of explanations for the skeptical among us), when a robocall reaches your blocked phone number, you will hear one ring, then it will go away. Since my phones don’t have traditional rings (they both play classical music tunes!), I can’t vouch for the one ring. However, it is true that the calls go away before my answering machine kicks in, which saves me the time of having to screen them.
Nomorobo has received positive reviews from some respectable and trusted sites. You can find some of them here:
If you’re bothered by robocalls, give Nomorobo a try.
