trueCall Secure - protect elderly relatives from scam calls

I could not be more pleased with TrueCall Secure. I went with the more expensive option as I felt it gave me more options as my elderly mother lives with me. We kept receiving spam calls (yes we are on the TPS service) including 9:30am on Boxing Day!! The product was pretty easy to set up. Took me a while to work out how to export my iPhone contacts to a spreadsheet but a good google did the trick. As someone else mentioned the formula "Concatenate" will be your friend!. Once that was done it was easy to cut and paste them all and drop them into the online service. . With a click of the Check button it tidied them up, removed the + and spaces etc. When a family member called an hour later they came straight through with no idea that anything was different. Of course you can just type in yourself, save numbers you want when they call you and you can set the TrueCall up to automatically add any number you dial to the Trusted Caller List.You can record your own message but I've left the standard one which asks people to press a number to get through if they're not on the trusted caller list and advises cold callers to "hang up and don't call back". Love it. I have Virgin Media and simply plugged the TrueCall into the existing phone socket and the phone into the TrueCall and bingo it was done. I've had no interference noticeable on the phone line or any other issues at all, I've not had to use an ADSL filter as some people have mentioned.It's not cheap but it WORKS and if you work out how many calls you get and how frustrating, time consuming and annoying they are - well worth every penny. Also gives peace of mind that the chances of my Mum being conned into some scam is negligible.

This TrueCall Secure is brilliant! I've been looking for a long time for a way to control outgoing calls for an elderly relative with dementia who makes hundreds of calls. This will prevent continual outgoing calls to specific ranges of numbers and to those neighbours who simply do not want to receive calls. The ability to filter incoming as well as outgoing calls will be very useful and should reduce the number of cold callers. If you choose to use the high security profile the unit is almost in lockdown, and only trusted callers can get through, either with a trusted number or by using a pin when calling. It may take a little time to establish patterns of use, but it is easy to see what is happening by using the TrueCall website. Internet is not required in the end-user's home because the unit uploads it's data through the phone line. Initial set-up is simple online for anyone with a little tech-savvy ability, but might be a bit lengthy if done through the handset. Once set up, changes can be made very easily online. I particularly like the option to turn off the control lights, as they could cause a problem for users with dementia by drawing attention to the unit. I tested and set up this unit in my own home before installing it under the bed in my relative's home. One thing that I found when trying to call in remotely to force a weblink to take place was that prefixing the number with 141 (as instructed in the manual) did not always suppress caller identity, but that is an issue with my mobile service provider and not with TrueCall. The solution was simple, for 02/GG mobiles just use #33# instead of 141. I am very impressed, so thank you TrueCall

An effective unit with one star removed as...1. No website option to register a new unit with my email address first used for our first unit about a decade ago. When I discovered the corresponding web-sync issue, a quick message to the support team resolved this.2. The optional TrueCall SD flash card for extended recordings is an extortionate £40 to buy, and TrueCall won't work with regular SD flash cards widely available at a tiny fraction of the price.

Scammers left my mum shaking and crying. She revealed some personal information and this made them try up to 8 times a day. I wanted the strongest solution out there to stop this quickly.Many devices on the market have a button for the user to press when an unwanted call gets through. This was no good for us: my mum couldn’t recognise the scams. After I explained a scam to her she would be on guard for two weeks max before taking similar calls again.Scammers would change their caller IDs so I needed a solution that did more than just check caller IDs.TrueCall Secure has a set of features that deal with this head on:- configurable in an online portal- set up lists of trusted numbers which get through no problem- set up lists of unwanted numbers to block- use wildcards, e.g. to trust all numbers starting with 01234, i.e. calls from the neighbourhood- international callers can be asked for a PIN (many scams are international calls)- unrecognised calls can be asked to “press 5” (i.e. enough to stop robots without confusing elderly friends) or “enter your PIN” (i.e. for maximum security)- call logs allow you to fine tune the configuration remotelyBest of all, my mum doesn’t need to do anything different; her phones and answerphone work the same.I also liked that we had a basic level of protection as soon as we plugged it in.