Not entirely DIY question...

[bert]

In article , Reentrant writes

One of the essentials is Caller ID which is a chargeable service on land lines but is and always has been free on mobiles. I am about to raise this with Ofcom.

[alan_m]

On 30/01/2016 11:49, Nightjar

Its inbuilt into one of the phones that BT sell

But is it suitable for the OPs father? White lists can be set-up but for ongoing call blocking this requires the user to to take action.

Also for someone suffering from dementia is caller ID alone practical? Can they remember other peoples numbers/names? Ideally what's required is the equivalent of a green light for recognised numbers and red otherwise. I have a very old (no longer available) caller display that does this.

Also make sure that the local doctor's surgery is included in a white list.

As for cold calling, my total this week is 29 with number withheld or 'International' despite being registered of the telephone preference service. My normal cold calling rate is around 2 per week but I guess the increase is because my car/house insurance policies are due for renewal and UK companies are using 3rd party companies to bypass any industry agreements about cold calling.

Perhaps an answer machine with call screening is required. I can hear the outgoing message and what is being recorded. I can curtail the recording by picking up the call. I let my answer machine pick up all calls. Most cold callers hang up on getting the answer machine and I pick up when I hear a call I want to answer. Warning

Not all answer machines offer this feature.

[Nick]

Indeed, it is one of my little bugbears. I would like a phone that showed a proper name for all numbers.

[dennis]

caller ID is free on sky, talktalk, virgin and BT (if you register with TPS). It may be free on others.

[T i m]

Not *impossible* I'm guessing, certainly for all the names that are in The Phone Book and where the caller doesn't withhold their number.

Cheers, T i m

[pamela]

Isn't it frustrating for genuine callers to have to leave a message and then wait to be screened?

[Capitol]

In the US there is an automated service which intercepts the call, determines if it is not a scam call and then passes the call on. I don't know who provides the service, but having listened to it in operation, it was very impressive how many calls disappeared after the first ring of the phone and the user did not get one scam call in six weeks. Maybe ther is a UK supplier?

[dennis]

That's only for the first time, then you add them to the contacts or allowed list and they then get straight through unless you decide otherwise.

[dennis]

That's the effect of tru call/BT guardian. You just don't get scam calls getting through.

[alan_m]

BT (if you register with

Only for the first year - £21 per annum afterwards.

[alan_m]

All my unwanted calls are flagged with International or Number Withheld, or if a number is given it's more likely to be a premium rate number.

The more annoying cold calls result in an automated message being left on the answerphone.

The latest scam calls inform recipients that it will be illegal to have a non-condensing boiler after September 2016 and to press '5' to contact a representative to order/fit a new boiler. Number withheld and no phone number given if the answerphone picks up the automated message!

[alan_m]

I think they operate in reverse of what has been stated. People on the white list get straight through. Those not in the white list get told to press hash and leave their name. The phone then rings with the callers name and the recipient has the option to take it or block the number. Automatic cold calling dialling doesn't have the intelligence to perform the addition instructions -- YET!

[Harry Bloomfield]

bert has brought this to us :

Caller ID is a free option on TalkTalk, as is anonymous caller reject and a blocker you can add numbers to - the few who do get through.

The TPS is worse than useless.

[Harry Bloomfield]

alan_m used his keyboard to write :

That sort of frequency was normal for us, until we enabled TalkTalk's filters. Exceptionally, we had a peak of two in the past seven days get through. Any callers withholding their number receive a recorded message which says we do not accept calls from withheld callers - end of. The two who did manage to get through, are now on my 'blocked list', they will not get through again.

[Adrian]

Last time I was at my old man's, he had three calls in the space of a couple of hours telling him that he needed to give them his credit card number so that they could deliver his parcel, and could he please confirm his name and address...

Oh, right. So who's the sender of the parcel? "Umm, my computer isn't showing that." Shove it up your arse, then.

[dennis]

They never charged me so it must have changed.

[F]

And Microsoft have called me twice this week to say that they have been watching my computer and it has problems they will be able to help me wi.........

Call terminated at that point by me after I interrupted their script to call them thieves and liars and then invited them to eff off.

[Adrian]

I WANT ONE OF THOSE CALLS.

Not fair.

I just get "marketing surveys".

[Theo]

It's possible something could be arranged with a tablet and a USB handset - that might make a nice 'big screen phone', with either touchscreen buttons or buttons on the handset.

What does Google scrape in the case of 'cold call scammer', since I imagine that sort of number is only listed in the 'Who called me?' forums or whatever?

Theo

[Andy Burns]

Usually nothing, the feature is called "Caller ID by Google" I don't know if it's still restricted to Nexus devices, but it used to be.

Looking at the help page it seems it looks at Google Places listings and address lists linked to accounts on your device (e.g. it could lookup colleagues' direct numbers) rather than the web at large.