None of this tech would even be necessary if phone companies let me insert some sort of customizable audio captcha for people who try to call me. Just yesterday I tried to confirm an appointment with a phone company technician and I was forced to answer a captcha before I could confirm it on my web browser, requiring multiple tries on the captcha to get it right. That made me very angry (both the multiple tries and the captcha in the first place). And at the same time these same companies won't let me implement a captcha to protect myself. They are so worried about robots that they force me to enter a captcha to install a new service(!) but they won't let me implement one to protect myself from robocalls. These companies are self-serving, not customer-serving. One day some innovative company will come around and give people what they want and then it's game over for the existing phone companies.
Well they kinda do, at least on some phones. Mine for instance screens any suspicious calls with voice prompts. "Hello, the person you are calling is using a screening service from *** and will get a copy of this conversation. Go ahead and say why you're calling".
Typically it's a scam or marketing call and the caller hangs up. VERY rarely it has been something I might be interested in accepting and I'll then answer. But that's happened no more than a couple of times. The effectiveness is pretty darn good as is the accuracy in identifying spam calls.
I use Hiya and it works OK, but my main defense is just not answering the calls. If they are not in my contact list, I have no name. So they can leave a message. So I get many voice call messages which are generally 2 seconds long. So I know it was a call I didn't give a crap about. The few that actually leave a message, my iPhone is transcribing it and I can just read it. It's not a very good job, but I can get a idea what the call is about and if I want to I can hear it for myself. So it's important that I get my work contacts into my phone so I'll answer the phone.
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Typically it's a scam or marketing call and the caller hangs up. VERY rarely it has been something I might be interested in accepting and I'll then answer. But that's happened no more than a couple of times. The effectiveness is pretty darn good as is the accuracy in identifying spam calls.