<p>I just spent 40 minutes on the phone with Verizon, trying to find out how to block these calls. I get 6-8 per day, from “crc”, “bill assist”, “help center”, “power rate”, etc. It turns out that I would have to pay a charge (they couldn’t even find the amount) and only 6 numbers could be blocked. Of course, I don’t pick up the calls, but they still drive me nuts; I work at home, and I hate having my concentration broken. Or if I am cooking dinner, I hate stopping what I’m doing to check the phone. </p>
<p>The “do not call” registry doesn’t work. It did for a few years, but doesn’t any more. </p>
<p>Anyone have a solution to this?</p>
<p>I am also tired of paying Verizon’s rates. I had a two-year introductory price, and now it’s gone up. I am paying $150/month for telephone, internet, and 300+ TV channels, of which we watch exactly two. The representative was looking for ways to reduce my bill, but the lower tier TV options don’t include the golf channel (one of the two we want). He found a way to reduce my bill by $20/month. It’s still $130.</p>
<p>Any ideas about this? I just bought a Roku box, but they don’t have things like the golf channel.</p>
<p>While this won’t help with new numbers, if you’re getting called from the same four or five numbers all the time you could set up those numbers as contacts then assign them a silent ring tone and/or direct them straight to voicemail, then delete the alert tone for VM messages. At least then the only way you’ll know you got a call from one of those numbers is when you notice a light blinking on your phone.</p>
<p>Since I couldn’t just silence my phone when I didn’t want to be disturbed by non-family calls, I set up a bunch of numbers this way. Each one’s contact name is preceded with Z so I don’t have to scroll through them when I’m looking up a number.</p>
<p>There are bound to be other (better) solutions, but this quick fix helped me.</p>
<p>I also don’t understand what happened to the "Do Not Call " registry.</p>
<p>It used to work, but now it seems many telemarketers are totally ignoring it.</p>
<p>In “the old days” (maybe a year ago or longer), I could live with getting calls from non-profits, politicians, and people who I had a business relationship with. Now it seems that the “Do Not Call” Registry is totally ineffective.</p>
<p>One approach could be to get a Google Voice number that calls your home phone and mobile phone at the same time when someone calls the Google Voice number. You could turn the ringer off the home phone. When someone calls the home phone, it doesn’t ring. When someone calls the Google Voice number, your mobile phone rings and you can pick up the call on your home phone or your mobile phone. Google Voice allows you to block calls by number so you can block the calls that you know are spam calls.</p>
<p>Sign into your Verizon account on line and go to “call and message blocking”. You can enter up to 5 numbers to be blocked. They will only be blocked for 90 days unless you pay an extra fee, but I just mark my calendar when they will expire and re-enter them.</p>
<p>Also, if you get any mystery number calls, go to 800notes.com to see if others are reporting similar calls and to find out their origin. I had a mystery caller from the same number call my house 6 times one day last week. I went on the above web site and discovered it was Comcast (I had just discontinued my service with them). Apparently they relentlessly call when you disconnect service…to, I guess, REALLY make you glad you discontinued?! </p>
<p>Do not call registries are woefully behind the telemarketers tricks, I stopped relying on them awhile ago and took matters into my own hands.</p>
<p>I have recently switch from a land line to Voip with Ooma and it is ridiculously simple to have suspect numbers routed directly to your voicemail so your phone doesn’t ring. If it’s important whomever is calling will leave a message.</p>
<p>yalemom, I can block up to 5 numbers for 90 days on my Verizon cell phone, but not on my landline.</p>
<p>There are some good suggestions here, and I will have to look into them. I’m not sure whether I can assign numbers to contacts and set up a silent ring. </p>
<p>I will look into VOIP and Google numbers. I have to find a solution. </p>
<p>I am saving a bundle since switching from my Comcast *land line phone service to Voip (using Ooma, but there are others too). So that might help your bottom line Comcast bill that you’re not happy with.</p>
<p>The Voip allows me to go online to see every call that comes into our house (I was able to ‘port’ our old phone number, so to the outside world, nothing has changed, our number is the same). If I see a call that comes in that I can identify as a telemarketer (using 800notes.com), one mouse click sends the message to forward all calls from that number to voicemail in the future. Also, when I get any voicemail on my home number, I get a text to my cell to tell me that its there, AND I can listen to my voicemail online.</p>
<p>*It used to be that if you had a security system you had to have a land line, but even that has been fixed and our security system works through radio transmission instead of using our (now defunct) land line. </p>
<p>This has literally changed my life, if you can’t tell. ;). I know a lot of people have given up home telephone numbers completely, but I still like ours, and now I only get the calls that are important.</p>
<p>We shouldn’t have to jump through all these hoops or incur extra charges. The government should enforce the Do Not Call registry. </p>
<p>I get three or four calls every afternoon. Some are robo calls. Many are out of work contractors looking for home improvement projects. </p>
<p>Also we just had a mayoral election so that was more robocalls, which the Do Not Call registry will do nothing about. If the candidates only knew that many of my friends are saying they WILL NOT vote for anyone who calls them with a robocall. </p>
<p>That, of course, is the ultimate way to get them to stop. Do not buy anything, or vote for anyone, who makes these calls. But we all have to be onboard for that one to work.</p>
<p>Probably because not enough people were suing for $500 or $1500 per illegal telemarketing call. (Look up “private right of action telephone consumer protection act” and similar phrases.)</p>
<p>Perhaps the numerous unemployed lawyers can use this to support themselves while they are unemployed.</p>
<p>But it could be that the problem is that most of the telemarketers now are so shady (or offshore) that it is too difficult to collect from them after winning the lawsuits.</p>
<p>We had the same problem. I looked up information on whether the numbers expire off of the do not call list, and they do not. HOWEVER, if you change carriers or plans, they drop off. For instance, we bundled our services under a different provider, which dropped our numbers off the list and we needed to re-enroll.</p>
<p>Are you tied to a contract? It only takes shutting off service for one day to get the “new customer” rates from Verizon, and any time I tell them I want to stop the service so I can be a new customer, they’ve given me the rate without having to do it. That said, my bill is about the same as yours…and I agree it’s outrageous!</p>
<p>We keep our landline for the security system so we don’t relieve any personal calls on it. About 6 months ago our answering machine gave out. I am now down to 1-3 calls per week I have since learned that to a solicitor an answering machine pick up is considered a successful call. If u can live without your answering machine, give it a try!</p>
<p>We cut our land line a year ago. We all had our own phones and no one used the landline (that we wanted to talk to). Blissful silence!! I did take several weeks notifying billers, banks, schools, etc, of the new contact #. The DNC registry just didn’t work. ADT (security) was able to run the system through our mobile line(s). On first request there was an expensive adaptor and svc charge. DH called back and as if by magic it was all free. :rolleyes: We’ve had several power outages but we conserve usage and periodically charge phones with adapters in the car if need be. The only thing we miss is the fax. Some co’s still require traditional fax. Most allow scan and email fax.</p>