RiversideAndBeyond.com

Go. See. Do. Riverside and Beyond

digitone

(000) 000-0000? Vonage, Please Give Us Call Blocking

by 3 Comments

** UPDATE 02/15/15:  Vonage recently announced its new “Selective Call Block” service. It is limited to 25 numbers and currently can only be accessed through a smartphone app, but hopefully it is a step in the right direction.  More info: support.vonage.com. **

Recently I have been receiving phone calls from an obviously spoofed phone number: (000) 000-0000. I received three calls last night after 10 PM, and another tonight.

When I answer the call, there is a short pause, a small beep and then a “goodbye”. I have searched online and found that many other people have received similar calls. I assume this is a robocall for a survey, marketing promotion or scam, but I have no way to tell who is originating the call.

So I took a few steps:

  1. I dialed *69. That didn’t work.
  2. I submitted my number to the National Do Not Call Registry at https://www.donotcall.gov/.
  3. I contacted Vonage to see if they could tell me the real number. They couldn’t.
  4. I searched online for phones that have call blocking functionality. After reading customer reviews, it seems that many of these phones ring once before blocking the call. For an uninterrupted night of sleep, these don’t work for me.
  5. I searched online for “call blocker” to see what would come up. A few products caught my eye: Digitone Call Blocker 10 and Incoming Pro Call Blocker. These products supposedly connect to your phone and block calls from specific numbers. Finally, a possible solution.

I decided to go with the Digitone Call Blocker 10, which was $92.95 on Amazon.com. Although it was more expensive, I chose this one because it had a higher rating and, according to the manufacturer’s website, works with Vonage.

I should receive the Digitone Call Blocker in a few days, and will update this post once I try it out.

This would be a lot easier if Vonage simply had the functionality to block specific phone numbers. Even AT&T landlines have this capability.

—————————
Just as I was about to publish this post, I received another call from the spoofed number (000) 000-0000. This time there was someone on the other end… a man with a strong accent who was calling about computer maintenance. I asked him for his phone number and he recited my phone number back to me. I told him that he gave me my number instead of his, but he insisted that my number was actually his.

Our short conversation devolved from there, so I hung up.

Apparently, the “tech support” or “computer maintenance” scam is common. These scammers want access to your computer.  Don’t fall for it.

Read about the scam so you won’t be fooled: