Robo calls

[whorfin]

...and if you won't do any of the above, at least let me add a bunch of numbers at once to the Reject list, and/or allow more than 1000 numbers in contacts, and i will be happy to do it myself

No fooling, I Do Not Want to accept calls from (nnn) nnn-**** where "n"s are the first six of my number, and * is any number. They Are Always Evil Scammers. That may well be just me, but I'd like to be able to do this, kthx.

[user]

But the legit calls generated by automatic systems were blocked by Sonic. I was calling the customer service at CA Franchise Tax Board this morning and opted to use their callback feature. The call did not come. It happened to me a while back with another institution. Now I realized the callbacks were blocked. It's really annoying that the calls you are waiting never come through while the spam calls keep coming. I guess I can never use the callback feature when calling customer service.

[digitalbitstream]

I had a telemarketer last week promise to harass me, calling me day or night until I agreed to sign up with a Comcast service bundle. Then the neighbor calls (e.g. 510-YYY-XXXX where YYY is mine) really ramped up.

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Seems to me this needs, AS A START, to be handled on the outgoing call side. Any business or residence making more than XX,XXXX calls per day be required to fill out forms stating the intent and scope of their calling, and their compliance level with the Federal Do Not Call Registry https://www.ftc.gov/faq/consumer-protec ... l-registry

I'm aware this would hit only the USA originated calls, and may push additional robocall activity offshore.

[ankh]

Some years back, we relied on a gadget I wish we still had.
Can't recall the name.

When a call came in, it would pick up and play a little tweedle-beep sound that made the robocaller hang up immediately. It may have been a "nonworking line" signal tone. Then it would let our home phone ring if the caller did not hang up.

Human callers just heard a little tweedle-beep ring ring -- nothing to worry the human caller.

Is there any way Sonic's phone system can try inserting that kind of robot-deterring signal?

[wa2ibm]

Some years back, we relied on a gadget I wish we still had.

The device was called a "TeleZapper". It was tied across the phone line. When it detected a ring and the call was answered, it would mimic phone system "This Call Cannot be Completed" tone signals. This would, possibly, fool telemarketing predictive dialers that they should just hang up. They may, or may not, still work.

Here's an example device:

https://www.amazon.com/Privacy-Technolo ... per+tz-900

Bill

[ankh]

Bingo, that's the one! That's a newer model than we had.


Hello, Sonic, can you try out patching a recording of that kind of signal into transfer of incoming calls?

Pleeeease?

Or tell me and I'll try buying one of those and hooking it up at home and see if it works with Sonic phone service.

[ankh]

From the Questions collection at that Amazon link:

the designers of robocalling systems have gotten more aggressive and many of them simply ignore the tones that the TeleZapper produces. That's not the fault of the TeleZapper.
That said, the difference between the two settings chosen by the slide switch on the bottom of the unit (as explained in the user manual that comes with the unit) is that in the "advanced" mode it delivers the full tone sequence (several tones long), in the more basic mode is sends only the first tone of the sequence, which with well-behaved robocallers cancels the call immediately. The full tone sequence is annoying to humans

[ankh]

Hello-o-o-o Sonic staff

Anybody there?

Can you comment on looking into whether you can incorporate the TeleZapper disconnect tones at the Sonic end?

[ankh]

Support took the question in email but suggested I post it in the forums because Dane might reply here.

[dane]

No, that wouldn't be something that our voice switch could do.

You could give the widget a try on your end though!