survey says: nix the land line?
I was thrilled to think there was a solution to the numerous robo calls we receive daily. Some callers start at 8 am and continue throughout the day and into the evening. Robo calls are actually a form of harassment to seniors, and others home during the day, IMO.
Then it was mentioned here that doctors, county emergency messages, Comcast etc use it to leave confirmations!
Abandoning the landline (Comcast bundle) is not feasible since while I have an iPhone, the spouse never replaced his last flip phone!
Is there a solution
I don't have a solution, but I can tell you how we handle it: Our landline phones display and announce the caller. The great majority of robocalls we receive are easily identifiable--e.g., "Unavailable" or "Unknown number" or some unknown area code. We never answer those calls, because that only confirms to the caller that there is a living, breathing person at the number, thus encouraging more calls. If it turns out that any of those calls are legit, the caller can leave a message on VM.
You might be surprised how few legit calls actually are placed, especially if you regularly use your cell phone and give that number to people, doctors, businesses. We recently went away for a number of days and came back to find 26 "missed calls" and 8 "messages." Nearly all the missed calls were garbage, and only one of the "messages" was actually a message (the others were hangups or recorded messages).
mtierney said:
I was thrilled to think there was a solution to the numerous robo calls we receive daily. Some callers start at 8 am and continue throughout the day and into the evening. Robo calls are actually a form of harassment to seniors, and others home during the day, IMO.
Then it was mentioned here that doctors, county emergency messages, Comcast etc use it to leave confirmations!
Abandoning the landline (Comcast bundle) is not feasible since while I have an iPhone, the spouse never replaced his last flip phone!
Is there a solution
The landline sounds better and has its own power run right through the copper cable. It's a shame to see an inferior service replace a superior one, as in cell, cable, etc replacing landline. If they could provide power during an outage more than 8 or so hours, I would likely consider switching. During Irene and Sandy, we had phone service the entire time.
Robocalls solution.
When I last had a land-line, I was using a two mailbox answering machine with a receiving message along the lines of - If this is somebody who I might call back, please press 2 now.
Didn't stop the live dialer solicitations; but did rid me of the robocalls.
Good luck.
TomR
unicorn33 said:
https://consumersunion.org/end-robocalls/
This appears to be a petition drive organized by Consumer Reports publisher. After signing I immediately got an email confirmation and request to forward to 5 people. When I read this a bit more closely I realized that their stated target seems rather low. This AM I got a new different petition request. This is making me uneasy... anyone else,s thoughts
Consumer Reports/consumers Union is a pretty trustworthy group. They accept no ads and fight hard to protect consumers.
dianaid said: To answer your question, there are many online fax services available such as HelloFax and MyFreeFax. If you google it, you'll see various options.
Oh, and I have no given up my landline due to 1. the superior sound quality, 2. I find using a phone physically easier that a cell phone espeically for longer conversations and 3. I know that if there is a real radiation risk, I have minimized it.
You don't use a corded phone, do you? You're using some kind of wireless radiation (radio) when you use a cordless phone.
mumstheword said:
I think Comcast is VOIP (my phone is plugged into the router rather than the phone jack in the wall like I did with FIOS in Maplewood).
Yes, that's VOIP.
musicmz said:
Oh gee! I was all set to use NoMoRobo, but now I realize that my mom's specialists all use robo calls to remind and confirm. My FiOS is set up to: Incoming Call Block is currently activated: All Anonymous/Private calls are rejected. That only works for a few because some of them identify location or weird company names (like Web Ranking or SSI).
I'd be surprised if nomorobo doesn't let you whitelist numbers.
Does nobody actually try to find out infomation for themselves anymore? ;-)
From the front page of nomorobo.com
Legal robocalls, like school closings and prescription reminders, are allowed through.
I like my landline and my big long cord attached to it!! I can always find it, and I can hear better. ALso, I don't want to get calls on my cell when I'm out and about - plus, it's usually on silence and I don't hear the ring anyway. I do like texting, tho. It's great for the short message or question.
So ... what happens if a legitimate caller gets caught in Nomorobo?