unwanted phone calls

[mptomey]

I get an avalanche of unwanted phone calls on my landline daily. Mostly from phone numbers that are "unavailable". Verizon's anoyomous call doesn't work. I block the calls, but I will soon run out of the 100 numbers they allow us to block. Any suggestions

[TelecomAdvo]

Google is a great tool. Try https://donotcall.gov/default.aspx

[luny]

TL;DR - Look into NoMoRobo (https://www.nomorobo.com/)  It's free and should work fine with Fios Digital Voice phone service.  In my experience it significantly cuts down on the annoyance of unwanted calls at home.

I tried using Verizon's block list for a while, too.  At first it was limited to only 10 numbers; we filled that up in less than a week.  I found they'd expanded it (at least online, not sure about through STB) to a max of 100 numbers.  We tried that for a while, but it was obvious I'd fill it up before long.

Then I read NoMoRobo now works with the "Verizon Fios Digital Voice" service we get our landline through, hooray!   It won't stop "Private" calls, the ones with caller ID blocked.  But it works on the problem "UNAVAILABLE" calls we get - those have a valid-format 10-digit caller ID number; the "UNAVAILABLE" refers to the caller ID info not including a value for the caller ID name field.

I've been watching our incoming call log very closely since setting NoMoRobo up on our line about five weeks ago.  I did totals after the first month:

• 97 total incoming calls
• 42 legitimate, wanted calls (43% of total) including robocalls from our doctors' offices with things like appointment reminders.
• 55 unwanted nuisance calls of one sort or another (57% of total)  Of those:
  • 36 rang only once and then stopped, the sign that NoMoRobo intercepted them (37% of total calls, 65% of unwanted calls)
    • I looked up the numbers NoMoRobo hung up on, and each one already had existing reports on various websites of unwanted nuisance calls.  So NoMoRobo didn't hang up on any of our calls it probably should have let through.
  • 19 got past NoMoRobo (20% of total calls, 35% of unwanted calls.)  Of those:
    • 8 either had caller ID blocked or had invalid caller ID info, other than just a 10 digit phone number.  NoMoRobo doesn't stop those and doesn't claim to be able to.  (We haven't tried using Verizon's option to reject calls with caller ID blocked because sometimes the local government sends out robocall alerts we want to hear with their caller ID blocked.)
    • 2 calls came in ways obviously designed to bypass how NoMoRobo intercepts.  We quickly figured out what was going on and learned to ignore those calls, too.  (If the phone rings once, stops, and then you get another call within a few seconds - that's probably the scammer's autodialer's programmed response to its first call being blocked by NoMoRobo.  Don't answer it - let them have the option of leaving you a voicemail.  Of course, they won't.)
    • 6 calls came from obviously spoofed, yet legitimate looking format, numbers one digit different from ours.  We already know to let the answering machine deal with those, but now I'm more comfortable using some of my precious 100 blocklist entries to take care of the most used number ranges.
    • 2 calls got through that shouldn't have.  I reported both those calls and their CID info to NoMoRobo, so they can stop future calls.
    • 1 appeared to be a "legitimate telemarketer" (vs. the scammers)  It was a call from a local company we used to do business with many years ago.  We've asked them to stop calling before, but they don't.  (Yeah, I know - that's the kind we need to file DNC violation reports with the FCC about.  We do.)

So just "out of the box" setting up NoMoRobo blocked about 2/3 of our unwanted calls, and I set it up without its "advanced detection" option active because I was more worried about it blocking legitimate calls than failing to block a nuisance call.  With it taking care of that much bulk, I'm freed up to use my limited Verizon blocklist to handle the caller ID info obviously custom-spoofed for us - that further cuts down on how often our phone rings and how likely we are to be sorry we answered it when it does.

I hope this helps & I really hope NoMoRobo can work well for you, too!

Cheers