Origin:
Spam calls are disrupting everyone’s day. On an average, we receive at least 3 calls in a day trying to sell us, the loans we don’t need, the insurance we never wanted, the offer for a car we don't want to sell, the real estate that we are not planning to buy
Phone with a mobile number has become the most indispensable part of our lives. We are forced to give our contact numbers during shopping, to avail services online and offline, in financial transactions such as banks, insurance etc., Undoubtedly our mobile number travels the world and we have zero control over who can call us despite having strict laws around privacy and data sharing practices.
For over 5 years, I have been one of the severe victims of spam calls. Over the years, I recognised a few patterns in spam calls.
- Every day for the past 5 years, I received calls from a leading bank & NBFC offering me a personal loan to which I said NO everytime.
- Every time when my health insurance and car insurance is up for renewal, I get calls from every Indian insurance provider to switch to them because they offer discounted premiums.
- As the deadline to tax filing approaches, I receive calls about Tax filing services promising me to save X tax for Y commission.
- Almost everyday I received IVRS calls saying “FedEx parcel booked in my name has been seized in Mumbai for containing drugs.”
- Recently I received scam calls warning me that my Telephone resources will be disconnected If I don’t call back.
I have been blocking these numbers religiously every time I receive spam calls hoping that one day these spam calls will go down. But the spam calls barrage is not coming down at all.
The Problem:
I tried all the possible approaches like installing some of the popular and novice call blocking apps, reporting to TRAI etc., but the spammers are way ahead and ever innovative to spam and scam us. The spam calls are happening at a massive scale with the advent of technology in robocalls, robodiallers, PRI etc., On the other hand consumers are helpless on the receiving end. The only action we can take up is to block on our device or report to TRAI hoping they will block the sim of spammers.
Idea:
“What if all helpless consumers can collaborate and fight the spam?” Thus the idea of Phence was born.
Genesis:
Our inspiration for building Phence app is TCCCPR 2018 guidelines by TRAI. As per the guidelines, when 10 people report a number as spam, the telecom resources of that entity (person/company) should be blacklisted for 2 years. However the enforcement and execution has become very challenging due to gaps in inter-network coordination, category consent management etc., Moreover the spam number reporting process is tedious as users need to send an SMS with spam number, time of call etc., to determine if the number is spam or not. The scale of the spam calls problem is so massive that efforts from one government organisation along with telecom providers is not enough. The fight has to be collective and collaborative including each one of us in the solution to fight the spam.
Solution:
The first step towards including everyone into the fight is to make spam reporting as simple as possible i.e., click of a button. We users collectively should eliminate the spammers and scammers so that the system gets cleaned. We can regain our lost peace.
Implementation:
We are introducing Phence - a collaborative social approach to fight spam calls and protect our loved ones. You can report a number if you think it is unsolicited communication. If a number is reported by 10 users as spam, it will be blocked for all users. Thus you are protecting the community. In turn, you are protected by the community.
“A spammer cannot call more than 10 people whoever installed the Phence.” At the scale of adoption, the spammer will have no choice but to get a new number and thus telecalling business becomes costly.
What role can you play in this Global fight against SPAM? Report: Mark every spam call and report it on Phence. For every number reported by you, millions of other users are protected. In return you are protected from numbers reported by millions of people. Repeat: Share the app in your network. The more people report the number, the stronger the community spam shield.
We are all in this fight. Let’s protect each other.
Thanks
Varun Thopucherla