Call Accounting Featured Article

TNS Introduces ReportaRobocall.com

  By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC

Despite work to rid the world of the scourge of robocalls, these unwanted interruptions live on. But companies like Transaction Network Services offer solutions to help manage the robocall problem. And this week TNS (News - Alert) expanded its portfolio in this arena with the introduction of ReportaRobocall.com.

Specific service providers use TNS’s existing Call Guardian solution to understand and address robocalls. But the new ReportaRobocall.com is carrier agnostic.

“While our [Call Guardian] solution has enabled user feedback via the carrier deployed mobile application and other carrier branded feedback sites, ReportaRobocall.com provides both end users and call originators served by any carrier with a common site to provide feedback,” explains TNS Chief Product Officer Bill Versen.

ReportaRobocall.com allows anybody to report nuisance calls. And businesses can use ReportaRobocall.com to dispute the tagging of their phone numbers. TNS says that will work to ensure calls are verified and businesses can continue to reach their customers with legitimate calls.

“ReportaRobocall.com categorizes legitimate business numbers used for customer contact and is open to all legitimate businesses at no charge,” TNS says. “Legitimate businesses can use the website to send their telephone numbers to TNS and will help TNS Call Guardian validate the characterization of their business telephone numbers.”

The TNS 2018 Robocall Investigation Report says a third of intercarrier calls are at high risk of nuisance robocalls. And the YouMail (News - Alert) Robocall Index says that last month people in the U.S. received a record 5.1 billion robocalls.

An estimated 42 percent (or 912 million) of those 5.1 billion calls were scams. The largest share of them (499.8 million) were health and health insurance scams. The other two largest scam robocalls in October 2018 fell into the easy money (144.4 million) and interest rate (132.3 million) categories. However, 23 percent of the robocalls were payment reminders, 18 percent were telemarketing calls, and 17 percent were alerts and reminders.