Block Telemarketing Calls on your Smartphone with Call Detector App
Below we review and discuss an app available for Android users that can block unwanted calls. TracfoneReviewer is a blog dedicated to providing resources and information about Tracfone, and we share lots of different things from cell phone reviews to promotional codes. So have a look around if you want to learn more about Tracfone! |
| How to Block Unwanted Phone Calls |
The only way to combat this for many users was to try and pay close attention to who was calling, and then simply try to avoid answering it. But this isn't always possible, and sometimes we answer the phone without thinking.
Unwanted texts are also another way we lose valuable minutes. And on Android phones, there isn't a way to choose which texts you open (and pay for) and which you don't. So any text you receive on an Android phone reduces your remaining text balance.
Well Tracfone must have noticed consumers dissatisfaction with this, because they recently started promoting a free App for Android phones that says it will, "block any unwanted phone calls as well as automatically block all known scam callers."
So does this app work and will it block those annoying telemarketers? We're here to test it and find out, and then share the results with you below.
For those who might not know, Tracfone is a prepaid wireless cell phone company. They offer both cell phones, and prepaid airtime that allows users to pay for only what they plan to use. You can learn more about Tracfone by reading our Beginners Guide to Tracfone.
What is the Call Detector App?
The Call Detector App makes it possible to select numbers from your contact list or recent callers and choose to block their number. This is really great if you tend to get a lot of unwanted calls form the same number.Call Detector offers several more features as well:
- Automatically block known scammers
- Identify incoming telemarketing and debt collection calls
- block all incoming private or blocked numbers
- Easily report telemarketers/debt collectors through the app
- Caller ID (only limited number of uses on free version of the app)
- Reverse number lookup (only limited number of uses on free version of the app)
The app is free to download, but does offer a premium upgrade that removes ads, and allows users to have unlimited Caller ID and Reverse number lookup, among other bonuses.
The Call Detector App says it was specifically created for Tracfone and Tracfone's other companies like Straight Talk and Net10.
Now we want to share what we thought of the app in our review of the Call Detector app.
Call Detector App Review - Testing the App
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| Call Detector App Homescreen |
The app takes up about 9 MB of space on the internal memory, which isn't very much, and not a problem for the Ultimate 2 that comes with around 4 GB internal memory, but for some of the older Android phones you may not have much room to work with.
When loading up the app you will have to give Call Detector access to a number of different things on your phone, but this is what allows the app to automatically block calls, and select numbers to block from your list of received calls.
The home screen is simple, and we were able to quickly view either a list of our contacts, or recently received calls and choose from these lists any phone numbers we wanted to block. You can also choose to view the apps activity (what phone calls it has blocked), file a complaint through the app, look up a number, or purchase the full version.
We selected a few numbers to block, and then tested the app by using those numbers to call the phone. When a blocked number calls, you briefly see the call screen flash on the smartphone's screen, and then the call is disconnected. In the app's activity section, you get to see who called and what time they called.
We also tested blocking text messages, which we can't tell if this app is supposed to block. It does track both the number of calls blocked and texts, but in our test the text message was not blocked. We're going to continue testing this.
Looking up numbers is also a convenient feature on the Call Detector app and sometimes we would get the name of the caller, other times just the location of where they were calling from. With the free version of the app you only have a certain number of numbers you can look up.
We were not able to test the app's claim that it automatically blocks known scammers, or can automatically notify you if the caller is a telemarketer or debt collector - we just haven't received any calls like this yet. But if you test this out, let us know in the comments how the app functions for you.
Does the Call Detector App Work?
Well, yes, it does seem to work well at blocking numbers you choose for it to block. This is very handy if there are certain callers who keep bothering you. Will it block text messages or automatically block telemarketers? We couldn't quite determine this and will continue to investigate.Overall we found this app was well designed, looked good and functioned as expected. On Google Play it is rated 4.2 stars out of 5, which is a good rating. It also has more than 100,000 downloads and will work on Android versions 2.3 or higher.
There are a variety of other call blocking apps available on Google Play, but none of them seemed any better than Call Detector.
If you're tired of getting sales calls, or just want to block a few numbers, Call Detector is a great app for doing that.
You can read more about Call Detector, and download it for yourself, on Google Play.
We hope this information is helpful for you! Leave a comment if you have any questions, or want to share your experience using this app.
If you're interested in what Android phones Tracfone has to offer, take a look at our recently updated List of Tracfone Android phones. You can see all the smartphones available from Tracfone, and quickly compare some of the key features from each phone.
You may also be interested in the Tracfone BYOP program, which allows consumers to bring their own smartphone to use with Tracfone, including both GSM and CDMA 4G LTE devices.
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