Burner shuns telemarketers and robocalls with Nomorobo partnership

Burner has formed a partnership with Nomorobo in a move that aims to clean up calls and texts received through its disposable phone numbers. Starting today, most, if not all, robocalls and telemarketers will be prevented from being routed through, ensuring that those that call are relevant to your needs.

This feature is available for those with a Burner premium subscription and will be enabled by default. It’s the most recent connection that has been added to the platform since third-party support was introduced in 2015.

People are already using Burner phone numbers for various reasons: to ward off weird people they met at bars, to send files and images to services like Dropbox, Slack, or SoundCloud, or anything else a 10-digit number can be used for. But given the tenacity of telemarketers, it’s only a matter of time before a Burner-enabled number winds up on a call sheet. Since some numbers are used for a long period of time, ensuring that the quality of calls received are good is important — hence the integration with Nomorobo.

Available for those that subscribe to Burner’s $4.99 per month premium phone line service, when a robocall or telemarketer tries to make contact, Nomorobo screens and filters them out automatically. The latest connection leverages Nomorobo’s extensive database of “known, illegal robocallers…compiled with the help of the [Federal Trade Commission], user reports, and [Nomorobo’s] own honey traps.”

Not every program will be flawless, which is why you can whitelist numbers you believe are not spam. Burner places all blocked calls into a “filtered” section of your call history. Find the number you wish to protect, tap and select “move to inbox” to whitelist it so that future calls from that number get sent through and not blocked again.

As a standalone product, Nomorobo costs $1.99 per month per individual if you’re on a mobile device. There is a free plan, but only for landlines. But through the Burner integration, the spam call blocking service is available free of charge — if you’re a Burner premium customer.