Do you block caller ID identification on your outgoing calls? I know that some people do, but I haven’t been able to find someone personally and ask them why in God’s name would you want to do this?
If you’re calling someone, you must want to talk to them, right? Are you trying to keep the answering party in suspense? It’s like knocking on someone’s door and then ducking into the bushes. Makes no damn sense!
Or is this really only used by telemarketing companies who know you’ll answer “unknown” more often than “Al’s Photography”?
One became great by expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal, but he who expected the impossible became greater than all. -Kierkegaard
Personally I have no idea why people do that, but I stopped them from doing it on my phone. I called the phone company and they gave me a code (*77 or something like that) to enter into my phone. Now these people get a recorded message that tells them that I do not accept calls from people who block their numbers. I must say the message is quite rude, but it did stop them so I am not complaining…lol
We use it occasionally. Here’s the reason:
My husband researches car accidents for a living. This involves reading police accident reports, measuring damage to the vehicle, reconstructing the accident, and…interviewing the people involved. He sometimes has to make these calls in the evening, from home. When he does that, we block Caller ID. If he gets a machine, or people ask, he gives his work number. But there is no reason for them to have our home phone number.
One other time I used it: When I was still living with my parents, someone called one day and yelled at my grandmother, using a very threatening tone. I star 69ed it to get the number. When we called back to talk to the a******, we blocked Caller ID. Just in case this idiot had randomly dialed the phone, we weren’t about to let them have our number.
I’m a big believer in knowing who’s knocking on my door too. A while back, I did like Just_A_Girl_26, called the phone company and had them block all anonymous calls.
Unfortunately there was a hitch: My wife was pregnant at the time, and one day the doctor called and couldn’t get through, since for some crazy reason the hospital had a blocked number. Even worse, when the doctor tried to press *77 (or whatever it is) at his end, it played havoc with the hospital switchboard.
At the time, the pregnancy was far more important than the inconvience of anonymous calls, so we removed the block.
Is that how Privacy Manager works? (Privacy Manager is what Ameritech calls it, anyway). Mr. Jeannie told me that when he calls from work (a blocked number) and the people he’s calling have that, this is what happens:
A voice comes on to ask who you are.
If you don’t answer, you get disconnected.
If you do answer, it puts the call through.
The only problem I see is this: If a telemarketer says, “I’m a telemarketer,” the automated system would put them through simply for answering the question.
I never hate myself in the morning. I sleep till noon.
–Sig line courtesy of Wally
I have this problem whenever I call my youngest daughter’s residence. I have to remember to dial a code before dialing her number or the call won’t go through.
Apparently, this is because I have a private unlisted phone number.
I block it on occasions where I don’t want them to know where I’m calling from. I don’t have to get hold of antbody that blocks blocked caller, and then I guess they won’t get told until I see them in the next five years.
I don’t call retail companies without blocking the phone id, since companies do make lists up to call later. You know ring ring dead air, because some other sucker picked up first.
Lo there do I see my father.
Lo there do I see my mother, my sisters, and my brothers.
Lo there do I see the line of my people, back to the begining.
Lo, they do call to me, they bid me take me place among them.
In the Halls of Valhalla, where the Brave, may Live, Forever!
Another side note. Some of the local telephone companies around here still can’t provide caller identification to the larger phone companies. Many of the locals are unidentified, just because they have a certain phone company. Blocking unknown calllers would block half the people that might call you.
I am meeting men through a online personal ad. At some point they give me their phone number, so we can arrange to meet. I do not want them to have my number until I’ve met them, so I block my number when I call them.
Haven’t had one yet who has blocked me because of this. If they do, I will either call them from work, or tell them to take the blocking off.
…in a state so nonintuitive it can only be called weird…
Actually, its just another ‘profit center’ for the phone companies. They set it up as a separate income statement, deduct the costs associated with it and like magic, they earn revenue they would not otherwise have had.
:
billehunt & most of you, there is another code you can use when you call someone & they won’t take the call because of the block.
When you call them & you hear that they have blocking, press *82 [oh some faithful hearing person verify this for me]. This immediately displays your phone number on their Caller ID so the call can go thru. Spiffy!..
So that doctor just needed to do that & the all would have went thru with your Caller ID blocking.
