Hi all, I have reached the capabilities of my Panasonic cordless phones for blocking spam. (250). I have Verizon landline (not FIOS) so Nomorobo will not work. Questions follow:
Buy new cordless phones with greater capacity?
If so recommend a brand: Panasonic - V-tech - ?
Buy a separate call blocker? e.g. CPR V5000
If so recommend a brand:
Other comments:
Start over. Chances are most of the numbers you blocked were forged anyway and are not being used any more. I got three calls today that were spoofed. In once case, it is a number I may need in the future.
Block all you want but the callers have many tools and use millions of numbers.
Not in answer to the questions, but .. in my district - the text-spam-blocking used by Telus - mistakenly blocked all the text notifications for covid vaccination appointments big Doh ! John T.
On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 16:32:22 -0400, Ed Pawlowski posted for all of us to digest...
I have done that, at least five times. Most of the spoofed numbers appear local. Until the gov't forces the network providers to block them we are SOL.
The only reason I am interested is the wife asks who called? Endlessly.
Consumer Reports calls these Best Buys. AT&T EL51103 Rated 68. $25 AT&T EL51203 Rated 68. $35
With Answering Machines. Also Best Buys.
Some have several handsets, Bluetooth, charging port, battery backup. Panasonic KX-TGE445B Rated 75. $130 VTech CS6949 Rated 75. $45 Panasonic KX-TGE463S Rated 74. $105 VTech CS6649 Rated 72. $50 Panasonic KX-TGE433B Rated 72. $90
The last tests might be in September 2016.
I have heard that complaint here too with the texts and people hang up on the call or just ignore it.
My wife had blocked one of my consulting clients a while back. It is useless to block as numbers are forged.
Our current Comcast VoIP now puts a "V" in front of a caller's name to say call is verified as coming from that number.
I had a Verizon landline that I gave up a few years ago. While it was on fiber they charged old landline prices charging extra for long distance and things like caller ID and call block.
You need Wifeblocker, version 2.1 recently released. Available at a divorce lawyer near you.
Use a number from a non-local Area Code, then ignore all calls from that Area Code. That has been extremely effective for me.
Switch to VOIP like OOMA and pay for the premium service - still cheaper than POTS
If cost is a concern, Google Voice is apparently still free (at least within the US) and comes preconfigured on Obihai VoIP devices and possibly others, as well.
I still have an Obi202 around here somewhere.
I gave up marking calls spam on my Ooma after realizing the numbers are endless. Now I just pick up and hang up if it's not a known caller. That national no-call list was nice - when it still worked.
I assume you don't have caller I.D. If your line is purely residential, consider letting all calls go to voice mail/answering machine possibly screening them as the messages are left. Never pick up or return the spam calls. We've never had a live person spam caller leave a message.
The above strategy may or may not be a practical solution if the line is used for business purposes.
If you do have caller I.D. our panasonic wireless system allows you to sort incoming calls from numbers in the phone's directory into as many as 5 categories and you can assign a different ring tone to each category. We have all numbers from callers we consider "important" assigned to one ringtone and all other numbers to another. Important calls get answered. All the others are left to go to voice mail. About
90% of all those calls are either robo calls that sneak through NOMOROBO and Comcast and leave their recorded junk, or are live person spam calls and no message is left.
I have Spectrum cable and phone. The phone number of incoming calls pops up on top of my tv screen when the phone rings. Is there something similar you could use? Is there a way to accept certain calls but send unknowns to voice mail? Maybe forward the ones you want to a cheap cell phone?
Did it ever work? If the phone company can't even detect a forged number I guess that old "trace a call" thing went out the window with Ernestine. I wonder if there is a way to block all VOIP calls. Everyone I know calls me from their cell phone. Businesses can just E-mail me. I don't want any of them calling me.
Mine filled up and I had to erase it and start over (although I could add a few recent numbers from CID memory). It would have been nice if it automatically deleted least-recently-used entries rather than failing.
They use so many different numbers now that blocking by number isn't very useful. Since most of these junk calls are identified by "city st" (for example "OGDEN UT" or "SPRING TX") as the caller ID NAME, so a lot could be blocked by using pattern matching on NAME. Patterns like "* UT". However, I have never seen any device that would do that (it would be very useful).
I finally settled for a whitelist device which will intercept calls if the caller's number isn't on a list you enter.
Most of these seem to hang up before my answering machine even picks up. If not they won't leave a message most of the time. I only have one phone here that rings and I turn that ringer off a lot or set it so low I have to be right there to hear it. The first thing I usually hear is the message people are leaving, if they leave one.
It worked well for me for at least 5 years after it started. I recall telling a few callers not to call again or I'd report them to the FTC. I just checked and I signed up in
2003.
I have no idea who's calling because I never listen. Anybody know who's calling me? I probably average 2 calls a day but some days - today is one - get none. I had assumed the do not call list was defunct, but I see the FTC still has it running. So I think it only scammers calling. Does anybody actually listen to them?
On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 18:46:03 -0400, Frank posted for all of us to digest...
I can't get call block from Verizon, guess they can't make as much money...
On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 19:03:52 -0400, Ed Pawlowski posted for all of us to digest...
Nah, she's so great in so many ways.
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