War on Telemarketer Douchebags

[Morph]

[Frank]

Unfortunately our doctors offices often use robo calls to confirm appointments.

[Don Wiss]

NoMoRobo is better. It can tell between wanted and unwanted robo calls. The downside is some unwanted robo calls will make it through.

The blocked calls are not immediately blocked. They will ring once before NoMoRobo kills it.

Anyone that gets their landline through FiOS or a cable company will have NoMoRobo as an option. You have to log into your provider's site and turn it on. Highly recommended.

I didn't realize that MagicJack still existed. When I tried it years ago the quality was terrible. Any landline through FiOS or a cable company has unlimited long distance calls included.

Don.

(e-mail link at home page bottom).

[Dev Null]

MagicJack voice quality is actually quite good now.  The only feature they need to add is a white list so that doctors offices will ring thru when call-screening is on.

Google Voice over an Obihai 202 works well too.  Oddly, I've *never* received a telescammer call on my Google Voice line.

[KenK]

Morph wrote in news:IRzJC.66878$ [e-mail]:

I just use an answering machine. So far, they all hang up before my message completes or just afterwards. I never have to pick up. The robo-calls from medics, trash service and others I deal with that use them go through just fine. No screening needed.

[trader_4]

For an Android phone, and I presume iPhone too, there are apps. I use ShouldIAnswer. It has it's own database that gets updated by users so it has knowledge of a lot of telemarketers, scammers, etc. and if it's identified, it will tell you while it's ringing.

[Kolonel Edward J. Burk]

Well that app won't run on rubber-lipped Morph's princess phone, idiot. LOL

[T]

This would only work on relatives you don't like.

Telemarketers use VOIP where you tell the system what your name and phone number is. And these guys routinely change their names and numbers at random.

Screen with an answering machine gets rid of most of them

[Mark Lloyd]

Mine are like that too.

Businesses (including medical offices) often make calls from numbers other than the ones they advertise, interfering with programming a whitelist.

I once had a device like that (told unknown callers to press a number). Many legitimate callers didn't follow the instruction. If I was here, I could press the key myself, but that doesn't help when I'm not.

[Wade Garrett]

One problem with using on a white list is that some offices don't use their main number for the appointment reminder calls.

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Don Wiss:

Sometimes twice.

I would pay beeeeeeg bucks for a home phone system that only rang after two rings were received.

[Mike Hunt-Hertz]

I use google calendar for my appointment reminders.  It beeps, texts and/or emails reminders of appointments at intervals I define.  Easy to see upcoming daily/weekly/monthly schedule.