If you are a business or individual who relies on trapcall to make phone calls, then it is important to remove it from your computer. trapcall is a scam that can steal your money and identity. If you do not remove it, you may be at risk of being scammed again. To remove trapcall from your computer, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Windows Control Panel and select the “System” tab.
  2. Scroll down and select the “Security” tab.
  3. Under the “Security Options” heading, select the “Disable traps in calls” option.
  4. Click on the “Apply” button to save your changes.

But those dollars don’t come without a cost: TrapCall is unreliable, difficult to administer and has high call volume. Nor does it appear anyone ever thought about how to get rid of TrapCall in the first place. If you have an active TrapCall account somewhere on your phone or voicemail, there’s no way to access it unless you still have your account information from when you signed up. If not, good luck trying to find someone from TrapCall willing to help, since that means the company would have had to keep someone around to do so.

What’s more, TrapCall is passive. It captures incoming calls and leaves them on your voicemail for you to listen to at a later time. If you’re not using it and never plan to use it again, what are you supposed to do with those calls? Sure, you can download them as .wav files via the TrapCall website or request an audio CD be mailed to you, but that’s work and shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place.

You also can’t tell TrapCall not to record certain phone numbers: Once your account has captured outgoing calls from a number, it doesn’t matter if that number is private or has changed — every call outbound from that line is captured unless you tell TrapCall otherwise.

The only ways to get rid of an active TrapCall account is to make a change in your voicemail greeting and have the number associated with your account call in from another phone, or change that same number on the TrapCall website and pay for a new activation code so you can set up the service again if you ever need it. But like we said earlier, pretty much everyone hates TrapCall — including businesses that use it — which makes getting anyone to answer customer service calls pretty difficult. And they’re expensive: At least $1 per incoming call recorded after the first 15 minutes of setup time, plus $7.99 for every CD mailed out each month.

We have a few suggestions….

1: Change your voicemail greeting. If you want to keep the service, we’re not going to stop you: Change your voicemail greeting and say “This is not an answering machine” before any greetings that come after it. Only put one number on this greeting, preferably for a residential or mobile phone where you can use the same call-blocking features available on landlines. You could also use your business number here if it’s listed in the carrier’s Caller ID database — many customers are willing to pay extra money every month so they can see which businesses are calling them as well as who has called them in the past. This option is imperfect but still better than the original TrapCall service.

2: Change your voicemail greeting and pay for a new activation code . Instead of giving out your old account information, buy a new activation code. This can be done right on the TrapCall website, where you’ll also be able to listen to your saved calls. However, this option is going to cost you $30 — $7 per month plus a one-time setup fee — not including the price of short codes , which usually run in packages of 1,000 or more at about $20 each if purchased from the carrier directly. If you need an audio CD mailed to you every month instead of just downloading files via email — presumably because you want copies stored offsite somewhere — that will run you an additional $7.99 per month.

3: Call TrapCall and tell them to stop holding your calls in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act . If you need help doing this or have any other questions, just email us at tips at consumerist dot com — we’ll even let you know if there’s anyone still reading our legal advice columns here. This option may not be worth it to everyone — especially those who don’t already hate TrapCall enough — but we think it might prove worth the time for a few customers involved in ongoing cases against the company right now…and those who are tired of getting voicemails from individuals and companies they’ve successfully avoided over the last six years.

As of today, TrapCall is no longer accepting new customers on their website; they’ve also removed all download links from their site and started charging $30 per activation code plus $7.99 shipping (even if you just buy one). We will continue to leave our previous advice posted in case anyone wants it, but we recommend everyone switch over to Google Voice, which provides free incoming call blocking and can even block outbound calls automatically by routing them through Google’s servers before you ever get the chance to answer. You can also send voicemail messages via email or have Google transcribe your voice mails in text form so they’re easier to search for keywords — both things that will cost you with TrapCall if you want any of those features.

Finally, we’d like to remind people who are planning on using TrapCall as a way to make sure other people never see their personal phone number that it doesn’t really work that way anymore: Any customer who has retained recordings of your voice mail greetings is going to be able to use those recordings against you — they’ve got evidence right there in their voicemail inbox!

Somehow, we doubt that anyone who needs to call you again after receiving a recording of your voice mail is going to be willing to pay $7 per month over and above the cost of short codes or traditional caller ID services — making TrapCall not only expensive but also extraordinarily ineffective.

Just as with their original service, TrapCall really seems more like something you’d expect from an angry 13-year-old’s idea of what they think a business should look like versus something you might actually want for everyday use. We’ll leave it up to the readers here whether they still feel differently or share our opinion; check out the comments below if you have any thoughts on this latest update. The best way to get them heard, though (and the way that will make sure they stick around), is to vote with your feet and start using something else instead.

TrapCall announced today that it’s also going to start “turning over user information including names and phone numbers — to anyone who pays $5 per month or more for a subscription service.” It will give callers an opportunity to listen to voicemail messages, too; those can be played back at 1/8 speed by dialing *3 on their cell phone after calling in. Once again, we’re not really sure what people see in this service — but if you think there’s someone out there who might find it useful (or if you just want revenge on a co-worker or ex-friend), you can sign up for it here .

We do have to agree with the letter writer who pointed out that this is not a great way to stop harassment from telemarketers; as we noted in our initial post on TrapCall, it’s just about impossible to tell when a company is calling from an automated system versus an actual human being. And there’s also the small issue of getting charged $7 per month plus some extra charges every time someone calls you — remember, if your caller ID shows [email protected], your callers are going to know where those charges are coming from and will be more likely to continue calling you at all hours of the day and night because they.

First open the Google Play app, then press and hold on the hamburger menu icon in the top left corner until a pop-up appears.Then click on TrapCall: Reveal No Caller ID and choose “uninstall.”

Open the Voice app.At the top left, tap Menu – Settings – Calls For me. Turn Anonymous Caller ID on or off to control whether your phone number is displayed when you make a call.

TrapCall can identify calls that have been blocked but it cannot unblock them. Spoofed numbers are impossible to identify and unmask, so they should be treated like any other call you might receive.