I have heard good things about a service called NoMoRobo, but it requires that you phone service support something called "Simultaneous Ring". We have the most el-cheapo basic phone service and I am too cheap to pay more, so I do not have experience.
Another option (which I am toying with) is going over to a VOIP provider for phone service.
I already have all outgoing, except 800, calls going out on VOIP.
If I were to switch the incoming over, I could use a service provided by my VOIP provider (CallCentric.com) that prefixes every incoming call (except those on a GoldList that I maintain) with an announcement like "Please press 3 to talk with somebody...".
I figure robocallers won't be able to deal with that challenge-response situation... at least for a few years.
If you have digital voice through Verizon, go to NOMOROBO.com and sign up.. No charge and they are very good in blocking calls.. I've been using them 2 years and they work great..
I have been using what my phone lists as "Call Control v3.1.18.2" for a couple of years now and my cell phone telemarketing/robo calls have dropped by at least 90%.
Just checked Google Play, and it looks like they have changed the name to "Call Blocker - Blacklist App" viz
They hold old numbers out of service for months/years before putting them back. I've had many new/existing numbers, no hangup calls 10 times a day. It's like saying you shouldn't leave your boyfriend who's beating you over the head because the next BG might do the same.
Actually, depending upon your locale, the numbers are reused rather quickly.
Regardless, it doesn't make any appreciable difference as the robocallers just run down all possible numbers in an area code or exchange(s).
e.g. 773-555-1212, 773-555-1213, 773-555-1214, 773-555-1215 and so on.
The two things (other than the damn pests themselves) that upset me most are...
1) the robocalls that hang up when you pick up because the cretin who's supposed to give you the sales pitch just got a live one from another number. The robocall promotion just keeps dialing your number in sequence until both your and their scumbag marketer are both on the line simultaneously, and
2) the politicians, non-profits or whomever who, when you tell them you are on the Do Not Call list explain to you that THEY are NOT governed by that law. That's when my day gets brightened a bit because I feel quite justified in saying (regardless of who is on the other end) "Well, they need to include dumb ass mother truckers like you who feel special. If I don't want to be bothered with this sh*t it includes YOUR sh*t! Go f**k yourself."
That may do little good other than making me feel a bit better about having been disturbed by the jerks.
Something is wrong here. I may get a few "dead air" type of phone calls, but most of them have a recorded robotic voice that appears when I say something or when I pickup the line. Telemarketers might be evil, but they're not stupid. They would not waste the cost of a call just to deliver "dead air". Certainly not for 4 years of "dead air". Something is wrong.
My guess(tm) is something is wrong with your Verizon POTS line that is initiating a ring, but not completing the call. I've seen this with some electronic phones, where there is sufficient crosstalk in the wire bundle to pickup some of the ringing voltage from other lines in the bundle. However, those don't also pass Caller ID numbers and only ring a few phones in the house, so that's not a likely failure mode. Unless the provisioning is mangled or the Verizon switch has gone insane, I can't guess(tm) what might be causing the calls.
I was thinking it might be a fax machine trying to send a fax repeatedly, but that would be from one phone number and certainly not for 4 years. You would also hear a tone as the originating fax machine tries to negotiate the call. Are the numbers shown on the Caller ID all identical or perhaps similar as from a calling group?
I assume that you've contacted Verizon. Changing your phone number might be an obvious option that I'm sure they would have suggested. If the problem persists, it's a hardware or switch problem. If it goes away, problem solved.
On the other hand, the vague problem description, improbable symptoms, and odd selection of crossposted newsgroups leads me to suspect that this is some manner bad joke or time burner. Please assure me this problem is real by posting some details.
"In telephony, a special information tone (SIT) is an in-band international standard signal consisting of three rising tones indicating a call has failed. It usually precedes a recorded announcement describing the problem "
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"Because many predictive dialers (used in telemarketing) respond to SITs, consumer devices such as the TeleZapper play an Intercept SIT to trick the telemarketer's equipment into flagging a called number as disconnected.
Alternatively, the above recordings of SITs could be used on a voicemail or answering machine, or played manually on a computer, to achieve a similar effect."
