Americans received four billion robocalls per month in 2020 / WSJ. Many robocalls are not wanted, and several methods have been developed to...
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| Americans received four billion robocalls per month in 2020 / WSJ. |
Q: On my cell phone, I get far too many junk calls. Robocalls, telemarketers, and random sales calls (I hear from someone selling carpet cleaning a lot. I mean, a lot!) Is there some way I can block these jerks from calling me?
A: We truly wish there was a simple answer. A few years ago, the FTC created a con-test (with a substantial prize) to foster ideas about how to help consumers deal with and block robocalls. There were several winning solutions, but nothing has filtered down to the public cell phone user as of yet.
You probably know about the federal Do Not Call list. (Visit http://www.Ftc.Gov for more information on the Do Not Call list.) You should definitely sign up on the Do Not Call list, and you should sign up with every phone number you have, both landlines and mobile.
It’s impossible to completely block robocalls, but there are some ways to deal with them. Mr. Dalvin Brown walks through how you can adjust iPhone settings to silence spam callers as well as some third-party apps that can help block unwanted calls.
You should also be aware that the Do Not Call list doesn’t prove much: Legitimate telemarketers respect the information in this list, but the illegitimate callers, the ones you’re most likely plagued by, don’t look at or care about this list. Yelling at telemarketers about the DNC list will do you no good, and most likely will just make them want to call you more!
Another alternative is to block specific caller numbers on your phone itself. When you receive a call from someone you never want to hear from again, you should be able to block calls from that number in the future, on any smart phone. (Some wireless carriers allow you to block numbers at their end, but it’s a terrific pain to do this, the number of callers you can block is limited, and some carriers charge for this privilege. It’s generally a worthless option.) Yes, you can block callers one by one on your phone, but that’s both tiresome and generally fruitless, as most phone spammers change their caller ID like we change clothes, on a whim. So what are you to do?
We’ve found a class of apps that run on the phone that can actually be helpful. These apps maintain a database of known spam caller IDs, and once they’re installed, they at least indicate that the call is from a spammer before you answer the call. (To be honest, both Doug and Ken have a firm policy: If there’s no caller ID on a call, or if the call is from a number we don’t recognize, we simply don’t answer the call. It’s simple!) If you want to try out one of the apps, however, we have tried and can recommend one called Mr. Number (funny name!) that you can find for both iOS and Android.
The iOS version requires at least iOS 10 in order to work. Once you’ve installed this application, you’ll at least be warned before answering a call from a spammer, as long as Mr. Number has information about the particular spam caller. (We have seen this app actually work, and can vouch that, at least in some circumstances, it has recognized calls from these cretins.)
Therefore, the short answer is: There’s nothing you can that will definitively keep you from getting robocalls and telemarketer calls. On the other hand, there are tools you can use to help in the quest to live in peace and quiet. You could also simply not answer any calls, and use your phone to screen all calls, returning those you care about. Think about it.
Delete yourself from Twitter
Q: I have used Twitter for several years in order to promote my small business, but to be honest, I’ve had enough of it. I really need to completely kill my Twitter account, as if it never existed. Can you help?
A: We certainly can’t argue with you — we’re not really into social media much, as we’re kind of grumpy old men — and can see the need to just get rid of Twitter forever. Once you’ve tweeted for years, however, those tweets aren’t going away—they’re part of the Internet archive, and they’re extremely difficult to hide. On the other hand, you can certainly cancel your account and never post anything again. Probably a good idea …
To delete your Twitter account, you must first deactivate it. Once you deactivate your account, all your data, including your tweets and information about you, will be removed from Twitter. All this information is archived in queue for later deletion. Twitter keeps your account archived for 30 days, and at the end of those 30 days, completely deletes the account, so that someone else could create a new account using your old account name. If you decide not to delete your account, during those 30 days you could restore your account and everything would go back just like it was before you deactivated the account.
To delete your account, you must start the deactivation process in a Web browser, not in any Twitter application on your smartphone or tablet. Click your account photo, choose the Settings option, and select Deactivate My Account. You’ll be shown some warnings about what happens when you deactivate your account, and once you accept the information, your account is deactivated. To reactivate it, simply log into Twitter, again, from a Web browser, not from any Twitter application.