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GoRaptors
join:2011-07-22
London, ON

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How to stop annoying robo/telemarketer calls(with Bell land line).

If we already have our home phone# on the national do not call list(I just checked it, it still is until Dec. 2014 apparently).

Is there anything else I can do to stop robo calls from getting thru?

We're with Bell & it is a traditional land line.

Thoughts/ideas/suggestions are most welcome! Cheers! ! ! !

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz

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I get them on my cellphone all the time. About the only thing that might be effective would be to set up an account on voip.ms, transfer your phone number to them, then set up a very simple menu that says "Thank you for calling the FamilyNameHere household. Please press 1 to continue your call.", and have that menu option forward the call to your Bell landline.

Any human would hit 1 and get through, while robocalls would stop dead there.

Downside of this approach is it costs a bit of extra money.
GoRaptors
join:2011-07-22
London, ON

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Ok, that's an idea at least! Thanks Guspaz! +1! :P! ! !
koreyb
Open the Canadian Market NOW
join:2005-01-08
Etobicoke, ON

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If the same telemarketer has called you 10 times AFTER you have requested they STOP CALLING, most companies will BLOCK the number from calling FREE.

IF it's the one I think, they are a scam and call using some robocall from different numbers.. I can only suggest what was mentioned here in that case.

REAL telemarketers are easy to stop if you answer, and stop them at the beginning and DEMAND they put you on the do not call list and remind them you are on the national do not call list. After a month I was able to limit them down to nothing. NOT ANSWERING will only make their auto dialer keep calling. And if you answer screaming like a loony, they will put you on automatic call back just for spite. At one point I had to work for a Telemarketing agency to pay bills while out of work after a layoff... and I can tell you first hand this is how some phone operators handle the LOONS who yell and scream and swear.

REAL telemarketers are required to put you on a DO NOT CALL LIST if you ask or demand to not call again. Keep in mind though people like ROGERS and BIG companies like that may use many different subcontractors and they do not share this info, so you may need to ask for this to be done a few times. Once you get on the DNC list, you usually see massive drops in calls.

Nitra
join:2011-09-15
Montreal

Nitra

Member

»www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B ··· 00UG67TC

Will fix them nicely.
wally_walrus
join:2009-10-07
Orleans, ON

wally_walrus to Guspaz

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to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:

I get them on my cellphone all the time. About the only thing that might be effective would be to set up an account on voip.ms, transfer your phone number to them, then set up a very simple menu that says "Thank you for calling the FamilyNameHere household. Please press 1 to continue your call.", and have that menu option forward the call to your Bell landline.

Any human would hit 1 and get through, while robocalls would stop dead there.

Downside of this approach is it costs a bit of extra money.

How would the OP do that if he's already ported his landline number to Voip.ms? What Bell landline would the Voip.ms forward the call to?

Guspaz
Guspaz
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join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

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If you've already gone VoIP, then you've already got routing happening between the DID (telephone number) and the ATA (box that rings your phone). You would simply set your DID to go to an IVR (menu), and the first option in the menu would ring the extension your ATA belongs to. The two scenarios are identical except in one case, the menu option is set to forward the call to an outside number (your new random landline number) and in the other case you set the menu option to send the call to an internal extension.
wally_walrus
join:2009-10-07
Orleans, ON

wally_walrus

Member

said by Guspaz:

the menu option is set to forward the call to an outside number (your new random landline number)

I wasn't aware that once you port your number out of Bell POTS you can get a new number on the same landline

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

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Re-sign up again?

Dinosaur
@telus.net

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Three years ago after a telemarketer lady hang up on me, after me telling her that I was not interested in her product, I decided to take drastic action. My land line is now connected through a SPA3102 to my home server running a free PBX program with auto attendant. So my phone only rings if the caller has the right extension number. People without my extension number can leave a message anytime. Works perfectly, nobody bothers me any more. One time cost was $80.
condor11
join:2007-10-12

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said by Guspaz:

I get them on my cellphone all the time. About the only thing that might be effective would be to set up an account on voip.ms, transfer your phone number to them, then set up a very simple menu that says "Thank you for calling the FamilyNameHere household. Please press 1 to continue your call.", and have that menu option forward the call to your Bell landline.

Any human would hit 1 and get through, while robocalls would stop dead there.