Assuming USA, assuming landline. Add sit.wav to the beginning of your answer message. It cut robo calls by about 30%. Some robo calls go right to a recorded message and never hear the sit.wav though. Or just use sit.wav as an answer message and nothing else. Doing that not only confuses robo machines but confuses humans, too, and they hang up.
Its a crap shoot. It may be better, it may be worse. Your experience does not reflect the rest of the US phone system. I know people that changed numbers and regret it it. They may be held a while, but not like it used to be.
Changing your phone number can be a problem too, depending on who needs to contact you and how many people have to be notified. Someone always miss the change too.
Even a "good" number is not always good. If you are one digit off from the local drug dealer, pizza shop or other high volume user, expect a lot of calls for them too. At work we had an 800 number one digit off from Alaska Airlines. Never a day went buy we did not get a call. Used to be a source for fun. Even after answering and saying this is (company name) they would go on with a ticket or routing question.
Considering all the junk calls I've received in the last year, that would be several hundred numbers. Many (most) of those won't be used again. For this device to be of much use to me, I'd need this year's list in advance. And then, since many of the numbers would be spoofed, some important calls may be blocked.
When the federal Do-Not-Call list was new, I registered for it, and forawhile was getting almost no junk calls. Now, I get as many as before.
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Here I left the regular phone company (Verizon, formerly GTE) and switched to cable (Suddenlink, formerly Cox) and saved about 50%. I'm not sure if that's still true as it's part of a "bundle".
Call blocking devices are more of a placebo than anything useful. My Panasonic phones have a feature that allows you to add numbers that you want to block. As of today, I have 98 numbers blocked, at least 14 of these belong to "Consumer Services". If their robocaller doesn't get an answer on one line, it just uses another of the hundreds of lines they lease. They spoof their phone numbers also. I too, have gotten calls from my own number.
I'm not saying to give up, but you will never stop these calls completely.
I received several calls where the caller ID name was "NBF" rather than something more meaningful, and this is commonly an indication of a junk call. However, it turned out to be a billing company for a medical treatment I had.
BTW, the place that did the treatment showed up as "CVC", but at least I was expecting that.
Not always true. I got a phone connected and almost immediately started getting some bill collector calls (not for anything I owed). Then one of them said a name as in "Mr. Robertson, we expect you to..........". Well, that's not my name, so I grabbed an older phone book at the library, and found that someone with that name DID have this same phone number, and not too long ago. (probably one year ago at most).
On one occasion, after repeated calls from this same place, telling me to call an 800 number, I called them and angerily told them that they have the wrong number, there is no such person at this number, and "Do not call again". I even told them that I checked the phone book, and this number appears to have been formerly owned by someone with that name, but it's been reassigned.
Guess what, within 48 hours they were calling again. It was about 5pm on a Friday when I got their message on my answering machine again. I was quite pissed, and I called them again, ready to blow off some steam. I got a recording that said "please hold for the next available person". After waiting a few minutes, I laid down ther phone and walked away. Several minutes later, I picked up the phone and heard their "elevator music". I set the phone down and went about cooking dinner, cleaning the bathroom, etc. At this point, I forgot about the phone, and it was not until several hours later that I saw the phone off the hook, and when I picked it up, I still heard that elevator music.
Since it was an 800 number, I knew THEY were paying for the call, and since I did not need the phone, I'd just leave it off the hook and run up their phone bill expense. Friday turned to Saturday, then Sunday, and I still heard their crappy music on my phone. The last time I lifted the phone was around 1:00 am Monday morning when I was getting ready for bed. Yep, their music was still playing.....
Monday morning around 8:30AM, I heard the BEEP BEEP sound you get when a phoen is off the hook. I grabbed the phone and it was no longer connected. Well, that means that my phone was connected to their 800 number from 5 pm on Friday, until around 8 am on Monday. A total of about 53 hours. I'm sure they had a HUGE phone bill to pay!
After that, I started getting repeated hangup calls. I called my phone company, and explained the whole situation. They said they would put a trace on my phone. I guess this means they can trace all of my calls, but when I asked what they do after tracing them, they told me that they can block specific numbers that appear to be causing the problem, but that there has to be proof that this is not a legitimate call. They said that they could just change my phone number if I requested it.
After finding out there was no cost to change the number, I just had them change it, and I was sure to tell them to *NOT* give me a number that was used by another person for at least five years. I got a new number and never had that problem again.
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