Selective Call Acceptance on home phone (telemarketers)

[CGT80]

The amount of telemarketers and other unsolicited calls we get on our home phone is ridiculous. We are on the do not call list and I always tell the callers to put us on their do not call list. Of course they don't follow the law anyway.

Is is possible to set up our home phone so that only the numbers we allow will ring through and the others will go straight to voice mail?

We have time warner cable and internet, but not phone. I don't know who we use for our phone. We use an answering machine built into our cordless phones and we just got a new set of phones.

I have thought about changing phone service if needed. I also wondered if there is a phone system that could be installed in our home to handle this, if an outside service isn't ideal. I have everything else in the house networked to a central point and have many cat5e and rg6 quad shield runs throughout the house.

Time warner has selective call acceptance, but it doesn't allow the call to go to voice mail. There are maybe 10 or so numbers that belong to family that we would want to ring through, to start with. The other calls are usually not urgent and they could leave a voice mail and then we could later allow the call if we wanted. Telemarketers would hang up with the voice mail.

The new phones allow us to block numbers, but there are so many unsolicited calls that it seems better to block everything but the numbers we know.

Has anyone setup a phone system to deal with callers in this way?

[stilly]

If you have AT&T you can do the privacy manager.

I had that issue but once you get the privacy manager you can then start making a note of the numbers that are calling you and when they call, tell them three things, 1. Put you on their internal DO NOT CALL list and 2. Send you a copy of their do not call policy. And 3. DO NOT CALL YOU ANYMORE.

After they fail to send you the copy, you can actually sue them in small claims court. I have not done it but it helps to get their business name or who they are with etc etc before you spring these questions on them. See it as a way to maybe get some money. After you wait three weeks you can find out who that number or business is and send them a demand letter. If they call you back repeatedly, it is just a bill that gets bigger and bigger.

Hopfully these fools are local. (in the US). I have a log of the calls, I made a database and I noticed that after I told most of them what I told you above, they stopped calling. Now I am sad. So much for dreams of money...

[tommyboy619]

Just let the answering machine screen your calls. If it's important they'll leave a message.

[bohoki]

i dont know why we dont have a random code entry gateway yet



someone calls you it answers then says please enter (random 4 digit code)
then your phone will ring

you should also be able to sign up to a known telemarketer database
(built by all of us reporting)that will be blocked

also if the call id is blocked it will request entering the phone number and it will call you back then ring your phone


this technology is there and its not hard to do

[VictorFranko]

Solar, solar, solar, air duct cleaning, solar, carpet cleaning, solar, solar, home remodeling, solar, solar (rinse and repeat).
Ughhh.

Most friends call my cell phone, so I answer my home phone "Amici's Pizza" or "Sunshine Solar".
They usually hang up right away without saying a word. The couple friends that still call my home phone know I do it, so it's no trouble.

[dls]

My Wife might get one or two calls a week from family on the home phone,sometimes the school or a Dr. appt. conformation,

But daily, we get 3 or4 800,or out of area calls. I never answer, I just look at the phone or TV caller ID.

It's a pain in the *, but I don't like giving out my cell # for contact info with banks, DR's or any business... Dang phone spammers.

[Ritchie8719]

Do not call list works great for us. I don't know how it works or why it wouldn't. It isn't forever btw, you need to reup.

[ojisan]

I get so many telemarketer calls it is really pissing me off.
Both my home and work phones ring constantly.
The constant interruptions of stopping what I am doing to answer the phone is frustrating, in particular because 90% of the time there is nobody on the line.

I am on the do not call list, it makes no difference.
I have AT&T, and have started blocking some numbers.
However, most of these callers use spoofed phone numbers so what you see on caller ID is not the number that is calling you.
So, call blocking by caller ID number won't work.

To add to the irritation, I think they get their call lists from property records so if you are a homeowner they have all your info.
They call up and ask for me by first name, as if they were a friend of mine.
That is rude and unprofessional for a business call.
I hate them I hate them I hate them.

[the86d]

Get a Google Voice number, and only give that one out to anyone who asks: Internet purchases, credit card companies, telemarketers, etc. (Make sure that you uninstall it (Google voice) from your phone after, IF you need to have it installed on your phone to initially set it up.) Hell you even gets TXTs on it, and can check it via Web-Interface.

Change you phone number on your credit cards via their web site, I even used my google voice number on my mortgage-refi-paperwork. I don't have google talk or voice on my phone, but I still get the badly-transcribed message via e-mail (you can listen to it too..).

After dropping my FiOS POTS-ish service (I had it unplugged anyway), I receive ZERO CALLS. I learned to not give out my real-number after buying a house a few years ago when every call was some scumbag that can't get a real job, trying to sell me something I didn't need, or an automated SVC.

[klewan]

Solar, solar, solar, air duct cleaning, solar, carpet cleaning, solar, solar, home remodeling, solar, solar (rinse and repeat).
Ughhh.

Most friends call my cell phone, so I answer my home phone "Amici's Pizza" or "Sunshine Solar".
They usually hang up right away without saying a word. The couple friends that still call my home phone know I do it, so it's no trouble.

You should feel honored; the solar clowns will only market in the well to do neighborhoods. No sense calling lower income or those lowest of the low; renters!

During the first solar craze in '82, they were always calling, door knocking, and direct mail. My neighbor came home after work and a crew was up on her roof installing a solar water heater. No contract, they felt her being a woman they could shame her into it. She called the cops....

[CGT80]

They call an try to sell solar to us. They claim the are working with edison. We already have 60 panels on our roof and are registered as a power generating station in their records They try to sell home improvements. I was in the industry for 17 years. I will do it myself or find a good company to do it. Often times they do not even answer when we pick up.

We have a small business and need to be able to get some calls. Cell service sucks here. I hardly use the home phone, but other people in the house do use it.

Ojisan hit the nail on the head, with his post. Bohoki has the idea I was thinking of. As cheap as electronics are now days, we should be able to have a small phone network setup to only allow certain numbers to ring through, based on caller ID, and send the others to an answering system. The idea with telemarketer lists is also great. I don't know how a business phone switching system works, but it should be available for home and small business use by now, without spending a fortune on it.

[Whiterabbit]

I'm starting to love the calls. Not the marketers, that is no good.

I got a political pollster the other day, the call was epic. The called asked my opinion of the ACA and 45 minutes later after practically yelling into the phone he accused me of letting car accident victims die in the streets because they cannot afford to pay a doctor.

Next call, I'm gonna take it happily. "Yes sir, I disagree with whatever spin you are trying to put on the poll. Not because of data or logic, but because I am an evil white Christian heterosexual male who feeds off the misery of others and wants to see babies die in the streets."

I want to hear the silence on the line followed by the "Sir, I'm starting to think you are not taking our poll seriously."

[Grumpyoldretiredcop]

I had the same problem as the OP, with the additional fun of having bill collectors who called constantly, looking for the person who had that landline number before we did.

Solved it by calling AT&T and telling them to take a hike and cancelling the landline. Now, if your call gets past "Mr. Number" on my Droid (most spam callers don't), and I don't recognize your number, you get ignored. Pretty much took care of the issue.

[boxl0bster]

Get a Google Voice number, and only give that one out to anyone who asks

THIS. It's so nice not having to worry about any gibberish that might come from giving my number out. It's also my primary source of texting. Saved me $10 bucks a month.

[glockman19]

For telemarketers I answer the phone with:

"Hola, Senior un senyora no in la casa". They always hang up and almost never call back.

I have yet to find anyone who responds in Spanish.