Unwanted phone calls are quickly becoming the bane of my life. Last month I received a call from somebody who had obviously scoured my network list to get my number and was trying to sell me life insurance. As a 28-year old, healthy guy with no children, I decided to risk it and told them politely, “No thanks”. No word of a lie, the next day I got a call from someone else trying to sell me funeral insurance. As amusing as this juxtaposition is in hindsight, if I’d have had CallerSmart Reverse Lookup Phone Book, I never would have had to waste my breath telling the vampiric gloommongers where to go.
The new app from CallerSmart allows you to screen caller IDs and check who it is you are replying to before you send a message or return a missed call. Instead of just Googling the number that is left on your phone or trawling round your friends to see if it’s someone you might know, you can search for the number within the app’s phone book; if other users have left positive or negative feedback on the database, then you can use thais to decide how to craft your response, if you decide to reply at all.
It isn’t just pesky sellers that the app aims to guard you against; aggressive debt collectors, scammers, and prank callers will all be reported and you can avoid future calls by simply blocking their number. Conversely, if you really do want to reply to a missed call but you’re worried about sending an awkward ‘Sorry, who is this?’ text to them, in case it’s a job interview or a hottie that you met in a bar last week, you can check to see who the sender is before you message or call them.
Once you’ve identified a ‘problem caller’, the app allows you to take certain measures to prevent them calling you again; you can block them via the app, or actually protect yourself from similar numbers by placing your number on a Do Not Call list. These bans can be removed, so if you ban a notorious drunken booty caller but then actually make up with them and want to see them, all is not lost!
What I particularly like about the app is that the developers have actually made it fun to use through the free rewards that users receive just for contributing. By identifying mystery callers and warning others about annoying prankers and suchlike, the app’s scoring system will reward you with Smart Badges (cute cartoon faces) that you can share on Facebook. Just a fun little element that makes it more engaging and helps to spread the word of CallerSmart.
But my favorite element of the app? Waiting for the next telemarketer to call up and try to sell me afterlife insurance or whatever the hell they’ve dreamt up and telling them that this call will be their last…take that, SUCKERS!
