TELUS launches new call control feature to block spam calls on your home or wireless phone
Vancouver, B.C. – Today, TELUS is helping customers to ‘hang up’ on nuisance calls with an advanced service that is a further improvement on the CRTC’s best practices for call filtering services and Universal Call Blocking. Call control is a free feature, available to home phone customers in B.C. and Alberta, and now to all wireless customers nationally, that blocks the majority of autodialed calls from reaching customers. The launch of Call Control comes at a critical time for Canadians as spam calls have seen a significant spike since the beginning of the COVID-19 health emergency.
The new calling feature requires unknown callers to listen to a brief message and manually respond with a one-digit code. For example, a first time dialer trying to connect to a customer with the Call Control feature will be greeted with a brief message stating “this number has Call Control – to get through, please press 9.” The number is randomly generated. Once the digit is pressed, the call will connect.
The majority of nuisance calls, including scams, are generated by computer-dialers that enable spammers to dial many numbers at once and are normally unable to respond to the Call Control message. Of the first group of customers to have Call Control, Home Phone Subscribers in BC and Alberta, 93% of survey respondents said it did a good, very good, or excellent job at limiting nuisance calls.
“Almost everyone has experienced the phone ringing and interrupting a family dinner or pivotal moment in their favourite TV show, only to answer the phone to hear they have just ‘won the trip of a lifetime’, or worse, hear nothing but dead air,” said Jérôme Birot, Vice President of Voice & Services DevOps at TELUS. “Our team has been working diligently to develop a calling feature that will prevent these scammers from reaching our customers, while having the most minimal impact on legitimate callers trying to connect with someone. With TELUS’ new Call Control feature, our customers can banish nuisance calls for good.”
Legitimate callers will not need to respond to the Call Control prompt every time, because the system remembers the numbers that recently passed the test. Customers can maintain lists of numbers that should always be allowed or always blocked through their myTELUS account.
Call Control allows customers to list up to 25 phone numbers on their accepted callers list, and up to 25 on their blocked callers list. Numbers on the accepted callers list will not hear the message or have to insert the one-digit code. To activate the service, customers can sign into their online account, or dial *99 from their TELUS phone. To learn more about Call Control, visit telus.com/callcontrol.
About TELUS
TELUS (TSX: T, NYSE: TU) is a dynamic, world-leading communications and information technology company with $14.7 billion in annual revenue and 15.2 million customer connections spanning wireless, data, IP, voice, television, entertainment, video and security. We leverage our global-leading technology to enable remarkable human outcomes. Our longstanding commitment to putting our customers first fuels every aspect of our business, making us a distinct leader in customer service excellence and loyalty. TELUS Health is Canada's largest healthcare IT provider, and TELUS International delivers the most innovative business process solutions to some of the world’s most established brands.
Driven by our passionate social purpose to connect all Canadians for good, our deeply meaningful and enduring philosophy to give where we live has inspired our team members and retirees to contribute more than $700 million and 1.3 million days of service since 2000. This unprecedented generosity and unparalleled volunteerism have made TELUS the most giving company in the world.
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Brandi Rees
TELUS Public Relations
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