New Call Screening device - Truecall

JohalaReewi

Just seen this on the BBC website and one of my colleages has got one and is road testing it. Might be a way to automate incoming call screening.

BBC article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7682111.stm

Road test
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=408382

Makers website
http://www.truecall.co.uk

Incisor

Looks useful, but the zap list feature is a bit weak. It will deal with phone spam from big names who are honest enough to give a display number, but it won't deal with spammers and scammers who hide behind number withheld or who change numbers.

NetV

Incisor wrote: »

Looks useful, but the zap list feature is a bit weak. It will deal with phone spam from big names who are honest enough to give a display number, but it won't deal with spammers and scammers who hide behind number withheld or who change numbers.

Been looking at getting one of these - yes it does deal with numbers withheld as well as many other situations - it is a very powerful piece of kit

Paul_Varjak

I work from home doing market research and mystery shopping phone calls. This device would be a boon as it can also record up to 140 hours of phone conversations on a single SD card.

So, it is not only useful for people who want to stop marketing calls, it can also be useful for people like me who who do market research for a living!

I think any other digital phone recorder would cost somewhat more than the £97.50p for this device (though you do need to purchase an SD card at £24/£34 if you wish to record calls), plus you get the advantage of an answering machine and a call screen facility.

BT have certain call screening functions (with fees payable each month), they are called CHOOSE TO REFUSE and ANONYMOUS CALL REJECTION. This device appears much more flexible than these basic BT functions. Ditch the BT functions and you could recover the cost of this unit in just one year!

I think the unit can also screen out calls at certain times of the day as well (unless the caller is provided with a secrect code) - that can be useful in stopping night callers asking for a taxi please!

One thing I do note is the Internel Control Facility - for keeping a record of calls on TrueCall's own servers - this will cost £15/year after the first year. I would have thought with the option of using an SD card to keeping a recording of calls that the SD card could have been used to keep a record of calls as well - for local, rather than internet backup.

Luckily, TrueCall have now ditched the idea of a premium rate number for technical help. You can now get technical help by dialling their freefone number instead!

An LCD display would have been useful - again Truecall is forcing you into paying for its Internet Control Facility. Perhaps future versions will include voice recognition - so that you can stop a malicious caller even if he/she witholds their number!

I doubt that this device would work with those pendant alarm systems connected to the telephone and you have to be aware that you could filter out important calls from hospitals, police etc.

There are plans for TrueCall to provide a large blacklist of unwanted numbers to the device via its in-built modem but there are legal implications with doing that - possible defamation I guess?

Finally, it does not appear possible to initiate a phone recording remotely - so if you answer a call on your cordless phone at the bottom of the garden you will have to walk into the house to press a button on the Truecall device. This sort of problem may be sorted out if Truecall ever gets built into standard phones.

Buzby

I think the device is not really that much more advanced that the original (US imported) voice chip that when activated told your caller to push off and remove your number from their lists.

For a start, a review of my last 10 'marketing' calls, all were International and all were totally automated, with a recorded opening announcement, something that this device can't handle. I'd think that the device - as shown on The Gadget Show remains a nice idea, but as a solution to the problem, I give it 1/5.

Paul_Varjak

Buzby wrote: »

...a review of my last 10 'marketing' calls, all were International and all were totally automated, with a recorded opening announcement, something that this device can't handle.

That is incorrect. This device can handle International RoboCalls. You can instruct the device so that it requires the caller to press a certain key on the keypad before the call is connected.

If the call is 'fully automated' (i.e. no human on the line) then the caller cannot press the required key and TrueCall will cut the call off, without your phone even ringing!

Buzby

I'm afraid that in my book, this doesn't make it any better. What you describe is simply ring suppression - which is prone to errors and the possibility of blocking genuine calls.

In essence, you are trusting this device to silently answer your calls, only activating the ringer when it is satisfied that there is a valid caller on the line. If you've never had a robo caller that sends a 1 second burst of DTMF prior to acting the recipient to respond in a similar manner (usually just press '1', rather than the 1-0 they send) would get past this 'gateway'.

However, the real issue is this device is - apart from being relatively dumb - causes all callers to be charged for their call to you, by physically answering the line, whether you are there on not. Now, as the call recipient, you may feel that is none of your concern as the person was calling you anyway, but I would get mightily hacked off, and calling you for some genuine reason - hearing the initiations of an answering machine and hanging up to call back when there is a human available, only to get caught the same way.

IF the technology was incorporated within the exchange as a pre-connection process that did not charge until the call was successfully completed, I'd say it was wonderful. However it doesn't, and is just another attempt at solving a problem that can cost innocent callers more money, and I don't believe that is right.

Paul_Varjak

I must admit I do not care like to be woken up at 2am by anyone, so ring supression seems pretty good to me! Any genuine caller can press the relevant key and then speak to me. If it is a RoboCall they won't get through and I could not care two hoots if they are charged for the call.

Paul_Varjak

Seems that CAG have struck up a deal with Truecall:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/announcement.php?f=33&a=143

Paul_Varjak

Did anyone see Dragons' Den last night? The co-inventor of trueCall had all five dragons falling over themselves for a stake in his business!

Steve Smith eventually accepted an offer of £100,000 for 12.5% of his business from Peter Jones, chairman and chief executive of Phones International.

Good luck Steve! I just knew you had a great product but you also have great business acumen!!!

Jemma-T

Seen it on QVC last night https://www.qvcuk.com/ukqic/qvcapp.aspx/app.detail/params.item.561761

Looks like it's for people who are absolutely consumed with who phones them and/or they have a lot of spare time.

I can imagine it's good for extreme cases but I reckon simply blocking numbers via your line supplier would do the job (not cheap but simple).

Dragon's Den, oh **** off. I do my best to block all mention of that trash in my life but it still seeps through.