I wish there was someone at Verizon who were really looking at these complaints and taking it upstairs. I spent the better part of my work day trying to solve this incessant influx of telemarketing calls. My wife is almost at the point of a nervous breakdown (I am not kidding) and I do not want to change my number but it looks like I have no choice.
Let me explain:
First I find out that the $3.00 I pay every month to have my phone number unpublished is not preventing it from being listed in the Verizon directory. I have to pay $3.50 a month for this so says the customer service person who didn't understand why I was only paying $3/month. Nobody told me this when I first signed up and this explains why I am getting so many spam calls on both my home and home office number. And the timing bears this out, it all started recently after I signed up with FIOS. So it looks like I am going to lose my phone number of 40 years because a Verizon rep (actually it was a commissioned outside company who came door to door who was more interested in getting the commission than making sure the order was correct.) Why Verizon has $3 and $3.50/month options is ridiculous in itself, unlisted is unlisted and not unlisted except!
So today my wife starts crying and I am getting real mad. I call the tech support person to ask why I am getting these calls with anonymous call rejection on. He confirms that it is on and when he realizes that the data coming across for the caller ID is ???????? (Yes, that's what the caller ID says, it is either set to question marks or the caller ID info is not in the right format and so my phone displays the question marks. And to make things even worse, this call is not recorded in the history nor reported me via email since I have this option on. So again, I ask why this call is coming thru. "Sir, it is NOT anonymous since there is caller ID data so we don't block it. And we know that telemarketers have figured out that this is a workaround to getting by the anonymous call rejection block.” So I said, this is a simple thing to filter for and you could write some very simple code to block calls with caller ID data that is invalid or all question marks. He explains that Verizon policy is to pass calls with caller ID data since it is not anonymous. I insisted this is stupid, that is not data – there is no company in the world with this name. He then insists that this is Verizon policy. I then ask, well who sets this policy, I want to contact him. He then goes on to say that this is the law; it is not anonymous if it has data even if it is all question marks. So I ask what law is this because I want to write my congressman. I don’t know, it doesn’t state this in our policy.
Now don’t get me wrong, the agent was polite but either he could not see my point on how this policy is stupid and if the telemarketers are exploiting this loophole and Verizon is aware of it, then why don’t they stop it!
(By the way, earlier he told me I could select 6 or so numbers to specifically block since I mentioned that some telemarketers spoof the caller id to be 000 000-0000. I told him that the data entry screen rejects adding this since it considers it an “invalid” number. Of course it is, that’s why they use it, because it keeps them anonymous. And of course you cannot have anonymous call rejection on and also block 6 or so specific numbers.)
We get these calls at all hours of the night as if someone is targeting us. When I mentioned this to the Verizon rep, he said that the harassment call department cannot even help if there is no caller id to identify who is calling. And to make things worse, when I am out of town or even out of the country, it cost me real money to receive these telemarketing calls wherever I am in the world and, because of the time zone differences, it is usually the middle of the night.
In conclusion, my wife and I are heartbroken that we will be forced to switch our numbers and there is no technical solution that is offered by Verizon such as correcting the issues described earlier or implementing some sort of junk call screening service like Google Voice. (I investigated using Google Voice but forwarding to it doesn’t work as earlier posters pointed out. And, according to Google, I cannot port the number over to Google voice and forward calls to a new number I get from Verizon.) We would gladly pay extra for a spam filtering service.
So here we are, I believe its Verizon’s fault but even if it is not, Verizon offers no technical solution to the problem. And I would write my congressman to get the law changed if indeed the law is actually written this way. I welcome someone from Verizon to discuss this with me privately; obviously you have my phone number to contact me with.
Oh, and please, if someone from Verizon responds to this post to put yourself on the do not call registry, I have been on it for at least ten years and used the process to confirm it.
Frustrated Mike and crying Lori in Buffalo
