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JoeSchmoe007
Premium Member
join:2003-01-19
Brooklyn, NY

JoeSchmoe007 to justsoso

Premium Member

to justsoso

Re: Best Ways of Filtering Unknown Callers

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.

cybersaga
join:2011-12-19
Selby, ON

cybersaga

Member

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.

usa2k
Blessed
MVM
join:2003-01-26
Westland, MI

usa2k

MVM

With VOIPo unless the number starts with a few prefixes, I send calls directly to voicemail. that works well for me.
justsoso
Premium Member
join:2013-08-19
united state

justsoso to JoeSchmoe007

Premium Member

to JoeSchmoe007
The problem is that if I or another family member needs to get through, I can't if Im using a unknown number.
justsoso

justsoso to cybersaga

Premium Member

to cybersaga
Thank you for this post, using variables is something I'm currently learning about!
mazilo
From Mazilo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-30
Lilburn, GA

mazilo to JoeSchmoe007

Premium Member

to JoeSchmoe007
said by JoeSchmoe007:

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.

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.
justsoso
Premium Member
join:2013-08-19
united state

justsoso to JoeSchmoe007

Premium Member

to JoeSchmoe007
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?

StillLearn
Premium Member
join:2002-03-21
Streamwood, IL

1 edit

StillLearn to mazilo

Premium Member

to mazilo
said by mazilo:

said by JoeSchmoe007:

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.

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.

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.
mazilo
From Mazilo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-30
Lilburn, GA

mazilo

Premium Member

said by StillLearn:

You sound as if you may be serious. I was pretty sure you were being satirical.

Yes and that was a serious suggestion.

Seriously, I have implemented the single digit JoeSchmoe007 method »[Anveo] 'CONTACT CHECK' + 'PRESS KEY' = PERFECT SPAM TRAP , and it is very effective.

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.