Too bad “Santorum bag” is too long.
My number does display! I think this goes to anyone who calls, becaue I have others complain about it as well.
Listen, at home, I don’t answer the phone all the time, sometimes it is inconvenient, some times I don’t want to speak to anyone. At work, I do it but rarely, I have learned it’s just better taking that initial call, and solve the problem right then and there, as opposed to not answering, and letting it fester.
But my rant was about this “service” that makes me, the caller, jump through several hoops, and wait 4 minutes to get through. If I was unidentified, or blocking my number, that’s different. I am not. I do believe that anyone who signs up for this “service” is a weasel. Perhaps like Faithfool attested, they owe lots of people money. I dunno.
I was not ranting against answering machines, not picking up at all, or voice mail. Although that can be irksome at times, I get it, I have done it on occasion. But for the love of God, if the phone is such a insurmountable problem in your life, get it disconnected.
That (Kretn) is very clever.
On the flip side, I feel self-conscious giving the details on a message machine because chances are it will tell them the day and time and who called and my call-back number. But I suffer through it anyway.
I withhold my number all the time, whenever I need to contact parents of pupils. I’m calling from my home line, because the evening is when I’m most likely to be able to talk to them, and also is the only time I have free to do this. Not witholding it would be taken by many as an invitation to store the number and call back whenever they fancy chatting about something. (I’m always calling a number they’ve provided as their contact number, and they can always make a return call to our office, or leave a message on the answerphone there.)
For my service provider, un-i.d.'ed phone calls can come across two ways:
UNKNOWN
WITHHELD
I will answer the first. I will not answer the second. The few times I answered the second, it was telemarketing. I do not know anyone who blocks their calls to me, or as a general rule with everyone. If it is an important call, they will leave a message. They never do, so I can only assume it’s some idiot trying to sell me something.
I will also always answer numbers I don’t recognize. It’s only telephone numbers that are purposely withheld that I don’t bother with.
I’ve found this to screw up on occassions, especially with international calls.
I’m sure it happens, and I do have international friends. Usually I get an Unknown or I get the proper number displayed, or some funny 012345-type stuff if they’re using VoIP. That said, if it’s international and important, they’ll leave a message.
My uncle uses this service. He is not a weasel and doesn’t owe anyone any money. In fact he has put a few nieces and nephews through college.
He does however get a LOT of unsolicted calls. Lots, and lots. He has had the same telephone number for 40 years. Even though he is on the Do Not Call list, he gets calls from off-shore telemarketers, one of whom said: “Your laws don’t apply here. I will call you ever single day for the rest of your life.” and then proceeded to call him, every single day, for months.
When my aged granny was alive and started suffering from dementia. The phone ringing several times a day frightened her. Recorded sales messages that she could barely hear and that didn’t cooperate when she asked “Pardon me?” frightened her because her mind was going.
So that service silenced the phone except for legit phone calls. My uncle kept the service after she died because it keeps phone calls down only to just the nieces, nephews, family and friends.
The system isn’t supposed to block numbers that display, but from experience we’ve found that sometimes long distance calls come through as “unknowns”, sometimes cell calls come through as “unknowns”, and once in awhile other numbers get listed as “unknowns” and as far as we can tell it’s just some discrepancy between service providers.
If it’s so urgent that you can’t wait the few seconds it takes to patch you through, then it’s probably so urgent my uncle can’t help you with it anyway. Try calling 911 instead.
Thank you hawksgirl.
I own one personal phone, a cell. I haven’t had a land line for the past 5 years or so. When Joe and Mary Client’s dog is hit by a car and they try to reach me via my answering service, the person receiving their call specifically tells them that I will be calling them back from a phone that blocks caller ID. The answering service can help them remove any restriction their phone might place on my call going through.
Still, every few months I call a number only to hear, “The person you are calling does not accept calls from people who block. . .”. So I hang up.
It was a sarcastic comment on the amount of freedom you seem to have in the US in how business is carried out. Whilst I live in a free market economy and we have some unethical business practices too, we seem to have more controls on what gets done. I do not live in fear of receiving an endless stream of unsolicited phone calls with someone trying to sell me something. In an average week I might get one, two at the most.
