Customers tell you they see Suspected spam or Possible spam when your number calls them, and fewer people answer. The warning comes from an app on their phone rather than from the phone network, so no operator can remove it. Here is where it comes from and what does help.
Where the label actually lives
Several companies run caller-identification databases that phones consult when a call comes in: Hiya, which powers Samsung's Smart Call, along with Truecaller, Whoscall, RoboKiller, YouMail and CallApp. Anyone with such an app can mark a call as spam, and from then on other users of the same service see the label.
Two things put a number on a list: someone with one of these apps reports a call, or the pattern of traffic on the number itself draws the database's attention. The second is why a number can be listed again after a review has cleared it.
That label sits on the number, in a database owned by a third party. It is not on your line, not in your phone system and not at your carrier. This is the part worth accepting early, because it decides what can and cannot be done: neither we nor any telephone provider can clear an entry we do not own.
First find out which service is doing it
It is not always the one you expect. We have had a case where Hiya reviewed a reported number and replied that they had not labelled it at all, and that either another service had, or individual recipients had blocked the number themselves. Ask the customer who mentioned it which phone they use and which caller-ID app is active on it. Without that, you may spend weeks on the wrong database.
Register your numbers yourself
This is the step with the widest effect and it is what the databases themselves recommend. Registering a business number is faster than filing a complaint afterwards and it covers more networks.
- Hiya, free business account: business.hiya.com. Start here: it is the database behind Samsung's Smart Call and the one named for European numbers.
- First Orion: calltransparency.com
- TNS: reportarobocall.com
Verify your number on your Google Business Profile as well. It is the listing Google and Apple draw on for the name shown with an unknown number.
Ask for a review of a number already labelled
Hiya takes review requests through their own form, and we are happy to submit one for you. Removal is not guaranteed and it can take weeks, so start the other steps at the same time rather than waiting for an answer.
Move your outbound number and let the old one rest
In practice this works fastest. You stay reachable on every number you have, so callbacks to the old one still arrive, and the flagged number gets a chance to drop off the lists while nobody calls out with it.
Where you change it depends on the platform. On Zendesk Talk it is the Allow outbound calls? setting on the line: a number with it switched off no longer appears in the call console, although system callbacks still go out over it. See Can I change the outbound caller number. On Wildix the outgoing caller ID is set in WMS at three levels and the higher one wins: the trunk overrides the Dialplan, and the Dialplan overrides Full Name and Office number on the user. Tell us the number if you would rather we made the change.
It suits a campaign or outbound sales number better than a main company number that is printed on your website and in your signatures. For teams calling out at volume, a small pool of numbers that you rotate is the common arrangement.
Showing your name instead of just a number
Caller name is not carried by the Dutch phone network, so there is no setting that adds it. What exists are paid listings in the same databases that do the labelling, and, on Wildix CLASSOUND, branded calling on numbers in the United States and Germany. That route needs a number in one of those two countries and a company registered there, so it is not open to a Dutch number. See Branded calls with Extended CNAM for what that covers.
A different warning with a different cause
A network can also block or flag a call whose caller ID cannot be verified, which is a separate mechanism from the databases above and is fixed at the configuration end. If the warning appears on every call rather than on calls to certain handsets, treat it as that problem instead.
When it keeps coming back
Where a number is listed again and again despite registration and review requests, the party to address is the one running the database rather than your telephone provider. The label is theirs and so is the decision to remove it. Anything beyond the registration and review routes above is a step you take yourself, and one worth putting to your own legal advice first. We supply what we have on record for the number so you have the call history and the dates to hand.
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