TrueCall trueCall

I’ve had the Truecall a couple of months now.

Lots of problems initially... The biggest of which was that Truecall put through silent calls. It seemed to detect so much noise on the line, it accepted this as someone speaking to identify themselves. But, using a normal phone, there was no noise on the line. Secondly, the Weblink feature wouldn’t work; it called the Truecall number OK but always failed to transfer any information. Research on the internet seemed to indicate others had suffered this problem.

So I contacted Truecall’s helpdesk. They immediately offered to send me a replacement unit, all postage paid. It turne up in a couple of days. Unfortunately this behaved just the same. I was then thinking ‘well it’s not a faulty unit, then’ but Truecall insisted on me trying a third one: same issues again.

We went through all the expected trouble shooting: disconnect other phones, move Truecall away from other equipment, try another ADSL microfilter. Nothing made any difference. We did establish that the issue was connected to ADSL, as with my ADSL modem disabled, the noise stopped and Truecall worked perfectly.

So although it certainly looked like the problems were down to my phone line, Truecall were unable to come up with a solution or a workaround for this and offered a full refund upon return of the device. I called BT and they did some remote line checks and said there was nothing wrong. Obviously, they blamed the Truecall! However, I really wanted this installed and working, and normal phones were working fine, so I persisted. Research on the internet and trying various things, in an effort to resolve the problem. Finally, although I didn’t get a 100% solution, I improved matters enough for Truecall to start working as it's supposed to.

Things to try if you are having similar issues: add a second ADSL microfilter on the phone line. That is, have two filters, one after the other, to the Truecall (plug your ADSL lead in the first). And use good quality filters, not 99p ones. Secondly, get a BT I-Plate for your phone line. It has additional filtering in it. The first of these solutions resolved my problems, and the second improved things again. I suspect there is a line fault, but it's marginal; bad enough to affect the Truecall, but not enough to affect normal phones.

In summary, Truecall’s helpdesk were helpful in that did as much as they could, but I ended up solving the problem myself, so, support was a little disappointing, overall. Lucky I’m technically minded, then - I guess most people would have given up and returned the unit for refund!

So on a positive note, it is now working and it certainly does stop unwanted calls, it’s almost miraculous! I don’t think we’ve received a single cold call since Truecall started working. The features and functionality are just as advertised and (except for the above!) work well. Known numbers just ring straight through and neither they nor you are inconvenienced at all. All the 'baddies' have to go through call screening and even if your phone does ring, you can just 'zap' them when you hear who it is calling.

I have been using the Weblink on-line interface. It’s certainly very handy for making all the settings, and especially for viewing all the call activity. You get information on all incoming and outgoing calls. Some people have complained about the call cost (Truecall phones home to up/download info) but it’s mere pennies, once a fortnight (you can turn this feature off and/or set how often it calls home). I don’t feel the £15 a year for ongoing access to the web interface is excessive for the features you get. But if you do, then just don’t use it. It’s free for the first year and you don’t need it after you’ve got Truecall set up how you want, and anyway, most Truecall settings can be done via your phone handset.

If it weren't for all the initial issues, I would have given it 5 stars, but it took me so much trouble to get it working, I've makred it down.