Personlly, I don’t see it as “blocking”. I see it as choosing to not subscribe to having my number diplayed. If I make a call, it’s my dime, as they say. When I call a friend or family who has caller id, I just dial the code before I dial the number. No problem.
Actually, no one I regularly call has caller id.
Funny thing is, I know a couple of people at work who have both caller id and blocking. Now what does that tell you.
Peace,
mangeorge
I only know two things;
I know what I need to know
And
I know what I want to know
Mangeorge, 2000
I do not block my number when I call someone. On my phone system, the only time that a call does not go through to me phone is when they intentionally block their phone number. My hospital shows up as an unknown number. This is because I have a local phone service, I guess?
When a person blocks their number, it used to show up as a private number. I can see where there would be reasons to block your phone number, but I do not do it because it irritated me when someone did it to me.
I guess I didn’t do a good job of explaining, but that didn’t work. The doctor was calling from a hospital, where they had a PBX. In the hospital, pressing *82 did something funky to the PBX (I don’t know, maybe patched him through to the pharmacy or something).
It was actually a little scary at the time, because the pregnancy was kindof rough and low-latency, high-availability contact with the doc was important. When we discovered that he’d been trying unsuccessfully to get through to us for several days, we couldn’t turn blocking off quick enough.
billehunt;
Blocking kept him from calling you? I thought it only affected outgoing calls. Caller ID can keep out incoming calls. Maybe it’s different in other parts of the country.
I dunno.
Peace,
mangeorge
All right, one more time, and this time I’ll take the gum out of mouth:
I call up Pac Bell and have them set up my phone so that only people with unblocked numbers can get through. People with blocked numbers get a recording and my phone never rings. If a blocked person wants to get through, they can press *82 (I believe that’s the right sequence). This temporarily unblocks their ID. Then they can call me and their unblocked number rings my phone.
All right; everythings going good. People with unblocked numbers call, I see their numbers and pick up. People with blocked numbers don’t ring my bell.
Now, the hospital in question has a blocked number for whatever reason. When the doctor inside the hospital calls, he gets the Pac Bell message and my phone never rings. So, he tries to press *82 to unblock his number. But he’s not on a phone connected to Pac Bell; he’s on a phone connected to a PBX (it’s like a mini phone system you’ll find inside large companies) inside the hospital, which is connected to Pac Bell. So when he presses *82 it triggers the hospital PBX to do something unrelated. (I don’t know what. Perhaps it got him his voice mail or transferred him to the front desk or maybe it was the speed dial to his lover in Paris).
So the idea is, the doctor couldn’t unblock caller ID and therefore couldn’t call me.
One friend, who is a midwife, always comes up “anonymous call” on our CallerId - so for us it effectively serves as CallerId because I’ve never seen another anonymous besides this friend. Before she got blocking, she had calls all night from patients who just didn’t want to go through the central on-call service at her birthing center (you get someone that way almost immediately, so it isn’t a life threatening wait); and her hours are bad enough without sacrificing sleep every night.
For telemarketers, we got this fun little device for 8 bucks, which announces (upon the push of a button) “We’re sorry, this household does not accept calls of this type … please regard this as your notification to remove this household from your list…” I just got tired of having to wait to interrupt them to hang up.
It’s good for scary relatives, too.
Ooh, I love your magazine. My favorite section is `How to increase your word power’. That thing is really, really… really… good. – Homer, ``Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington’’
Thanks, billehunt, for your patient explaination. Now, finally I get it.
I guess if one’s pregnant, or ill, it would be best not to have caller ID. Never thought of it that way.
So, what’s a billehunt?
Peace,
mangeorge
{{{I call up Pac Bell and have them set up my phone so that only people with unblocked numbers can get through. People with blocked numbers get a recording and my phone never rings. If a blocked person wants to get through, they can press *82 (I believe that’s the right sequence). This temporarily unblocks their ID. Then they can call me and their unblocked number rings my phone.}}}—Bill E.
…and we LOVE it!!!
If you aren’t unblocked, you don’t have a good enough reason to call us.
–Kalél TheHungerSite.com “If our lives are indeed the sum-total of the choices we’ve made, then we cannot change who we are; but with every new choice we’re given, we can change who we’re going to be.”
