My best advice.....Caller ID and an answering machine. If you don't know the caller, let the machine pick it up. At the end of the day, just hit the delete all button. Al G -------------------------------------------------- From: "Rob & Helen Goodale" <rrg at unlv.nevada.edu> Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2008 7:48 PM To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org> Subject: [pianotech] Seeking Off Topic Advise > >>OFF TOPIC>> > Seeking off topic advice: > > Fellow piano techers- > > We have been absolutely smothered in telephone solicitation calls to the > extreme. At present the phone rings at least once an hour, sometimes much > more, and there is no end in sight. We signed up on the infamous > government "Do Not Call List" quite some time ago and it does little to > improve he situation. My guess is that there are so many violators that > it is overwhelming the capacity to police it. If it were actually doing > what it was intended to do there would be regular stories in the news > about boiler room phone banks being raided and massive fines being > collected. I don't recall hearing that happening for a long time. In > part this surprises me because it seems like collecting millions in fines > would be a great source of government revenue. On the other hand it may > cost more to police it and prosecute then it would collect. Just a guess, > I don't know. The law exempts political groups, charities, and municipal > groups so there is no remedy there. > > The phone company offers a service that will block anonymous calls, (calls > in which the number ID has been blocked). You have to pay extra for this > which we did and the phone keeps ringing. We didn't subscribe to caller > ID so I added that and then ran out and bought a caller ID box. Guess > what- most of the incoming calls are from toll-free numbers. 1-800, > 1-888, and so on. Apparently the phone company, (Embarq), can not block > these numbers, only the anonymous numbers. Occasionally a number comes up > from out of state, for example one yesterday from Wyoming. No, we don't > know anyone in Wyoming. You can use what is called "selective blocking", > meaning that you can program the phone to reject whatever numbers you tell > it to, but the solicitors know this and continually use different numbers. > Any attempt to block a number will only result in their using another. So > the phone keeps ringing, far more then we get normal calls. They start at > around 7:00 am, reduce in frequency by about 8:00 pm, and stop all > together by around 10:00. Then it starts over the next day. We don't > even answer the phone anymore, we just let it go to voice mail. If no one > answers the solicitors don't leave a message they just automatically hang > up, but that doesn't stop the phone from ringing all day. Most of the > time these calls are made by computer random-dialer bots. > > Okay, so "Do not call" is basically useless, Embarq is limited in what > they can offer, and the phone keeps ringing. The tempting solution is to > change our number but I'm afraid sooner or later they will figure that out > and it will start over again. That would be costly, a pain in the butt, > there are no guarantees it won't start up again, and it isn't fair to us > anyway. There should be a way to give us power over this. > Sooooooooo..... Is there anyone else on this list who has experienced > this problem and if so what was your solution? I think there are external > devices that can be connected to your line and programmed to block numbers > but I haven't heard any reports on if they work or which brand/model is > best. Has anyone tried this? > > PLEASE: Useful information only, I don't have time to read a string of > speculations or stories about how your great uncle's neighbor got scammed > from a solicitation call. I need to work the problem and fix it. > > Thanks > > > Rob Goodale, RPT > Las Vegas, NV > > > > > >
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