I asked this on another forum a few years ago. The answer was fairly technical, the land line doesn’t simply read the digits of the incoming call displayed on the caller ID. Instead, it reads some embedded data. Or something like that. But the $10 caller ID display reads the numbers just fine.
Land lines can reject other selected land line numbers that are calling. Cell phones can reject selected cell phone numbers that are calling.
A very high percentage of received calls today on land lines are from cell phones. You mean to tell me that some company can’t figure out a way to actually read the digits that are so conveniently displayed, and compare them to a reject list? They are right there, in digital form. Take that digital data. Compare to reject list. If yes, don’t put call through. It’s like 20 lines of code.
You can.
Many providers give you the ability to block individual numbers so there’s that.
Or, if you’re willing to pay a few dollars you can get a program called PhoneTray, each time you get a call you no longer want, you can tell it you want it blocked from this point on. On top of that, IIRC, you can tell it to block all calls from a certain name. In my area, I’d say 90% of all cell phones come up as “Cell Phone WI” so you could tell it to block that name.
There is one thing, you do have to have a computer with a modem that’s always on. The program runs on your computer and if it’s a call you want rejected, it picks it up and hangs up on it.
I’m sure there’s plenty of other programs out there, but I’ve been using PhoneTray for years, long enough that I still have the free version. Works great.
I’ve used PhoneTrayfor several years now and it works really well. One annoying thing, the phone will always ring at least once, the CallerID info doesn’t appear until then. And you need and ole timey’ dial-up modem. Search for ‘USB modem’, they’re only around $12 (there’s pretty much only one model made anymore).
Does it do that with the paid version as well? Back when I got the free version (which is no longer available), one of the things that perks they offered as part of getting the paid version was that it would zap a call before the first ring…or rather they crippled the free version to allow one ring through.
It drives me nuts when I see a call get zapped and then two minutes later I walk out of my office to see one of my employees talking to a telemarketer or coming into the office to ask me what kind of printer we have. Yesterday one of my employees came up to me and said ‘there’s someone on the phone…something about your computer having a virus’. :smack:
Yeah, the paid version seems to work exactly the same. I think it’s either a quirk of the phone system or maybe the USB modem but occasionally it won’t ring. Usually it rings once. It comes with some MP3 files to play when it answers, a ‘no telemarketers’ one, a ‘not accepting blocked calls’ one etc. I just use the ‘three tone’ sound of a not-in-service number.
Interestingly, this doesn’t seem to fool auto-dialing systems anymore (the original Call Zapper device used this sound and the systems would remove your number from their lists). I often get multiple repeat calls from the same telemarketer number. In those cases I use my cable company’s website to block their actual number.
American phones must be different to ours. I pay BT for ‘caller ID’ which displays ether the callers name if it’s stored, the callers number, or ‘number witheld’.
I have a phone which blocks all unwanted calls. BT blocks calls from all known telemarketers. other calls get through but if they are not already allowed, they have to say who they are, and I hear that as a recording - “You have a call from Xyz.” I get three options: Reject, accept this time and add to the ‘allowed’ list.
It works very well and we have not had a single unwanted call since it was set up.
The US is sorta similar. Everybody has caller ID on mobiles and many people have it on land lines. The problem is the caller ID that’s displayed is whatever value the caller wants it to be. it can be spoofed and there’s nothing the telephone co can do to verify whether the caller ID info is accurate or not.
All the rest of those sorts of services are available either from your telephone company or from a third party service or device. But they all suffer from the same fatal weakness: there is no trustworthy unforgeable caller ID to work with.
And most subscribers are not willing to black all calls other than those (purportedly) from their personal known contact numbers.
The OP’s problem sounds very weird to me. It might be useful to know where on Earth he is, what type of phone service he has, what phone company, and why he believes as he does.
AFAIK, POTS phone service has no idea whether an incoming call is local, long distance, mobile, POTS landline, or VOIP. By the time it gets to your local switch, it’s just a call with a data string that purports to be the originating number.
Admittedly my Telco knowledge is getting kinda rusty. But the OP’s story sounds pretty implausible.
I am in Ohio, my phone service is through my cable/internet/phone provider, wowway.com.
What some posters are referring to is “Selective Call Rejection”. You enter a list of numbers to block. If one of those numbers calls, the home phone never rings, and the caller just keep hearing the repeated ring tone.
HOWEVER, this is a quote from the manual:
“Selective Call Rejection
Selective Call Rejection allows you to screen calls from up to 12 numbers that
you specify. Selective Call Rejection cannot be used with cell phones, pay
phones, virtual numbers or toll free numbers.”
Ahh. You have a VOIP line. Which may lead to a VOIP phone or to a converter to POTS for the last 10 feet to your POTS desk phone.
Either way, there are no standards for that service. wowway offers whatever software they do for whatever reason they want.
If you have a true VOIP phone you’re probably stuck until you replace wowway and their dumbass phone with a real telco.
If, more likely, you have a POTS converter and a POTS phone, you could try buying either a caller ID POTS phone w blocking capability or a separate blocking device to place between the phone and the wall jack. Whether either of these will work depends on whether you (wowways’) VOIP-POTS converter transmits the caller ID info downstream. If you now have a caller ID POTS phone and can see the caller ID info, then we at least know the info is getting as far as the phone and could be acted on if you get the right box to do so.
The cable comes into what wowway calls an advanced modem. This splits off the internet for the computer, generates WiFi for the smart TVs, and a regular CAT 3/5 socket provides the telephone signal. I also have Caller ID to TV, so the caller information comes up right on the screen.
The phone is just an ordinary wireless phone/answering machine with caller ID. I have found some dedicated call blockers, like this to look into.
I looked up the answer I got to this question on another forum several years ago. Here is what one person wrote:
“I’m guessing the blocking compared and maybe blocked the caller’s CNID
(Calling Number IDentification, what consumers see on their Caller ID
boxes), but the “block this number” logic uses the ANI (Automatic Number
Identification, what 911 and 800 numbers and probably the operator see).”