Rob, You didn't mention whether you have discussed this problem with the Embarq. It would seem to me (OK, I'm speculating) that if a sufficient number of Embarq's customers complained loudly and long enough that Embarq would be in a better position than any single phone customer to pursue means to stop it. Next door in Wisconsin (first phone book I grabbed) Frontier offers *57 service to report "Annoyance" and/or "Harassing" calls. The definition of such are state-dependent, so again, I think your local provider would be a good place to start. Paul Bruesch Stillwater, MN On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 6:48 PM, Rob & Helen Goodale <rrg at unlv.nevada.edu>wrote: > >>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 > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20081206/c5ff9c9e/attachment.html>
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