Many people here do not answer messages - in fact they may have messages saying that they will not call back! I work with students and to answer their voicemail they have to pay for it, so I never leave messages if I can’t get hold of them.
Ah, thanks, well we finally wised up and added the National DoNotCall list and it works pretty well, I went from an average of 6 a day to 1 per week. A huge improvement in Quality of Life.
The one per week is not technically a telemarketer but a disguised telemarketer that claims “I am not selling anything, we are just taking a poll”. I can deal with these cretins much more readily. If the so called Pollster actually has a registered number and the poll is not about my shopping habits, I have actually answered.
Jim
Whoa, they have to pay to access each voicemail? What the hell kind of system is that???
Pay as you go cell phones charge minutes for getting your messages. Mr. Woodhouse uses a phone like this because it’s cheaper for us in the long run. (We use less than 20 minutes of cell time a month.) I don’t leave him messages because I know he’s got a record of who called and he’ll call me back without checking messages anyway.
BTW, I don’t answer blocked or unknown numbers either. I also don’t answer the call waiting Mr. Woodhouse insisted on getting. (no call waiting caller id availble in our backwoods area.) I answer when I know who’s calling. I don’t care if all I’m doing is sitting around twiddling my thumbs, I’m not answering if I don’t know who you are. Leave a message.
Oh, is that what MelCthefirst was referring to? I thought it was some nasty phone system in the college dorms or something (wouldn’t put it past them).
It’s been so long since I’ve had a pay-as-you-go phone I don’t remember those details.
This is exactly why I got a cell phone. The landline is in my roommate’s name, and he was here long before I was. And he uses an answering machine to screen his calls. Of course, he can’t figure out how to properly configure the machine, so it doesn’t pick up until the 4th ring (no matter how many messages he has), and then he launches into a spiel (which he changes daily) that could easily make the uninitiated believe they’ve accidentally called Dial-a-Bible-Verse. He sincerely believes that all those hangups he gets are telemarketers, not friends who got tired of waiting. I didn’t want my friends and family to have to sit through that, so I got a cell phone.
As for me, I flat refuse to answer any call from a number I don’t recognize. I found this helpful site right here, where I can type in the number (if it isn’t hidden) and figure out who’s trying to call. I started getting calls to my cell phone from two different companies a few months ago. Between the two of them, they were ringing my phone six to eight times a day (which dramatically contrasts with the 2-3 calls per month I get from family and friends). That web site helped me identify the companies: a collection agency (Allied International) that is apparently making a business of trying to collect on debts that are past the statute of limitations, and a scam fundraising organization (The SHARE Group). The collection agency would never leave a message on my voicemail, until recently, and when they did they never identified me by name (and my name is not on the phone contract - I’m on my mom’s plan), so I felt no obligation to answer. The fundraisers consistently hung up after only two or three rings, not even waiting for voicemail to pick up.
I finally got so sick of it that I got my cell number changed. At last, I have peace.
For those of you who base all of your phone answering decisions on the caller id. CID is not some all knowing, positive identification system, in fact its not very hard to manipulate. I know of at least four ways to alter my CID readout, one of which lets me display any number i want on the other persons CID screen.
Personally I’m fond of people who have your phone, email and snailmail, call from a number which shows as “unlisted”, do not leave a message and do not try to contact you again or by another method.
Most of my “unlisted” calls are from work agencies. Apparently if you happen to be in the bathroom or otherwise too occupied to answer they decide you’re not interested. A couple times I’ve had someone call and tell me that their coworker tried to contact me but I didn’t answer, is everything all right? Gee, so that’s the “missed call” I had, did your coworker consider dropping me an email?
Why would not taking a phone call (the cell was at the bottom of my handbag - it was 11pm local time - I was in the shower - I was having lunch) imply that something is not right?
Yeah, but mostly people are trying to block telemarketers. What are the odds that a telemarketer is going to pick a phone number that is in my list of known numbers?
I also don’t answer my phone if the number is not in my cell phone. My phone number is the same as a medical clinic, except that mine starts with the area code the clinic is geographically a part of (805), and theirs is toll-free (888). 90+% of the time I get a call from 805-xxx-xxxx that I don’t know, it’s someone misdialing. If they really want to talk to me, they’ll leave a message.