Telephone Safety Blog
okCaller Site Update
Our website launched about sixteen months ago, in June 2014.
In just a little over a year, eighty million people have used OkCaller to obtain accurate and free phone number information. We hope you have found our service trustworthy and reliable, and will continue to visit us for our advanced phone number research tools.
We read all emails sent to info@okcaller.com, and appreciate the feedback provided by our users. Frequently we implement new features as a result of user feedback, or discover a previously unknown glitch :)
While still a relatively new website, please help us grow by continuing to provide word-of-mouth recommendations, social media reviews, or other links to our website.
Our site provides safety information for every phone number in the United States and Canada, in the form of real-time directory assistance and user reviews (SafeCaller tags). We are the only website licensed to provide our proprietary real time directory assistance technology to the public.
We never charge money for phone directory searches, and will never ask for your credit card or payment information. Our website is advertising sponsored. Occasionally, you may see advertisements for paid-search and advanced background search companies, which do require a fee. To clarify, these sites are not owned by OkCaller and are simply advertising on our site, as they would do on any other internet site with ads enabled.
From time to time, users email us regarding an ongoing safety issue and request our assistance, for example in locating or tracing a call related to criminal activity. Always contact your local authorities or 9-1-1 for assistance with urgent safety matters. We will then comply with law enforcement requests for any information we have that may be of use.
How to protect yourself
from telephone scams
While VOIP phone services and instant approval cell phones have made communication easier than ever, there's a downside to this accessible technology. Phone-based scams have also become far more common. Knowing the signs of prevalent over the phone scams and knowing how to get the facts can help keep you and your wallet safe.
The "Fraud Protection" Scam
In this credit card scam, you receive a call from someone who claims to be from VISA or Mastercard. The scammer will tell you that he or she is conducting an investigation into recent unauthorized purchases. She'll sometimes have extensive information about the victim, including a name and some recent purchases. Often, the caller will ask victims questions like, "Did you recently purchase an Anti-Telemarketing phone device for $399 from a marketing company based in Atlanta?" The product name and the location will vary.
Since it's a phony purchase, the answer will be "no." The scammer then says that she is authorized to issue a credit to the account to make up for the fraudulent purchase. All she needs is a little more information.
He or she will ask to verify the three digits on the back of your card. If you tell the scammer the three digit verification code, she'll usually give a (bogus) confirmation number and tell you to call the number on the back of your card if you have any questions. Only then does the suspicious charge appear on your card.
Because so little information is requested, many people fall for this scam. To protect yourself from this sort of credit card phone scam, never give out any portion of your credit card number or the verification numbers on the back to someone who calls you. If you do receive a call, you should call your credit card company immediately for verification.
You can also gain extra protection by entering suspicious phone numbers into the search at SafeCaller. SafeCaller allows users to tag numbers as "Not OK" to indicate that those numbers are associated with fraud or harassment. Research suspicious calls before giving any important information and use information available on our site to empower yourself as a consumer and keep your money and data safe.
Managing Your Number Listings
In this interconnected age, each of us has information online on dozens, if not hundreds, of sites. However, this information is often not up to date or not accurate in the first place. Many of us move to new cities or states for work. In other cases, we switch phone carriers and are not able to port our old numbers with us when we go.
With over 800 million phone and address book contacts, SafeCaller is one of the world's largest online directories. And, by allowing you to control how your presence appears online, this site stays accurate, useful and up-to-date. Make sure that people can contact you where and how you prefer by creating an account and editing your listing to show the most accurate information possible.
Want to change how your information appears on SafeCaller? We allow registered users to:
- Add new phone numbers.
- Update or correct names.
- Modify existing phone numbers and addresses.
- Make their contact information private.
By taking control of your SafeCaller listing, you can specify a specific phone number where you prefer to get calls or update your number when you change mobile phone providers. Not only can you ensure that your most up to date contact information is available; you can choose to display only the information you want shown. Curate your online contact information to make it possible for business associates, old friends and others to contact you at exactly the number your prefer.
To use this service, you need to be a registered SafeCaller user. You can register on the home page by logging in through Facebook or creating an account using your email address.
Then, log in to the site, and double check your listings to see if they are up to date. Make any updates or changes to ensure that your SafeCaller listing shows exactly the information that you want to share.
Part of grooming your online reputation is taking control of your contact information online. Carefully curate your presence to show your most current and accurate information so that important opportunities do not pass you by.
Why online directories can still come in handy
As a nation, we’ve pretty much given up on phone books.
Though we may get a new one tossed on the porch once a year, it likely heads straight to the recycle bin in many households. After all, why should you thumb through a hefty alphabetic tome when we can just type the name we’re seeking for into our mobile devices?
