Nothing is more annoying than spam calls telling you that you’ve won a trip, car, money, or all three. For most of us, these calls are annoying because we know they are fake and they take up our time having to deal with. For others who may not realize these calls are simply scams, it can cost them something much more valuable than time – security. There have been spam folders in email accounts for years that offer a simple solution for dealing with email-based scams, and now Truecaller is attempting to offer a solution for calls that is just as easy.
Setup
Setting up Truecaller is quick and straightforward. After downloading the app, you need to create an account, or you can choose to use your Facebook account as a login. Truecaller only asks for a few permissions in order for you to have the best experience. In reality, you only need to allow it to manage and make calls; however, if you would like to make your experience more personal, you can also grant Truecaller access to your contacts and location.
Using Truecaller
I have been using Truecaller for a while, and at first, I did not realize all of the features that it had. I assumed it would just be a simple way to block callers, but there are many more features than that. When it comes to blocking individual numbers, you are given tons of options on how you want to go about it. You can enter the number yourself, select it from your call history or contacts, or you can even block a number series so that you never receive a “1-800” call ever again.
A great component of Truecaller is the constantly updated list of spammers. This list contains the numbers that are commonly reported as scams and gives you the option to block all of them with a single button. When I say this list gets updated often, I mean it because I got notified of 15 new numbers that were added as I was writing this review.
If you are like me, you really don’t like answering a phone without an idea of who is on the other end. Truecaller has you covered in that area with a feature it refers to as Live Caller ID. Whenever you get a call from a number not in your contacts, a floating window will appear on your screen that shows the name and location of the caller. It will also let you know how many other Truecaller users have marked this number as spam.
I have found that this works best with businesses and larger organizations than it does with individuals, but it has definitely saved me from answering calls from places I didn’t want to talk to. After you answer or decline a call, you are given the option to add that number to your contacts or mark it as spam so you never get another call from them.
The Discover section of the app lists people and places that are located near you and also gives you the option to request contact details from that person. You are limited to the amount of contact requests you can use, and to get more you have to pay for a month of Truecaller Professional. I have not found much usefulness in this feature yet, but I imagine that there are people who could find this helpful.
The Search section allows you to search any number and find out who it belongs too. Truecaller has over 2 billions phone numbers to search through which means you should be able to find out the owner of most numbers. It is basically a mobile phone book. While I do not use this feature much either, I can see it being much more useful than the Discover section.
One other Truecaller feature I found extremely helpful was that it would search a number if you copied it onto your clipboard. If you go onto a site and copy their phone number, a floating window would show up with the company’s name, the number, and options to call or text them. This ended up saving me quite a bit of time by allowing me to call a number without having to go and paste it into my phone app first.
Earlier, I mentioned Truecaller Professional which does mean that the free version of Truecaller is ad supported. Thankfully, these are some of the most unobtrusive ads I have ever dealt with. They are just included in the lists of numbers and do not stand out much so you might not even notice them.
With Truecaller Professional, you do disable these ads, but you also get some other bonuses too. You increase the number of contact requests you can send by 30 for every month you pay for Truecaller Professional. Unfortunately, that does mean that this is a monthly subscription instead of a one time payment. It will cost you $1.99 each month to get rid of those ads and get more contact requests. For me, that price was not worth it, but it might be for you.
Conclusion
Truecaller is definitely an app I recommend to anyone looking for an easy way to avoid those annoying spam calls. This app does exactly what it promises and includes some other useful features as well. Ads are barely noticeable, but you are also given the option to remove them. The monthly fee may be high for some people, but I imagine that the majority of users will not need the professional version anyway. Go give Truecaller a shot and download it from the Play Store!
What I liked:
- Well designed app
- Tons of useful features
- Works well and consistently
- Unobtrusive ads
What I did not like:
- Still ad supported
- Monthly fee seems high
