An end to anonymous phone calls!!

[BearDad58]

It seems that one of the chief peeves of escorts is the anonymous phone caller. It's not just escorts as I think most of us dislike anonymous calls. There is a new free service that instantly unblocks anonymous callers and displays the number on your cell phone. This is a free service and I signed up for it last week. All you do when a anonymous call comes in is to push the end or reject button on your phone. Within a few seconds the phone will ring again this time displaying the number of the anonymous caller.

 

The web site offering this service is http://www.trapcall.com They offer several levels of service, some are pay but the basic unblocking of anonymous numbers is free.

[Kevin Slater]

Great idea, but it seems to have severe limitations. It only works with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, and you have to reject the call first before they give you the number. I'd love it if it worked with my carrier and unblocked the number when he actually calls.

 

Kevin Slater

[BearDad58]

Well it actually does unblock the number right away in real time when the anonymous caller rings your phone, and you see the unblocked number on your cell. At that point you can decide to accept the call or let it go to your voice mail. Here is the quote from the trapcall site:

 

"When you first receive a call, you must reject or ignore the call. At this point the call is sent to TrapCall for unblocking and then sent back to ring your phone with the number unblocked."

 

How it works with my cell is as soon as I see a call come in marked "Private" I push the reject button. At that point the call goes to the trapcall computers and is immediately unblocked and then sent back to your phone. The entire process takes maybe 4-5 seconds. At this point the phone rings again and instead of the display saying "private" it displays the anonymous callers number. You can decide to take the call or not.

 

The anonymous caller knows none of this is going on, all he hears is your phone ringing. The 4 or 5 seconds it takes to be forwarded to trapcall and then back to your phone just results in the anonymous caller listening to a couple extra rings. When you finally answer the phone he has no idea his number is already unblocked.

 

Currently the service works with 3 of the 4 main US cell carriers with the exception of Sprint, so I think that should help some of the escorts out there who are constantly receiving anonymous calls. According to their site they expect to be have their service work with Sprint shortly.

[+ David-SF]

it works great

 

it actually does reveal the number it auto calls you back while the caller is still listening to ringing before it goes to voicemail and at that time you can choose to answer it

i have the bear trap that texts you the name number city and state and also shows the number calling but only will ring once before it will go to voice mail

the bad side is that when it forwards to the service it announces to the caller the the call is forwarded

just ran a test of it it was cool but not worth 24.95 per month when just ignoring blocked calls works for free but i have the 15 day free trial will cancel on day 14

there is a free service too i may opt for it if its useful

[BearDad58]

<<the bad side is that when it forwards to the service it announces to the caller the the call is forwarded »

 

I have tested it myself calling my cell phone from my home phone and blocking my home phone number. When I press reject on my cell phone it doesn't announce to me the call is being forwarded. Maybe thats something to do with the 24.95 premium service, I signed up for the basic free service and at least with that no announcements are made to callers saying their call is being forwarded.

 

Also the basic free service gives you the ability to block numbers so all they will hear is a message informing them your number is disconnected. You have to manage that part of the service from their web site when you sign into your account.

[+ David-SF]

how about the advertising ?

 

in the features list the bear trap service mentions something about no advertisements

with the free service are you getting some sort of ads texts etc... ????

[N.N.]

There has always been a way to preclude blocking: have a toll-free number.

[Kevin Slater]

There has always been a way to preclude blocking: have a toll-free number.

 

I suspect some guys would be turned off by an escort with a 1-800 number.

 

Kevin Slater

[+ Tom Isern]

toll-free number?

 

How does a toll-free number preclude blocked calls?

[Kevin Slater]

How does a toll-free number preclude blocked calls?

 

My understanding (and I'm prepared to be wrong) is that since *you're* paying for the call, the number is disclosed to you. Whatever the logic, I've always believed that you can't hide your number when calling toll-free. I seem to recall that was a bit of a concern for the various suicide prevention lines, etc.

 

Kevin Slater

[Guest Jesse Dane]

it was cool but not worth 24.95 per month when just ignoring blocked calls works for free

 

I'm with you there. If you're not willing to show your phone number, I'm not willing to meet up with you. Same thing with addresses for out-calls. It's all about personal safety and I need to have some knowledge of where I'm going and how to get ahold of the person.

[N.N.]

How does a toll-free number preclude blocked calls?

It's transmitted by a different mechanism than caller ID uses; see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_identification

 

That answers the "how" question. As to "why", there is a logic to it, as Kevin Slater said: the party paying the freight gets to know the details of the call.

 

Back in the old days when escorts advertised (in print media) with pager numbers, I would leave my toll-free number for them to call back at so that I always got their number. I never misused the numbers I got; I just wanted the same kind of accountability that Jesse Dane spoke of.

[Kevin Slater]

it hit the Times

 

New York Times just did a piece on this. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/15call.html?ref=todayspaper

[+ deej]

As to "why", there is a logic to it, as Kevin Slater said: the party paying the freight gets to know the details of the call.

 

Yes, and the smarter marketing organizations used to program their PBX to route incoming calls based on location. If the number is registered in an affluent neighborhood you get the best salesmen directly. A less affluent 'hood might get an IVR system to wade through instead.

 

That was falling out of fashion last I heard because of increased cell phone reliance. They're harder to pin to a location.