A 2013 MSN/Money article says a growing number of states are allowing customers to opt-out of the annual distribution of at least the White Pages. The Yellow Pages have a little more staying power but odds are even this traditional medium may dry up in the future as advertisers move more of their spending away from paper.
So where can people go to get the info they seek that they traditionally acquired via those walking fingers? How about an online directory, which is a natural evolution of our collective interest in sorting and organizing data, but in a much easier to use format.
Online directories have several advantages to their print counterparts, which could explain their growing popularity and usefulness.
- Easy to edit. With traditional hard copy directories, once a mistake was made, like a typo or incorrect/incomplete info, it stayed for at least a year. Likewise, if someone moved to town in the middle of the year, they would have to wait until the next publication to get their name or their ad included. With an online directory, it’s often very simple to add or modify an entry or advertisement.
- Easy to sort. While White pages or Yellow pages are considered general interest -- everyone who lives in a certain geographic area, A-Z, for instance – online directories can be broken out to be any group and any field – all it takes is some simple database creation. You can have everyone who lives in an area, or everyone who attends a particular school. Any field that can be created can be used to define who is in your directory.
- Users are already well-trained. Since phone books have been around for generations (1878 to be exact, according to This Day in Tech History), we generally understand the concept of a method to search for someone’s number by knowing their name.
Next-Generation Telephone Directory
Launches New Website
June 10, 2014 –A next-generation telephone directory has just launched a new website known as SafeCaller.com. The site is aimed at improving online data transparency in communications. Users may search for contact information of businesses and individual contacts by name or by way of reverse look-up using zip code or phone number.
Next-generation telephone services can make communications easier to keep initiate and keep track of. A notable feature of next-generation telephone entries is that the information is bundled together, so the name, phone number, and other information such as zip code or street address are a single unit. Having this data as a single entity can save time while allowing for increased control over privacy and reduced confusion over history of contact with an individual or business.
SafeCaller is free for all visitors to use. Investigators may use the reverse look-up feature to search for the name and address associated with a phone number. They can also input whether a specific phone number is a known nuisance, such as belonging to a prank caller or telemarketer. The database contains over 20 million businesses and 800 million data items.
Registration is free, and registered users have more options. They can use the reverse look-up feature to browse by zip code, or can input a name to find the associated phone number and zip code. For registered users, search histories are automatically saved in an address book, and users may take notes on their entries. In addition, registered users can see who has looked them up, and can send short messages directly to specific phone numbers using SafeCaller’s receipt messaging service.
SafeCaller was founded by a team of computer scientists and business development experts with years of experience in startups. Committed to improving online data transparency, this team of entrepreneurs began SafeCaller with the mission of making next-generation communication tools available to the public. The service increases the potential for individuals to access analytics and control of privacy.
More information about this next-generation telephone directory is available on the company’s website at www.SafeCaller.com. The company may be contacted via email at support@SafeCaller.com for information about items not answered in the frequently asked questions section of the site.
Next-Generation Phone Technology:
How It Helps You
SafeCaller.com is a next-generation telephone directory. The objective of this online service is to improve data transparency on the internet, making it easier to find others’ contact information. SafeCaller.com provides its services for free to all users. Without having an account or logging in, any visitor can perform a reverse look-up using phone number. You can take advantage of the site’s more advanced features by registering for a free account.
Find and Save Contacts
As a registered user, you can browse by zip code in a reverse look-up, or search by name. When you are logged in to SafeCaller.com, your searches are automatically saved. You can access your search history in your address book, which records the name, phone number, and address of each entity that you looked up, and when you performed the search. Since SafeCaller.com promotes data transparency, it also allows you to view who has searched for your name or phone number recently.
Additional Features
SafeCaller.com has a number of other features that can be helpful for improving data transparency online and giving the public more opportunities for analytics.
- Tag a phone number as “Safe” or “not Safe.” After you search for a phone number and find the associated contact, you can mark if the phone number is “safe,” or if it is “not safe,” which can mean that it is associated with a telemarketer, bill collector, or prank caller.
- Put an SafeCaller.com widget on your website. Insert the provided html code on your own website to allow your site’s visitors to use SafeCaller.com’s directory.
- Edit your information. Increase your privacy by managing which of your online information is visible to the public.
Coming Soon to SafeCaller.com
The directory includes data on over 20 million businesses, and has compiled over 800 million distinct pieces of data such as phone numbers, names, and zip codes of individuals and businesses. Currently, most of the data in the directory is from the United States, with some data from Canada. Data from more countries is expected to be added soon.
You will soon also be able to take advantage of SafeCaller.com’s app for your mobile device, which is scheduled to come out later in 2014. Currently, although there is not yet an app, the web-based site is fully functional on Android devices and iPhones.