VOIP Tech Chat → Best Ways of Filtering Unknown Callers

I have anonymous callers blocked but I would like to have a stricter incoming caller policy. I'm getting calls from unknown numbers. I can add them to the blacklist as they come in but what are other ways of rejecting callers. I don't want it too tight then if I need to call home from a unknown number, I won't be able to get through. Same for the rest of the family. Maybe possibly block by area code? The callers aren't necessarily spammers just people that no longer realize that the number is owned by someone new... My idea would be to send the numbers to robotalk if they aren't in my contacts list then to press key maybe? I need some sort of verification process that is'nt too complicated

I'd like to see what everyone is doing to filter calls.

You can always set up an Asterisk-based pbx.. I think I saw in PIAF an option where the caller has to identify himself and then you can decide whether to take the call, blacklist or drop it. Haven't played with it much, some things came up.

I send unknown callers to voice mail. Telemarketers do not leave voice mail.

The problem with your situation is that if you just ask to press a key the people will do just that, including those you don't want to talk to.

You also don't necessarily want to block anonymous calls. I've received calls from legitimate businesses that block their caller ID for whatever reasons.

So what you can do is white list for your contacts (your phone will ring and if you don't pickup call goes to voicemail) and otherwise just drop everyone else to voicemail. Anveo and CallCentric can both do that. In Anveo you can also have separate voicemail message for those not in contacts telling them that this number no longer belongs to the person who used to own it.

In addition to that with Anveo you can use "Press X to connect your call" to weed out spammers' auto-dialers.

Here's something I did: »[Anveo] Using ANI as caller ID

That at least tells me which city someone is calling from if their caller ID is blocked, but my phone still rings. If you don't want your phone to ring at all, you'd need to do something different. But blocking by area code is certainly doable, depending on who your provider is.

With VOIPo unless the number starts with a few prefixes, I send calls directly to voicemail. that works well for me.

With voip.ms I just whitelist everybody, and in the list of caller ids, put in the numbers of family and friends so that their calls go through. I give an 'extension' to somebody I am doing business with and he can enter it when prompted and his call will go through.

This can be modified with time conditions so that some calls in the callerid list will go through during the day but to voicemail in the evening, etc. etc.

One 'extension' rings through at any time, so that family members calling from a phone not in the callerid list can still get through.

The problem is that if I or another family member needs to get through, I can't if Im using a unknown number.

This sounds like a good way to do it. I'll have to do some research on setting up extensions

Thank you for this post, using variables is something I'm currently learning about!

Exactly. If you read my post and follow up the discussion, you will notice the scheme I proposed requires the caller to know what number s/he has dialed. When you receive a call from a telemarketer, s/he doesn't necessarily know your numbers because s/he didn't dial your numbers. For that, s/he won't be able to fulfill the requirement to proceed to the next stage to ring your phone. You can implement such a scheme with as little as a single digit and/or as many digits as you wish. A single digit gives a probability of 10. As such, if you implement a two digits scheme, the probability is 20 and that is good enough to deter most telemarketers.

Your way is the only way I see to fix this. I tried using robotalk to tell them this number no longer belongs to the person they are calling and they still press 1!!! So now is there a way for it to give them a message that this number is no longer in service like you can with blacklisting?

You sound as if you may be serious. I was pretty sure you were being satirical. Seriously, I have implemented the single digit JoeSchmoe007 method »[Anveo] 'CONTACT CHECK' + 'PRESS KEY' = PERFECT SPAM TRAP , and it is very effective. I know it sounds as if defeating it would be trivial, and I have not gone through a political season with it in use, and maybe I am not on the list of hot prospects and only warrant robocalls, but it has been wonderful. I check the calls received history, and then I look up the number in 800notes etc. Usually the numbers are listed. Now I get an average of one per day deflected.

I wonder if most telemarketers even have touchtone pads to navigate phone trees. Even if they do, they might have figured out that those numbers that have even a minimal Turing test are not going to be receptive to their spiel. I have never bought or donated money from a cold incoming telemarketer. I have donated goods from charity pickups, but I have decided to not support that anymore; there are drop-off places that did not call me. I have not answered telephone "survey" questions for many years.

I have tried messing with the callers... particularly the ones that try to imply they are soliciting for the local police. I miss that a bit.

Yes and that was a serious suggestion.Yes and I am aware of that approach.

As you pointed out above, some telemarketers may not even have touchtone keypads. However, my suggestion adds an additional shield to the single digit key response to make it harder for any telemarketers to get through the IVR system. Even if the telemarketers have the touchtone keypads, s/he may not have your numbers handy to enter the requested digits.