About 18 months ago we launched Mr. Number to help you screen your calls and texts, with powerful call and text blocking and the most accurate Caller ID service on the market. We believe that you have a right to know who’s calling you and that you have a right to block unwanted messages easily. Over 4 million people have downloaded Mr. Number so that they can identify mystery numbers and block people who won’t take no for an answer, spam texts, telemarketers, and other pests. With your help and feedback Mr. Number has become the highest rated and most downloaded app of its kind in the Android Market.
Today we’re releasing a major update to Mr. Number. The new version gives you even more control over who you are communicating with and allows you to call, text, block, and identify mystery numbers in one simple app. We want to help you strengthen the relationships that matter to you and break the ones that don’t, and this brings us one step closer to that goal.
Call and Text with Mr. Number
We’ve brought back the full history of your calls and texts, in style. You can see all your inbound and outbound calls and messages in one screen, and swipe left or right to see just calls, texts, or blocked messages. For the first time you can now reply to calls and texts from Mr. Number. You no longer have to switch from Mr. Number to the dialer to make a call and switch back to find out who called you yesterday. We think calling and texting, ID, and blocking (and more features yet to come) belong together in one app. Your friends don’t have to use Mr. Number (though we hope they all do), and you don’t have to use it as your main calling and texting app. You can use Mr. Number for blocking and Caller ID and continue to use the native apps for calling and texting. It’s your choice.
Availability
Last year we introduced the idea of status or availability for calls and texts, so that you could get more calls from the people you actually like. Many people loved the idea, but we got a lot of constructive criticism too. You had to switch from the dialer to our app to set your availability or to see someone else’s, you had to ‘friend’ people before you could see theirs, and some of the settings were mysterious.
The new version is much simpler. Mr. Number shows what mode your phone is in (vibrate, ringer off, all calls going to voicemail, airplane mode). Anyone who has you in their contacts can see this, plus a message if you add one, unless you’re blocking that person. Turn off your ringer outside the app and Mr. Number simply shows that your ringer is off, instead of guessing that you are “Busy”. (Some people keep their ringer off all the time.) And if you use Mr. Number for all your calling and texting, your availability and your contacts’ availability are right in front of you.
New logo, new design, new website, new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
We’re really excited about this update … and we’ve redesigned the whole app and website. We hope you like it and we’ll tell you more about the new design in another blog post. We’ve also updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy (for the first time in 18 months) so please take a moment to review those. You can download the new version of Mr. Number from the Android Market today and as always, we’d love your feedback!
“Hi… I got a text sent to my Android that spoofed my own number. The call back number was 209-858-3634. How do I add them to my block list?”
I suggested that he add his own number to his Mr. Number blacklist. That way, if he receives another call from someone spoofing his Caller ID using his number, our app will send it directly to voicemail or, better yet — pick up and hang up immediately.
The party who called was allegedly representing a debt-collection agency. That’s a challenging job, but it’s against the law for them to call from a phony number.
Congress passed the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2010 because many telemarketers, debt collectors and others were manipulating Caller ID info to make you more likely to pick up the phone.
Nope, debt collectors can't spoof their Caller ID info.
It is “unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service, to cause any caller identification service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value.”
The FCC issued rules that clarify TCIDA in summer 2011; Caller ID spoofing is allowed in limited cases, as long as the deception isn’t intended to cause harm or defraud. Examples:
A sales rep works out of his home two blocks from your house, but he’s permitted to display the Caller ID info and name of his employer several states away.
Residents of a domestic violence shelter show a different phone number/name on outbound calls to preserve their safety.
An OB/GYN who takes a lot of late-night calls is allowed to spoof his office line when calling a patient back late at night.
Intelligence and law-enforcement agencies are also excluded, but the FCC “did not find any of these exemptions to be necessary or appropriate” for debt collectors.
If you receive a call from a collection agency using a spoofed number, file a complaint with the FCC. To back up your claim, snap a photo of the spoofed Caller ID.
If the FCC finds that rules were broken, they can levy fines as large as $10,000 for each violation and three times that amount for each day they continue to break the law, up to $1 million!
When I played soccer as a kid, one of my teammates’ dads was a cardiologist with an ever-changing schedule. He came to as many games as he could, but he ducked out many times when his pager (a brick-sized box with a telescopic antenna) started bleeping.
Eventually, he upgraded to a portable not too different from the ones we use now, except that he lugged his around in a bulky attaché case; when a call came in, he’d take it on a full-sized plastic handset attached to a curly cord.
Today, a cardiologist looks just like the other parents at a kids’ soccer game wearing a Bluetooth headpiece, except she probably drives a nicer car.
The down side of this great leap forward in technology: anyone can reach you at any time, at any place. You always have the option of turning your phone off unless you’re making or expect to receive a call, but that’s a luxury. Family, work, friends — you can’t afford to miss an important call when it comes in, especially when everyone knows you’re reachable.
