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Block Invalid Numbers

I make it a habit to report telelmarketers who call my number, which is registered with the National Do-Not-Call List, but ironically, callers who use caller-ID spoofing are effectively immune because the number you see isn't theirs. More often than not, the numbers they use can't be submitted because they are not valid NANP numbers. This got me thinking. Why isn't it possible to block calls with caller ID information that is obviously not valid? It's not difficult to recognize non-NANP numbers--the rules are very simple--and who would want to answer a call from someone who doesn't even wait for you to pick up before they begin lying to you? I might be going out on a limb here, but since it's now illegal to spoof caller ID information, aren't carriers who permit such calls to reach their subscribers aiding and abetting criminal activity?

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EO1948

I, too, getting lots of calls, I rarely answer but call back to discover the calls are invalid/non-working/phony/incomplete numbers. Do we not have a programmer on staff that can effectively stop these calls? It seems to me a call validation script would be easy to incorporate. Also, this seemed begin when I switched to Verizon, never had this at AT&T. When I have answered the calls, the caller has a heavy foreign accent and lies as to where he/she is calling from and what company he/she represents! I understand the politicians have exempted themselves from do not call, but it seems to me I am age targeted by the nature of the calls I actually answer.

Add the name "Verizon" to your spell check library.

rjogden

It seems to me Verizon doesn't care. I subscribe to WhitePages.com, which I did in order to check the identities of callers. It turns out that almost all are "unassigned".(technically a valid number but with no current owner) or "invalid" (there is no such combination of area code and prefix, or sometimes the area code itself doesn't exist).

My Android "Phone" app has an option under "Settings | Block numbers" to "Block unknown callers" which I thought would cause any caller not in my Contacts list to roll to voice mail. It doesn't do that. I'm not sure what it does, exactly, but it seems completely useless.

The fix for the problem would be trivial. Our phones already display the contact name for anyone on our Contacts list when they call, so obviously it is perfectly reasonable to provide an option to simply block any number without a matching entry in the Contacts list. Maybe they are getting a kickback from some of the scammers. I honestly can't think of any other reason not to fix it.

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