A Gift Of Telephone Silence For People With Landlines Who Are Plagued By Robocalls, Survey Calls, And Dirtbag Politician PAC Calls
I love when some bureaucrat or some lazy newspaper reporter says to sign up for the Do Not Call list, like that does the slightest thing to stop the annoyance calls.
As I wrote in I See Rude People, per André-Tascha Lammé's FOIA request, the government only goes after the teeny-weeniest fraction of the illegal telemarketing calls and robocalls and the like.
Dirtbag politicians don't want to stop survey calls or political spam calls because, hey, self-interest. And so many of these dirtbags running for office -- like sleazy Janice Hahn -- use illegal robocalls (illegal in California without a live voice person asking you whether you'd like to have your dinner interrupted). [CPUC Code Sections 2871-2876]
2874. (a) Whenever telephone calls are placed through the use of an automatic dialing-announcing device, the device may be operated only after an unrecorded, natural voice announcement has been made to the person called by the person calling. The announcement shall do all of the following: (1) State the nature of the call and the name, address, and telephone number of the business or organization being represented, if any. (2) Inquire as to whether the person called consents to hear the prerecorded message of the person calling. (b) The calling person described in subdivision (a) shall disconnect the automatic dialing-announcing device from the telephone line upon the termination of the call by either the person calling or the person called.
Getting to the point of this post...a solution...
I still have a land line, both because the often-terrible reception on cell phones bugs me and because I need one for when I'm on radio shows by telephone.
This, unfortunately, means I'm annoyed by assholes constantly. Recorded survey calls, carpet cleaning calls, scam calls. I get about four of those annoyance calls a day. And soon...election-related calls by the dozen every day.
This is a problem because my book was due September 1. Notice that it is now September 10. I got an extension -- the science turned out to be wildly harder than I'd thought. But, as I have been for about a year, I'm working pretty much day and night on that, my column, and a big talk I'm giving in November.
I signed up for the free service, NoMoRobo, which cuts down on some of these calls. My phone blocked 30 numbers, and Time-Warner (which is now changing to Rectum, uh, Spectrum) blocks another 25 or 30 or so for VOIP customers.
But Gregg a few weeks ago -- after investigating the options -- got me a really fabulous device on Amazon, the CPR V5000 Call Blocker. It has this huge satisfying red button for blocking calls and will work with my VOIP phone service and cordless telephone with caller-ID.
We got this one rather than the earlier model, which was $20 cheaper, because it has 5,000 numbers already loaded in.
It also looked super-easy to use -- and Gregg vetted that it was.
All I had to do was plug the unit's cord into the phone and the wall cord into the unit. Took me all of 20 seconds.
And probably thanks to those 5,000 numbers pre-loaded in, I haven't gotten a single annoyance call since.
This is a little dismaying, because the thing has this huge, red, stop sign-shaped button, "BLOCK NOW," and I can't wait to push it when some roboasshole or surveyer calls.
Okay, I wrote this on September 16, when I plugged the thing in. It is now September 25. Since then, due to the pre-programmed list, I only got ONE -- ONE! -- annoyance call. As the call was going, I just pushed the block button and it put it on the list. Woohoo! 
Unfortunately, until NoMoRobo comes out with a cellphone app, I continue to get robocalls there. I block each -- and then they change the number and call again.
Phone companies could surely do something about this -- however, it's in their self-interest to have your minutes eaten up by junk calls or any calls.
Google Fiber hooked us up here in Austin several weeks ago, and I had the intense pleasure of listening to my wife call Time-Warner/Rectum/Spectrum and turn off our service. TW was not one bit happy about losing a 17-year customer, and they fought to save us. My wife tried to reason with them, telling them it was too late, but to little avail. The calltaker kept offering deal after deal, as though I was going to tell Google to come remove their ten times faster up-and-down.
It was awesome.
roadgeek at September 25, 2016 12:13 AM
You are so lucky you can get that where you are -- and how great that you live in Austin (except for how the nitwits in charge there ran Uber out of town).
Of course, with the money you're saving on Time-Warner-Rectum, you probably could almost afford a chauffeur.
How much is Google Fiber compared to TWR for Internet service?
Amy Alkon at September 25, 2016 5:26 AM
The problem is the robo-call companies change numbers almost constantly. I can't tell you how many times Robo-Amy has called to hook us up with a security system (we already have one). And now she's selling medical products over the phone. "Hi, this is Amy, can you hear me okay?" [pause to wait for human voice recognition] "Great. I'm calling with...."
Conan the Grammarian at September 25, 2016 7:30 AM
Conan, their system must be blocking a lot of them, and actually, I have caller ID, and I had the same numbers calling me daily or every few days, to a great extent. That one call that got through was probably a changed number. All I know is that, after getting about four calls a day and more during election season (as the election draws nearer), my writing is no longer interrupted. It's amazing.
Amy Alkon at September 25, 2016 8:07 AM
We really need this. Thanks for letting the world know! I am very tired of robo-calls and pollsters. One called us three times in one minute. My husband finally resorted to the "F" word.
