Three times a day, every day, the phone rings and a female robot voice
> says "Hello, this is not a sales call. This is about an important
> business matter. Again, this is /not/ a sales call, this is an
> Important Business Matter!"
> Then the damn thing hangs up.
> There is no CLID info with the calls -- they come through as "Unknown"
> or "Unavailable" -- despite the fact that this line is /supposed/ to
> reject anonymous calls.
> Been going on for three weeks or so.
> Three calls, every day.
> If I'm here when it rings and I see "Unknown" or "Anonymous", I just
> pick the receiver up and set it back down. They'll call back.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is no such thing as a dumb
> question around here, Randall. Just ask many of our users. With
> my tin-foil hat and diseased brain, I am likely to say almost
> anything as I bring discredit and shame to the entire net.
> The 'reject anonymous calls' condition only applies if the caller
> _deliberatly_ inserted *67 to withhold his number. That condition will
> not work if the failure to deliver ID is due to a telco shortcoming,
> such as the type of switch used by the sending telco, etc. The 'reject
> anonymous' condition relies on the sending telco specifically saying
> 'do not say who is calling'. In your case the sending telco is not
> saying that, it just does not know who the caller is or else the
> details somehow got lost in the switching matrix on the way. But it
> did not _deny_ or _hide_ anything at the caller's request.
> You still have a way around it however. Subscribe through your telco
> to *60 (I think that is called 'reject these callers' in many places).
> *60 answers you and says 'enter the number to be rejected' or words to
> that effect and from that point on _that_ caller gets a message saying
> you are not taking calls at this time.
> Now I heard your next question already: if you do not know _who_ is
> calling, how are you supposed to block them? Good question. The *60
> recording also tells you 'to reject the last call you received,
> whether or not you know the number, press (some) key.' I think around
> here it is '01' or something. You press whatever you were told, and
> the Operator-Bot responds, "Thank you! That number is a _private_
> entry." But none the less it has been blocked. Your telco has a 'local
> cache' of the last call you placed/received and it uses that entry to
> do the blocking. If your telco offers 'return last call' service (*68
> I think) then you can also use that service to return the last call
> and find out what the 'important business matter' is all about. Both
> 'return last call' and 'reject this caller' service are sold by most
> telcos these days. PAT]
Or you have one of those Radio Shack CID boxes that allow you to program numbers into it to block.
The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today? (c) 2005 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But Steven, recall that the man's caller ID box reported 'unavailable'. Radio Shack's Caller ID number blocker would not be able to help with that ... _what_ number to block? I think the man is going to have to rely on telco's magical cache of 'block last number even if you don't know who called you' arrangment. PAT]