The Sales Calls Have Taken Over Our Land Line

Nine out of ten calls that we now receive on our land line are sales calls.  The no call list no longer seems to be in effect.   What can we do?   We have FIOS triple play.  

https://www.nomorobo.com/

Nomorobo is terrific - the phone rings once and the call will disappear. Quite effective at weeding out only the junk calls in the several years we've used it, and easy to set up.

In addition to Nomorobo, with FIOS you can block calls from unknown callers entirely - not even one ring-a-dingy. I started doing this about a week ago and it definitely has helped. This takes care of the calls that get through Nomorobo.

These were the calls that we were getting everyday, from the same numbers, that we didn't answer because we didn't recognize the numbers, and they never left a message. 

Ladwiz said:

Nomorobo is terrific - the phone rings once and the call will disappear. Quite effective at weeding out only the junk calls in the several years we've used it, and easy to set up.

The trick for us has been: getting used to not jumping up at that first ring.

Nomorobo has been great, but now I get lots of 917 calls to my cell phone, all about my credit card or some such garbage.  I'd like to figure that one out.

We no longer answer our land line.  We wait until someone starts talking to the machine.  The last three people who still call that number know this, and say insulting things until we pick up.  Most businesses leave a message and we call them back.  We give the number out to anyone who might abuse or sell it, which is a lot of businesses and any websites that ask for a phone number.  We rarely give a business a mobile number.

FWIW, we follow the same principle with email.  There is an email address that is for businesses and websites, and a different one for real people.

Nomorobo is no longer as effective as it was, given the proliferation of spoofed phone numbers.  Not answering the phone when it rings and returning those calls we want to receive seems to be the way to go.

One partial solution is:

When a business asks for my phone number, I tell them that I do not give it out.  If they insist, I give them a land line number, which we maintain, but it is not connected to any live phone.

We turned the ringer off on our land line ages ago. To date, there's been only one call I wish I'd gotten (from Cashmere Cleaners telling me to pick my stuff up because they were going out of business), but it didn't have any serious side-effects (because I read about the closing on-line). We'll periodically check the messages and call back whomever really needs to be called back. 

I've been getting robocalls on my cell too. If I can actually answer them (as opposed to having dinner or driving) I don't hang up. I just put the phone down on the counter until they disconnect. I figure I'm doing my small part in tying up their resources so they have less time to bother other people. 

Nomorobo doesn't seem to support regular Verizon landline phones.  Not sure what we even have, with Verizon tripleplay, but whatever it is, nomorobo doesn't seem to want to set up on our house phone. We get mostly telemarketers too.

Nomorobo is available on the App Store for iphones and will be available soon for Android phones.

http://www.nomorobo.com/ios/

We usually don't answer the landline, just wait to see if anyone is leaving a message.  If it's convenient, I'll look at the caller i.d. and pick up if it's someone I want to talk to.

We are also getting the spoofed calls on the cell phones.  I don't ever answer unless I recognize the name or number.  It's a little easier because we still have 973 NJ numbers on the cells though living in Wisconsin (for 10+ years now), so all the unidentified 973 calls are junk.

cramer said:

Nomorobo is available on the App Store for iphones and will be available soon for Android phones.

http://www.nomorobo.com/ios/

Just an FYI, Nomorobo is fee based for iOS, unlike for VOIP where it's free

Is the fee for purchasing the app or is it on a subscription charge per month or so basis?

DaveSchmidt said:

Ladwiz said:

Nomorobo is terrific - the phone rings once and the call will disappear. Quite effective at weeding out only the junk calls in the several years we've used it, and easy to set up.

The trick for us has been: getting used to not jumping up at that first ring.

Same here.  It took a while, but now we are used to waiting for the second ring before moving toward the phone.

wendy said:

Is the fee for purchasing the app or is it on a subscription charge per month or so basis?

It's free for landlines ... at least mine was.  I think there may be a subscription for cell phones.  

iwasmim said:

Nomorobo doesn't seem to support regular Verizon landline phones.  Not sure what we even have, with Verizon tripleplay, but whatever it is, nomorobo doesn't seem to want to set up on our house phone. We get mostly telemarketers too.

I have Verizon phone/internet/TV and Nomorobo works great on my landline.

cramer said:

In addition to Nomorobo, with FIOS you can block calls from unknown callers entirely - not even one ring-a-dingy. I started doing this about a week ago and it definitely has helped. This takes care of the calls that get through Nomorobo.

These were the calls that we were getting everyday, from the same numbers, that we didn't answer because we didn't recognize the numbers, and they never left a message. 

How do you do that??? 

sac said:

cramer said:

In addition to Nomorobo, with FIOS you can block calls from unknown callers entirely - not even one ring-a-dingy. I started doing this about a week ago and it definitely has helped. This takes care of the calls that get through Nomorobo.

These were the calls that we were getting everyday, from the same numbers, that we didn't answer because we didn't recognize the numbers, and they never left a message. 

How do you do that??? 

1. Go to your home page on verizon.com;

2. Hit "Services" and the the phone icon;

3.Under "Call Features" go to "Incoming Call Block;"

4. Activate Incoming Call Block;

5. Click the > arrow; 

6. Click "Call Block;"

7. Insert number you want to block, click "add" and then click "save changes."

Voila!

There's also a shorthand way of doing it: 

1.After you get to step 3 above, on the left hand side you'll see "Call History;" 

2. Click "View Call History."  You'll see "Manage." You can then go down the list of your calls and block those that you don't want. This is handy when there are calls that anonymous. 

Good luck!

wendy said:

Is the fee for purchasing the app or is it on a subscription charge per month or so basis?

It's $2/month. I tried it and canceled it. I use it at home, though.

wendy said:

Is the fee for purchasing the app or is it on a subscription charge per month or so basis?

$1.99/month, $19.99/year and there is a 1 month free trial. 

Thanks, sac -- I did eventually figure it out, and enabled nomorobo on our Verizon FIOS tripleplay home phone.  Hoping for at least a reduction in those annoyance calls.

Nomorobo works great for us (FIOS triple play), but the number of spoof calls has significantly increased, and unfortunately they get through. We don't answer, and those callers never leave a message, of course. I'm waiting for Nomorobo to become available for Android phones, because I've been getting more worthless calls on my cell of late. When I see the same number two or three times, I block it, but there's no end to the spoof numbers they can use. Note that it's always best not to answer a call you don't recognize, because doing so tells the caller that they've reached an actual person, which leads to more calls.

If I call you and you have nomorobo, do I have to press a number to be connected? I don't love that feature. My son has an app that downloads and blocks a bunch of know spam numbers.

zucca said:

If I call you and you have nomorobo, do I have to press a number to be connected? I don't love that feature. My son has an app that downloads and blocks a bunch of know spam numbers.

No number to push. If your number isn’t in their database it will ring thru, if person on other end answers,that’s another story. 

I think the app is called Mr. Number.

When I get a spam number on my cell, I immediately block that number on my phone. 

zucca said:

If I call you and you have nomorobo, do I have to press a number to be connected? I don't love that feature. My son has an app that downloads and blocks a bunch of know spam numbers.

You aren't a Robo (computerized) caller, so you won't be 'caught' by Nomorobo.

Also, the Nomorobo database distinguishes 'desired' Robo calls such as from the town, school district, medical appointment reminders, etc, so those come through.