Tips For Blocking Those Stupid Robocalls

Nothing is more frustrating than when you are about to sit down and eat a freshly cooked Totinos pizza covered in Sriracha sauce and watch Netflix on the couch with your cat when suddenly you receive a call. Who could it be? Mom? Dad? Nope, it’s a stupid robocall ! You have wasted 30 seconds of your life that you will never get back, and your cat has now taken your spot on the couch. That sly little cat bastard!

You're tired of getting these stupid calls, and you are ready to do something about it. You wonder if Robocalls are just a fact of life that you just have to accept, or if you should try and FIGHT BACK and rage against the machines!

You shout at your cat “Is there anything I can do about these stupid robocalls?” He just stares back at you with unconcerned indifference and blinks those creepy alien-like eyelids of his at you as he claws your leather couch out of sheer spitefulness.


The answer to your question is YES! There are a few things you can do to help cut down on those annoying robocalls.

Here Are a Few Tips For Cutting Down on The Amount of Robocalls You Receive:

1. Get Yourself (And Your Phones) on The Do Not Call Registry

The National Do Not Call Registry (for U.S. residents) should be your first stop on your quest to fight back against robocallers.

The Do Not Call Registry allows you to register all of your phone numbers and helps prevent telemarketers and other unwanted solicitors from calling these numbers. You can register both landlines as well as cell phones, Registering with this service should significantly cut down on the number of “SPAM calls” that you receive. Registration is completely free.

You can check to see if your number is on the list by using the “Verify My Registration” feature of the Do Not Call website.

If you aren’t a U.S. resident, check to see if your country offers a similar service. For example, if you’re in the UK you can register with the Telephone Preference Service which has an opt-out program that is similar to the U.S.


Do Not Call Registry.

2. Use Nomorobo’s Free Robocall Blocking Service

If you’re wanting to cut down on Robocalls and your home phone service uses Voice Over IP (VoIP) technology to deliver your phone calls (and is on the list of supported providers), consider using Nomorobo (as in No More Robocalls ). This free service is supposed to drastically reduce the number of robocalls you receive by answering the robocalls for you and then checking to see if they are on a list of blacklisted robocallers (or on a whitelist of legitimate services).

Check Nomorobo's website for an explanation of how it works as well as a list of supported carriers to see if you can take advantage of this innovative service.

3. Get a Google Voice Number and Use it With Nomorobo

Even if you don't have one of the providers listed, you may be able to port your phone number to a Google Voice number and then use it with Nomorobo or another call blocking / screening service. Check out the Google Voice Page to learn more about what a free Google Voice number can do for you.

Also check out our article on How to Use Google Voice as a Personal Privacy Firewall.

4. Use Anonymous Call Rejection and Call Screening Features (If Your Phone Company Offers Them).

Even if you don't have a provider that supports Nomorobo, you can use your phone company's call screening and anonymous call rejection features to help prevent robocalls from getting through to your phone. Check your providers website to see if they offer these features.

When Does Oversharing Online Become a Security Problem?

haring on social media has become a double-edged sword. It’s fun to share things about our lives that help keep us connected to our friends and family, but sometimes sharing too much can actually drive people away and may also compromise our personal safety.

There are so many ways to share things now, Facebook for our thoughts and likes, Instagram for our pictures, Foursquare for our location check-ins.


There is a social media network for sharing nearly every aspect of our lives.

The big question: At what point does sharing too much oversharingg) become a problem?

Let’s Look at 3 times When Oversharing Can Become a Serious Problem For Ourselves And Others:

When It Provides Your Current Location

Oversharing can become a real personal safety issue when it comes to sharing your current location. You have to decide, whenever you “check-in” while you’re out and about or on vacation, whether the risk of letting potential strangers know where you are is something you are willing to live with.

You need to realize that when you post a geotagged selfie while your on vacation you are letting everyone know that you are not at home. A criminal trolling social media sites for this type of opportunity might take notice, locate your address, and rob your house while you're away.

Posting your location on social media is akin to a porch light left on during the daytime, or a newspaper left in the driveway, both things that indicate that you might not be home.


Social media vacation posts are worse because they confirm that you are gone (and not just too lazy to get the paper). They may also give the criminals a timeline to work with. If you post while you're on vacation in a relatively far off place then they could surmise that you are perhaps at least 8 to 10 hours away.

When it Puts Your Family Members or Loved Ones in Harm’s Way

Do you tag others in your pictures or your status updates when they are with you? This may seem harmless, but it can be a form of oversharing which could put them at risk.

If you are on vacation and you tag another family member in a photo who is also on the vacation, then you have just put them at that same location, thus giving up their current whereabouts. This is harmful for the same reason mentioned earlier.

Tagging other people's children is also not a good thing because those people may not want their children's identity provided to potential strangers. Even if you tag them instead, and don't use their child's name, you are establishing who their parents are. Predators could use this information as part of a pretext to gain trust.

Keep your tags to yourself and don't bring other people into your location check-ins without their permission to do so.

When it Puts Your Job In Jeopardy

Whenever you talk about your work, you could potentially be putting your job at risk, especially if you say something bad about your boss or the company you work for. Companies take social media very seriously and won't take kindly to it when you say something negative. As an employee, you are a representative of who you work for, and your words and actions could potentially cause harm to the company.

You might be able to delete your negative post, but possibly not before someone has taken a screenshot of it and forwarded it to your boss or the local news.

You might also talk about something that is company proprietary information or divulge something that might seem innocuous to you, but might give a competitor an advantage. Example: say you discuss a missed deadline for a product launch. A competitor might pick up on this and push to get their product out before yours.

Bottom Line:

Think about the potential impact that sharing something might have on yourself and others before you share it with the world.
Posting your location on social media is akin to a porch light left on during the daytime, or a newspaper left in the driveway, both things that indicate that you might not be home.

Social media vacation posts are worse because they confirm that you are gone (and not just too lazy to get the paper). They may also give the criminals a timeline to work with. If you post while you're on vacation in a relatively far off place then they could surmise that you are perhaps at least 8 to 10 hours away.

When it Puts Your Family Members or Loved Ones in Harm’s Way

Do you tag others in your pictures or your status updates when they are with you? This may seem harmless, but it can be a form of oversharing which could put them at risk.

If you are on vacation and you tag another family member in a photo who is also on the vacation, then you have just put them at that same location, thus giving up their current whereabouts. This is harmful for the same reason mentioned earlier.

Tagging other people's children is also not a good thing because those people may not want their children's identity provided to potential strangers. Even if you tag them instead, and don't use their child's name, you are establishing who their parents are. Predators could use this information as part of a pretext to gain trust.

Keep your tags to yourself and don't bring other people into your location check-ins without their permission to do so.

When it Puts Your Job In Jeopardy

Whenever you talk about your work, you could potentially be putting your job at risk, especially if you say something bad about your boss or the company you work for. Companies take social media very seriously and won't take kindly to it when you say something negative. As an employee, you are a representative of who you work for, and your words and actions could potentially cause harm to the company.

You might be able to delete your negative post, but possibly not before someone has taken a screenshot of it and forwarded it to your boss or the local news.

You might also talk about something that is company proprietary information or divulge something that might seem innocuous to you, but might give a competitor an advantage. Example: say you discuss a missed deadline for a product launch. A competitor might pick up on this and push to get their product out before yours.


Think about the potential impact that sharing something might have on yourself and others before you share it with the world.