Thanks for the tip, I've been looking for years to have a simple IVR prompt to stop automated calls.

The only thing in your scenario that is unclear, your cell phone number still exists on its own and what's stopping someone from just dialing it directly and not your Voip.ms number...
condor11

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quote:
Three years ago after a telemarketer lady hang up on me, after me telling her that I was not interested in her product, I decided to take drastic action. My land line is now connected through a SPA3102 to my home server running a free PBX program with auto attendant. So my phone only rings if the caller has the right extension number. People without my extension number can leave a message anytime. Works perfectly, nobody bothers me any more. One time cost was $80.
Great tip!
What program are you running on your PC?

I wonder if the same goal can be accomplished with just some standalone box with software on it, without the need to run your PC as well.
HeadSpinning
MNSi Internet
join:2005-05-29
Windsor, ON

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said by Guspaz:

Re-sign up again?

What stops the telemarketer from calling the land line directly if that number should get on their list somehow?

Guspaz
Guspaz
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Admittedly, the idea works far better with a full-voip setup, since then there's no number to call directly. There are some options for blocking anything but calls from the voip.ms forward on the cellphone or landline via whitelists, but it looks like Bell also has a Call Privacy feature for landlines that does what I've described, requiring all callers to type a number before getting through:

»www.bell.ca/Home_phone/P ··· _Privacy

EDIT: Looks like Call Privacy only triggers for unknown/private numbers, so it would be more useful in combination with the voip.ms option, because it does allow you to set up a whitelist, to which you can add your voip.ms number and nothing else.
GoRaptors
join:2011-07-22
London, ON

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One other option is paying the extra fee for an unlisted#.

One of my friends had that idea on my Facebook.

These are all great ideas so far, please keep them coming.

I am sure I'm not the only one with this "problem"

Thanks everybody! It is very much appreciated! :P! ! !

Dinosaur
@telus.net

Dinosaur to condor11

Anon

to condor11
The software is from NCH, product Axon, look for version 2.16. The SPA3102 can be setup as a standalone. Then the caller has to enter a pin to get connected. But it might need a computer to route the call, not sure about it.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
Premium Member
join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

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The problem is the calls come from offshore, and thus don't fall under the DNCL.

Besides the CRTC handed off it off to Bhell to manage, I'd put money they're selling the #'s.
elwoodblues

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Stop giving our your phone number? In the roughly 10yrs I've dropped the landline in favour of a cell, I can count the telemarketers on one hand.

I don't give my phone number out anywhere., the same goes with email I create aliases for every company I deal with, if spam comes through I'll know who sold my name, and promptly delete the alias.
GoRaptors
join:2011-07-22
London, ON

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Who are we giving out are phone# to?.......

I had 2nd thoughts of putting it on the DNCL, unfortunately did that years & years ago.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
Premium Member
join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues

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said by GoRaptors:

Who are we giving out are phone# to?.......

I had 2nd thoughts of putting it on the DNCL, unfortunately did that years & years ago.

When you buy something, or sign up for a service, do they not ask for your phone number?

I never signed up for the DNCL, so that could be it.
fparker
join:2008-04-28
Scarborough, ON

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switching your line to VoIP will in effect give you an unlisted number. Doesn't help telemarketers who do sequential dialing....

Rickkins
join:2004-04-05
Mtl, Canada

Rickkins to Guspaz

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said by Guspaz:

If you've already gone VoIP, then you've already got routing happening between the DID (telephone number) and the ATA (box that rings your phone). You would simply set your DID to go to an IVR (menu), and the first option in the menu would ring the extension your ATA belongs to. The two scenarios are identical except in one case, the menu option is set to forward the call to an outside number (your new random landline number) and in the other case you set the menu option to send the call to an internal extension.

Would there be some kind of box available for that...??

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

4 edits

Davesnothere to Guspaz

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to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:

I get them on my cellphone all the time.

About the only thing that might be effective would be to set up an account on voip.ms, transfer your phone number to them, then set up a very simple menu that says "Thank you for calling the FamilyNameHere household. Please press 1 to continue your call.", and have that menu option forward the call to your Bell landline.

Any human would hit 1 and get through, while robocalls would stop dead there.

Downside of this approach is it costs a bit of extra money.

