Incoming and outgoing call recorders are very widely downloaded today. Even if you have not personally tried recording phone calls using these call recorders, you may at least heard of its existence from a friend or colleague.

In the last two years, incoming and outgoing call recorders have gained popularity among young adults and students. Everyone from older teens to high school have been downloading something known as call recorder apps, which enable recording of actual phone conversations on iPhones and Android Phones.

These easy-to-use smartphone apps allow any call to be recorded, without the other party actually knowing. You can imagine that young teens would find very interesting ways for using a tool like that.  

Having the ability to record phone calls has opened up new possibilities for recorded prank calls and recorded practical jokes among young adult and students.

Since these incoming and outgoing call recorders can record calls without explicitly informing parties in the call that they being recorded, young adults and teenagers exploit this loop-hole to make recordings of funny or provocative phone conversations without their knowledge.  

Furthermore, these incoming and outgoing call recorders usually offer the service for very low prices, which makes it possible for students to make multiple recordings with more than one different victim.

How are call recording apps used in prank calls and practical jokes?

Students creatively launch fake phone calls pretending to be someone else, such as from a government agency or from a hospital department. What they would then do is to pretend to be delivering an urgent or serious piece of news that would be sensitive or powerful enough to draw a reaction.

Some examples of these urgent or serious messages are pretending that a family member got kidnapped, or in extreme cases pretend of involvement in car accidents or even accidental death.

Naturally, these types of phone calls can be really shocking or even tear-jerking for anyone to receive. These students have the incoming and outgoing call recorders already set up in the background to record every word and sound in the phone call.

Students also launch automated voice messages and to fool callers and record them

Students also make use of robo-callers and automated voice messages to fool call recipients into saying funny or illogical things.

For example, in a popular phone prank above, the automated voice message asks the call recipient to state his or her full name or else have their numbers passed on to telemarketing companies.

In fear of receiving more spam calls or robocalls, recipients might get disconcerted and give up their real names in a state of panic.  

Spam calls and robocalls are so prevalent today that most people are afraid to be exposed to any increase in the number of these calls.

Read here to learn why you are receiving so many spam and scam calls

Are these prank calls ethically bad?

If you ask any student that have tried recorded prank calls they are very likely to tell you good things about their experience are how much fun it is. However, recording of phone calls without someone's knowledge and even scaring someone with a fake piece of information involving very real people are ethically not right.

If the prank callers do not end the prank soon enough or to sufficiently explain or reveal to the recipient that it is just a practical joke, the recipient might not take it very well and become at a risk of psychological issues or trauma.

Thankfully, must states in the US have call recording laws that state you have to get the consent of the other party in the call. However, you can still skip that step by not letting the party know at all and still go on with the recording.

Conclusion: Are incoming and outgoing call recorders bad or do they have practical uses?

Incoming and outgoing call recorders were created for good purposes such as to record calls for family and loved ones, or for work and business.

For loved ones, these call recorders help to capture special moment in phone calls that may be lost forever if not recorded. For work and business, some calls may contain more important discussions that others and may be useful to record for further reference what was said and talked about in the business call.

Therefore they are not always bad but it would depend on how users use it to what benefit.