I’m always love hearing about new apps for my phone, and today I thought I would share about one of my new favorite finds in the App Store that I think everyone should consider using. I’ve always gotten a lot of spam phone calls on my office and home phone, but in the last year I’ve seen a huge increase in spam calls to my smartphone too. Sure, all of my numbers are registered on the Do Not Call list, (check your registrations here: https://www.donotcall.gov), but that doesn’t stop the calls from coming.
Luckily, since smartphones can run apps, there is an extra layer of protection you can install on your smartphone to try and identify telemarketers. There are several different apps available, both paid and free, and they’ve either been a hassle to use by messing up your address book, or didn’t work at all (and one, Number Guru totally screwed up my voicemail!). However, late last year, a friend on Facebook suggested Hiya, and I tried it out….and am pleasantly surprised. Hiya is available on the iTunes App Store and the Google App Store, and helps you to identify those unwanted calls on your phone before you answer. We’ve all been there….it’s 7:00pm, we’re cleaning the kitchen, hands in soapy water, and the cell phone rings with a random number on it and you question its importance. Here’s where Hiya is great- right as the call comes in, it will identify the call as a “suspected telemarketer”, or “scam or fraud” so you don’t have to rush to the phone. You can even have it block the call altogether so it doesn’t even ring! Now naturally, the service is only as good as their database, but after using it for the past several months, I’ve been pretty impressed. It doesn’t flag ALL calls, but I would say about 70% of them…and for a free, easy to use program, that’s pretty darn good, and I think it’s worth installing. Got another app you suggest or like that does something similar- post it in the comments below….we would love to hear about it!
