@christian_vanderbeck1 Hi Christian, great questions! Let's take them one at a time. Re: Google Voice Screening 1. The problem we've noticed with Google Voice screening is that robocalls sometimes still get through since it's based on audio. It might be a good enough solution for most, but we're trying to get all of them. 2. Also, this assumes that most of the people that have your number have your Google Voice number. We're solving for the problem of your cellular phone number getting robocalls, which almost everyone has a cellular phone number and almost everyone (at least in the US) gets robocalls. Re: Call Logs 1. We're kind of like the reCAPTCHA for call screening. If it's an automated call, it won't get through at the moment (although we hope to make this more sophisticated to handle the few robocalls you actually do want to get). If they're a human, regardless of whether they're in your contacts or not, they will get through, and we mark that number as "safe" for you, so they may call you again without touching our filter (we hope to make this more sophisticated as well, but this is where we are at). 2. We only see your incoming calls, and have no control of your outbound calls whatsoever. 3. In short, we don't see your full call logs, only certain incoming calls that come through us. Re: good spam filter You're absolutely right! We definitely don't want to have any calls that were supposed to get through not get through. Your contact list is the first thing we check to automatically bypass our filter, but the verification process is extremely simple. Some other apps use really complicated systems but ours is straightforward for now. We've yet to see calls get blocked that weren't supposed to get blocked with the exception of setup or carrier issues (Sprint is super problematic which is why we don't support them right now). There's a lot we want to do to make this more robust going forward - taking one thing at a time right now. Thanks for all the great questions, I hope this answered them!

@ani_ravi Thanks for the thoughtful response! I'll give it a shot. $6 seems like a lot, but i'm already paying verizon $3 for something that should be free.

@christian_vanderbeck1 We're with you there! The carriers should be the real one fixing this problem - they own it all. It's a sad state of affairs that products like ours have to exist. There are some moves being made to solve this by the carriers and government, at least in the US. We'll have to see how it goes. 🕵️

@thisisnoalias We'd really like to bring the costs down over time. Jolly Roger is hilarious though!

@thisisnoalias But Jolly Roger doesn't do anything to block calls... Using the service requires that you answer all of the spam calls you receive every day. If you own a business, this might be a fun service to use. But to the average consumer, Jolly Roger sounds like a horrible way to deal with constant spam callers.

@magnuson Not true. Not sure where you got your info, but it’s dead wrong. It blocks all calls. You get an email every time you get a new caller asking if it’s legit. If you say it is, then that caller has to press 1 to get through. If you say no, then every call from that number is sent to a random bot. I use it both on my cell and landline.

Ugh...just tried to setup your app but I can't get through the instructional screen because the app is not formatted for my screen size, iPhone 6s. The blue button on the "How Pepper Works" screen is just too low. I can send you a screenshot.

Almost all robocall apps on the market currently try to keep a huge list of spam numbers, and take action if they see the number that's dialing you matches a known spam number. We inverted the model and only let known callers (people in your contacts) directly call you - everyone else has to verify that they are a human first, but we don't block them outright. We're looking to make this more sophisticated in the future, but this is where we are at now!

@andrewjb44 Excited to see that you wanted to give us a try! Sorry about that. We should be able to push a fix without you needing to update the app - I will respond here as soon as we've got it fixed. Thanks for catching us on this!

@andrewjb44 Apple didn't push out our update from yesterday until about an hour ago - please give the app an update and let me know if it's working for you now!

@ani_ravi still a bit wonky, but I can get through the process. Thanks! I am all set up and have turned off all other blockers while I give you a go for the free 7 days. The paid rate is a bit steep for me but if it works I may have to find a way to fit it into my budget.

@evo_terra2 Thanks for this Evo!

@lisahesterman68 Same

Got it!

@mat_sherman With the particular way that we block robocalls, Apple probably wouldn't want to recreate or even try to compete with us in the first place. There are two main reasons for this: 1. There are costs associated with blocking robocalls, and it simply doesn't benefit Apple enough to pay for this. 2. It would just be too much work without enough benefit for Apple. Outright blocking robocalls before they even get to buzz a user's phone and perfecting that process is tricky because of funky international rules, edge cases, and multiple other variables like phone carrier varieties. That's why, for now, we're starting relatively narrow and only serving customers in the U.S. who use AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The most efficient way to tackle this problem would be to do it at the phone carrier level, but phone carriers haven't done a very good job at blocking robocalls so far.

@andrewjb44 Hi Andrew! 1. Numbers in your contacts list will always be considered "safe", and will not go through the spam filter. The only caveat here is that if you add new contacts to your list, you'd just need to open up Pepper so that we can automatically add the new contact to the safe list. This also happens automatically when you answer incoming calls. However, if the new contact still gets filtered for any reason, they'll be added to the safe-list and will never get filtered again. 2. That isn't a feature we have right now, but we would consider building that if people would find it really valuable! Mind if I ask what the rationale behind this feature is?

@adam_metcalf1 Thanks for this super helpful feedback Adam! Although for now, Pepper only filter out automated spam calls, we're working to improve Pepper to catch the cases you described as well. We'll keep you posted!

@keyul One of the main features that differentiates Pepper from TrueCaller (and many other competitors) is that Pepper filters incoming calls before they get a chance to ring your phone. Rather than having to read the caller id when you receive a call to see if it's probably spam, when using Pepper, you can pick up calls with confidence that the caller is definitely not spam. Rather than telling you a caller is "Scam Likely", we tell you that it's a "Person Definitely".

@adridder You're totally right-- users expect networks and phone companies to solve this problem. Unfortunately, since they're not, this problem is left to products like Pepper to solve! In terms of the competition, we'll continue to improve Pepper and do what it takes to compete with other upcoming and incumbent products. It'll take time, but we're confident that we can do it. Thanks for the feedback!

@bigyahu Noted, thanks! Please sign up for the mailing list on our website for updates.

@thisdickie thank you for letting us know! When we're ready to look at going international, the UK is at the top of the list.

@huntaround We'll keep you posted on this!

@saeed_hessami We're working on it! Happy to add you to our mailing list if you're interested.

@chase_rief1 Great feedback! We'll keep that in mind with next iterations.

@ethan_naluz So you can't even describe what the end users go through? I still have no idea what "human verification" is... is that a math problem? Pressing buttons? Please describe.

@chase_rief1 In addition to any other filters we do, a human would simply press a number via the keypad in response to the prompt from Pepper. The processing we do to determine the likelihood that the caller is a human increasingly gets more nuanced as Pepper improves, but regardless, we want to minimize the friction for a human caller to get connected to the person they called. Luckily, since only callers that aren't in your contacts list will ever be filtered, only the necessary callers will ever get prompted.

@claytonhartford Happy to add you to our mailing list if you're interested!

@bitgamey Great question! The difference between Pepper and the functionality you'd get from the link you shared is that Pepper doesn't outright block every caller that isn't in your contacts list. The article's method "... will only allow Calls from people who are on your Contacts List. All other Calls from unknown Callers or Callers with hidden Caller ID will be automatically silenced on your iPhone". For people who don't mind blocking all unknown numbers, following the steps in your article might work for them. For people who want to make sure they get calls from people, even if they're from people not in their contacts list, Pepper would be a better fit.

@ethan_naluz Thanks, I guess the response from Ani to another poster confused me: "We inverted the model and only let known callers (people in your contacts) directly call you - everyone else has to verify that they are a human first."

@jan_landy1 we totally understand! We'd love to decrease our costs over time.