We often plan to unplug, but what does that really mean when you carry the world in your pocket? Even when you take a few days off or go out for a nice evening, anyone who has your phone number is along for the occasion. Telemarketers, debt collectors, your office, the sister you’ve been arguing with all week…
…This is where Mr. Number comes in; we block and deflect so you can focus what’s on important.
Are you getting a flurry of messages from your roommate about the dishes you left in the sink? Block her calls and texts for the rest of the afternoon so you can prepare a presentation and keep your phone free to stay in touch with co-workers. When you’ve finished your work, give your roomie a call and work things out.
Going away for a three-day weekend? Mr. Number can block all calls and texts except the ones from your parents who are watching the kids.
Sick at home with a fever? Let Mr. Number send everyone — except your mom, your doctor and the pharmacy –directly to voicemail until you’re feeling better.
These are tough times, so it’s natural that millions of us have fallen behind in our bills or are still catching up. It’s important to take care of our financial obligations, but it’s just as critical to know your rights about debt collections. Just because you owe money, that’s no reason to tense up each time the phone rings!
For many of us, a cell is our primary phone, so it’s natural that the first place a collections company reaches us is in our purse or pocket. Unfortunately, this also means that they can disrupt our work between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., the only hours when they’re permitted to call.
It’s against federal law to call a cell phone to collect a debt, so many companies have changed their applications with text like, “signing this document gives us your express written consent to call you on your cell phone.” Companies without disclaimers like these are not permitted to call your cell phone to collect a debt, but if your debt has been transferred to a collection agency, they may call your cell within certain guidelines.
So, how do you get debt collectors to STOP calling your cell phone?
First and foremost: work out a payment plan and stick to it. If you can negotiate a schedule to repay, it’s in your best interests to do so, as the calls should stop as soon as they start seeing your payments.
Use Mr. Number so your phone will recognize incoming calls from collection agencies. Change your settings to send them direct to VM or pick up/hangup.
Report abusive debt collectors via our app. Take a moment to describe what happened, and your comments appear on our site for others to see.
If you don’t believe you owe money, let them know via Certified Mail within 30 days of receiving your first notice. After they receive your note, a collection agency may only call again after they send you written confirmation that the debt is yours.
Use Certified Mail with Return Receipt to send a written request to stop calling your cell and/or home phone. After a debt collector receives this letter, they may only reply to let you know how or if they intend to proceed with the collections process.
Got a lawyer? Tell them to send all notices to your legal representative.
If debt collectors ignore written communications, keep records of their calls to hold them accountable. You may even be able to collect a cash award if a judge determines that they’ve violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).
IMPORTANT: if you have a new cell number and you’re receiving collection calls meant for a previous owner, the fastest way to resolve the issue is to go back to the phone company and request a new number. For obvious reasons, debt collectors will be skeptical if you continually insist, “Parker isn’t at this number anymore, and I don’t know how to reach him!”
Finally, if nothing else works, report a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission. Filing a complaint is time-consuming, but it’s the only way to stop abusive debt collectors.
For more information about dealing with debt collectors, visit these sites or watch the video below:
We started Mr. Number to give you back control over your phone. We think you have a right to know who is calling you; that you should control who can text you and when; and that no business should be able to call you without your permission. That’s just the start.
A lot of people seem to agree with us. Almost 3,000,000 of you have signed up for Mr. Number and today we’re excited to announce that Menlo Ventures has invested $3,500,000 in Mr. Number so that we can build out our free service and change the way you make and receive calls and texts.
Shervin Pishevar and DuBose Montgomery, founding partner at Menlo Ventures, have joined our board. Shervin is a serial entrepreneur and an expert in both mobile and social applications. Social Gaming Network, his most recent company, was a pioneer in both markets. Mr. Number is his first board seat at Menlo and we asked him why he chose us:
“I’ve known for a long time that your true social network is not the people that you ‘friend’ or ‘add to circles’, it’s the people that you actually communicate with every day. Real people, real friends really do matter. The team at Mr. Number have figured out how to turn that insight into simple, useful apps that solve real problems for consumers and empower them at the same time to take back control of their communications streams. I am really excited about helping them take this to the next level.”
So what is the next level? We’re not ready to say, but you’ve been telling us loud and clear what you like and don’t like about Mr. Number and we’ve been listening. You’ve asked for more control over texts and picture messages, different outcomes for different callers at different times of day, ditchmail, international caller ID, and translation into half a dozen languages, and above all else you want to see all the existing features of Mr. Number on your iPhone. We hear you loud and clear.
We’ve had a serious outage this morning related to problems at Amazon Web Services (see related story from CNN).
Some features (like Caller ID) are affected and some (like call blocking) are not. We’re doing all we can to restore service and we’re sorry for the inconvenience.
We started Mr. Number to give you back control over your phone. We think you have a right to know who is calling you; that you should control who can text you and when; and that no business should be able to call you without your permission. That’s just the start. 
