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Joel Pruitt

Editor, robocall guides

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Joel edits the guides at RoboReport. He started the site because his own phone would not stop ringing around dinner time, and because every explanation he found was either a sales page or a wall of jargon. He writes each guide from the primary sources (the FTC, FCC and the phone makers' own support pages) and rereads it a week later with a cold cup of coffee to cut anything he cannot back up. He keeps a paper notebook next to the kitchen phone with the time, the opening line and what the call turned out to be, which is where most of his examples come from. Joel would rather say 'it depends on your carrier' than guess, and he answers correction emails himself.

What Joel does here

Joel writes and edits every guide on RoboReport, and answers the contact form himself. His method is plain. He reads the original source, whether that is a page from the FTC or a phone maker's help article, writes the guide in his own words, and sets it aside for a few days. Then he rereads it and cuts every sentence that he cannot back up with a source or his own notes.

The notebook is the part readers ask about. It sits by the kitchen phone and holds the time, the number shown, the opening line and what the call turned out to be. It is where most of the examples in the guides come from, and it is why the tone here is a little tired and a lot practical. He does not claim any special background beyond reading the sources carefully and paying attention to what actually rings on his phone.

When a phone update changes a menu, he taps through the steps again before changing the page. When he does not know something, such as how a given carrier handles star codes, the guide says it depends. Corrections are welcome through the contact page, and he would rather be told he is wrong than keep a mistake on the site. You can read more about how the site works on the about page.

Below are the guides he has written so far, newest first.

Away from the site, his phone habits are unremarkable. Silence Unknown Callers is on, voicemail gets checked in the evening, and the Do Not Call Registry entry is old enough to vote. None of that stops the calls. It only makes them quieter, which is a fair summary of what most of these guides promise.