 
I am not using a VoIP service to screen for a landline, but I can confirm that Anveo from the US can be configured in exactly the same manner (it also plays 'SIT' tones of 'number disconnected' for them if I later blacklist the auto-dialers etc which would still show in my call log in the Anveo web portal), and I am successfully using it that way as a complete replacement for my previous landline, and have ported my previous landline's number to Anveo.

I use another number than 1 for my prompt, and have also set up a white-list in my Anveo contacts, and folks on THAT list are not asked to press a key.

BTW, my cellphone itself has an internal blacklist where I can exile up to 25 numbers, and at least my phone does not ring for those ones.

I'm not sure what the callers see when that happens.

Rickkins
join:2004-04-05
Mtl, Canada

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And then there's this one, but perhaps a little "over thought"...

»www.youtube.com/watch?fe ··· WvFQgrqU

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

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Disclaimer : I have not tried this solution, but I reckon that it ought to work, and would minimally upset your current situation in the short term while you evaluate.

Here goes :

(1) Keep the Bell line for now, and do not port the number, but cancel most of their insanely priced calling features such as Call Display and Call Answer, the savings from which which will soon more than pay for everything else which I will suggest below.

(2) Buy an ATA, plug it into your router (and a phone into the ATA), and then setup and test a VoIP account and a local number with one of the VoIP providers who can screen and filter calls - some mentioned already here, but there are others.

(3) Keep Bell's 'Call forwarding' on your line (or add it if necessary) and forward ALL calls to it to the new VoIP number, and Bell should pass along the Call Display info with each call, even if you do not subscribe to Call Display for your Bell phone, IIRC.

(4) Turn off the ringer on the Bell phone (maybe unplug it), or at least turn it down.

(5) Log into the web portal of the VoIP line and configure it to deal with the unwanted (and wanted) calls appropriately - The exact procedure will vary with each VoIPP.

(6) Make your outgoing calls from either the Bell phone or from the VoIP line, but be sure to set the VoIP line to broadcast the number of the Bell line if you plan to call out from the VoIP line, which BTW you SHOULD do, to help evaluate the call quality.

(7) Later, if you are sufficiently happy with how the VoIP line works, port your Bell number to it and then cancel the Bell line, in that exact order.

- - - - -

Any questions ?

jake roberts
@bell.ca

jake roberts

Anon

word for thought, after moving into a NEW house in a NEW city with a NEW telephone number, i still get telemarketing calls, yes even when i unlisted my number, guess why? auto dialers dont care if your number is listed or not, they call every combination of telephone numbers untill someone answers.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

Davesnothere

Premium Member

 
True, but several of the suggestions made up-thread (including mine) would solve even THAT.
wally_walrus
join:2009-10-07
Orleans, ON

wally_walrus to Davesnothere

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said by Davesnothere:

Bell should pass along the Call Display info with each call, even if you do not subscribe to Call Display for your Bell phone, IIRC.

How can I make sure THIS is true before I try? I'd have to pay for one month plus there's a fee to cancel the feature and I'd like to avoid if it doesn't work as mentioned
HeadSpinning
MNSi Internet
join:2005-05-29
Windsor, ON

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said by Davesnothere:

(6) Make your outgoing calls from either the Bell phone or from the VoIP line, but be sure to set the VoIP line to broadcast the number of the Bell line if you plan to call out from the VoIP line, which BTW you SHOULD do, to help evaluate the call quality.

This will become more difficult in the future as more and more providers enforce anti-spoofing policies.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

1 edit

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said by wally_walrus:

said by Davesnothere:

Bell should pass along the Call Display info with each call, even if you do not subscribe to Call Display for your Bell phone, IIRC.

How can I make sure THIS is true before I try? I'd have to pay for one month plus there's a fee to cancel the feature and I'd like to avoid if it doesn't work as mentioned

 
Yeah, sorry, I forgot that this is B$ELL that we're talking about, and that's how they make much of their money these days - by ripping off their customers.

If they stopped doing that, got reasonable about prices in general, and offered some better calling features such as a web portal where we can admin our own call screening like the OP asked, not so many folks might be leaving them.

IMNSHO, it's a downward spiral for Bell and other traditional phone providers who don't change to meet the needs of their customer base and society at large ! [/rant]

But y'know, trying this idea would still be a MUCH better gamble than buying lottery tickets !