Beth Donovan at September 25, 2016 8:07 AM
We solve this issue by leaving our home phone ringer off (we didn't have a home phone for years, but new cable service was cheaper bundled with a phone). :)
Emily Deans at September 25, 2016 8:08 AM
You need this! http://gizmodo.com/todays-hero-made-an-ai-that-annoys-telemarketers-for-as-1756344562
Mark at September 25, 2016 8:45 AM
I'm going to have to look into that. We had the same number (Robo-Amy selling security systems) calling us for several days and learned not to answer that one. Finally, we blocked it on our AT&T system.
The next day, we got a call from a new number and it was Robo-Amy trying to sell us a security system. We started blocking each number as she called and she still got through from different numbers, the same Robo-Amy selling different products. And now she's calling our cell phones.
All of our numbers are listed on the Do Not Call List, fat lot of good that has done us.
Like Emily, we found it cheaper to get cable and internet with the phone service bundled. Otherwise, we'd probably not have a landline.
Conan the Grammarian at September 25, 2016 8:53 AM
I'd like to get one of these for my mom for Christmas.
Does it only work with VOIP, or does it work with traditional landlines as well?
Kevin at September 25, 2016 11:12 AM
Related topic: Whatever you do Never buy medications from India. It's been ten years since I did and I still get at least ten calls a day wanting to sell me more. There's no stopping them. I told one of the cretins I was going to change my phone# and I said they'd get that number too. This is maddening and depressing. Each call comes via a different spoofed number. Anyone else ever get caught in such a situation? Any advice?
Rojak at September 25, 2016 3:20 PM
My favorites:
"This is Betty from your carpet cleaning company." First, does "Betty" not know what company she works for? Second, I'd like her to return my carpet. Since I don't have any, I assume she stole it.
The guys from "Technical Support" calling about my "Windows computer." I don't have one. Or rather, I do, but it's a laptop that hasn't been plugged in since about 2010. Somehow, despite the complete lack of power, it is "infected" or "sending out viruses." These guys can't even take a hint. I can tell them till I"m blue in the face I don't even have a windows machine to scam me with and they still keep calling. I think next time I'll pretend to have a Tandy 1000.
I'm going to have to block them, so thanks for sharing this Amy. For now, I let them call so the kids can hear what a scam sounds like and learn how to identify them.
Shannon at September 25, 2016 6:28 PM
I don't want to "annoy" telemarketers. I want my phone to not ring.
NoMoRobo allows it to ring once. With this thing, it doesn't ring at all -- unless it's Gregg or a friend or my mom or sister; that is, someone calling for ME.
Amy Alkon at September 26, 2016 5:48 AM
I wasted one of the Windows Tech support guys' time with my dead Windows 98 PC. I just kept asking what it would take to have them give me a free upgrade to Windows Eleventy Twenty Three. And when they asked for a card number, I gave them 8675 3098 6753 0901, billing address 1 North Pole, Juneau, AK, 00001, name, Kristopher Kringle (at which point they finally caught on and hung up). But I did waste about 20 minutes of their time. I also text my dad all the fake numbers that call me, and he files a report with the FCC about them.
spqr2008 at September 26, 2016 5:57 AM
Amy,
Fair enough. But I have two purposes. First, there have been a few occasions in which they called me at JUST the right moment when I had a few minutes and a strong desire to take my bad mood out on :)
Second, when I'm talking with them, I almost always have my kids handy, so I turn it into a lesson. The goal is to help the kids learn how NOT to be conned. We talk about it after - how to tell if somebody is legit, etc.
Like, the "final notice that the IRS is suing you," call. That begat the lesson that, "if somebody wants to do that, they have to send papers with a live human being to you personally."
It IS a waste of time in most senses, but we homeschool, so I am more than comfortable using THEIR time to teach my kids... or to improve my mood. They called, so they are asking for it.
Shannon at September 26, 2016 10:12 PM
I LOVE THIS THING!
You can't give robocallers a lesson, first of all.
Secondly, I don't want my phone to even ring unless it's for me -- meaning that it's someone I want to be calling me.
It's highly interruptive and there are a number of times I've been, well, indisposed in, uh, another room, and had to run for the phone...only to find it's not for me; it's a robocall or surveyer using a phone line I pay for to interrupt my life.
We will all be getting countless calls about the election. No. No. No. Not here!
Amy Alkon at October 2, 2016 7:12 AM
It's now October 23. In all that time, I have gotten only TWO calls that got through. This is the greatest invention for the phone since the phone.
Amy Alkon at October 23, 2016 8:14 AM
Amy, just installed my v5000. We get typically half dozen calls a day, so far, silence, I guess those pre-programmed are doing something. Can't wait to hit the RED button though.
You mentioned in your blog wanting something for you phone. Check out the CPR main web site https://www.callblockerusa.com/ they show an Android app available,"CPR Call Blocker". I haven't tried it because I'd found something previously that's working for me. I think it's available for both Android and iPhone - "Hiya". I set it up to block out anything not on my contact list. It gives options how to deal with numbers from those not on the list.
Bruce J Deeter at May 12, 2017 3:26 PM
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