President and Congress Get the Robocall Bill Done

As promised, I am keeping the public informed as to the status of the Robocall Bill. GOOD NEWS! The President signed into law the Pallone-Thune TRACED Act on December 30th which was passed by Congress on December 4th. Kudos to our lawmakers on this epidemic situation whereby our phones have been inundated by trolling robot calling mechanisms that should have been outlawed a long time ago, as reported by NatLawReview.com. In the wrath of the demise, we, as citizens will eventually pull out of this situation. Meantime we all have witnessed situations where we have lost ownership of our phone lines. Recently, I was trying to get in touch with family and friends to arrange a party and it dawned on me that landlines have been being shut off due to the fact that people did not want to keep answering their phones because of the invasion of these robocalls, constantly bombarding a normal day, wasting our time. The leading to some cases of fraud and voice fingerprinting is making matters worse. When this happens, the robocalls are using the equipment to record your voice and use it to order up merchandise, put it onto your credit lines and then when the merchants charge you and you are filing a discrepancy, the merchant has your voice authorization and a few cases have recently been denied because the voice fingerprinting is getting real good, and it is then harder to dispute the charges. Also I have documented where emergency calls were not able to be initiated because an emergency was happening and a person went to use the phone to dial emergency 911 and a robocall was coming in at the same time. so this has gotten to be an emergency as well.

Meantime, it is going to take some time to clean up the general environment as these robocalls did some damage. While law finds some people, companies and robocall equipment manufacturers guilty of the new crime of proceeding to engage in knowingly initiate a robocall, we need to protect ourselves in the meantime. I have been testing an app whereby you are able to block robocalls called the Hiya app. The app is FREE and a premium version is available at the cost as shared on their website. I have had plenty of time to review the free app and I am still undergoing reviewing the premium app, but needless to say they do offer a trial version available now for a 14 day period. Even after, the app still works for free but some features are disabled. Even so, the free app works great, it works along side of your regular phone dialer (you will use both of them simultaneously). I have a Samsung A20, but most Samsung phone dialers have the feature installed whereby it shows “Scam Likely” while the call is coming in, so by using both the Hiya app and your dialer together, I am able to disable over 90% of these robocalls from coming in, saving countless time. I then go over my calls at sometime in the day, and compare the lists from the dialer and the Hiya app and report the “Scam Likely” calls into the Hiya network of users and then block them permanently. Also the Hiya app shows plenty of calls with “Suspected Scam” and “Potential Fraud” alerts already reported in the network of users. The website also has more tips and pointers and the app is easy to use. As soon as I have more information on the premium plan, I will report on it. Meantime I would like to spread the enjoyment of more peace and quiet as most of these robocalls start bouncing. You will hear your cell phone ring once time and then it will stop ringing automatically, sparing you the agony of one more robocall. Also note that if you block a caller, you will not be able to call the number unless you unblock the number first, but the Hiya app lets you unblock a call if you do accidentally do block a number. You, however, will not be able to unshare a network report of a robocall. Kudos, enjoy more peace and quiet!!

I continue to take the pledge to put these robocalls, companies and any associates of use of robocalling–OUT OF BUSINESS, and into jail where they belong.