I'm mainly posting this in the hope that it might help other Google
searchers, with my particular problem. Basically I discovered that
the police don't do much to individuals who enjoy harassing and
annoying others by calling their phone. My situation was somewhat
unique in that an ex boyfriend of my wife enjoyed calling at all hours
of the night once leaving 37 messages on our answering machine. I
used all the phone company resources I could buy from Bellsouth (call
block, caller anonymous rejection and caller ID) to no avail. The
Bellsouth call block feature doesn't work to block cell phones (how
nice for our annoying caller) and he simply turned off the feature
blocking HIS phone number. Since he didn't leave threatening messages
the police didn't care. We were reduced to just turning off the
ringer and answering machine at night and reviewing the
caller ID prior to answering the phone during the day.
Finally took a chance on the somewhat pricey Caller ID Manager from
Privacy Corps. I couldn't find any independent comments on this
device from others, so here are mine. The good news is it works --
peace and quiet finally. The annoying callers phone number is
programmed to go to an unused port on the device. When he calls the
phone doesn't ring and he can't leave a message on the answering
machine. I programmed it to block my cell phone temporarily as a
test. Calling the device with a blocked numbers leads the caller to
believe your phone is ringing, which is perfect for my situation. He
doesn't even know he isn't harrassing us but thinks he is. Another
nice freature is the display is much larger than my phones so it's
useful as a mundane caller ID device as well.
The Caller ID manager has other useful features I haven't taken
advantage of yet mainly because of the one bad feature of the device
which I'll discuss below. It can be programmed to not allow ANY calls
between certain hours (sorry Aunt Bertha I guess we left the ringer
off). Also it has a silent feature good for avoiding phone calls,
while entertaining or watching a movie. The silent feature can be
setup for a couple hours after which it automatically allows the phone
to ring again.
Ok the bad news. I recommend you burn the manual immediately after
opening the box. I've installed motherboards in computers, setup a
wireless home network and setup a 5.1 home theater in my house, but
the Caller ID manager eluded all my programming attempts. The web site
FAQ is likewise useless since much of it is a copy / paste of the
manual.
Please Privacy Corps write a new manual and post it on your
web site -- I'll review it for a small fee. Another thing that could
bother others is that all other phones need to have their ringer off
or you have to buy another remote device from the same people for the
other phone. Otherwise the other phones will ring. If you buy the
remote thing, with the caller ID manager, its half price --
unfortunately I missed this selling point. We've had our phone
ringers off, except for the main phone, for so long it isn't a problem
to have only one phone ringing.
The manual is useless is so I had to call technical support. I
recommend you be seated as you read further. I didn't have to wait
long and talked to somebody who spoke clear ENGLISH and was friendly
AND actually understood the device backwards and forwards. If anybody
from Privacy Corps ever reads this don't let that guy leave -- at least
till you've rewritten the manual. With his help I had the device
wired and setup as I needed fairly quickly (less than 30 minutes).
If you have an annoying ex boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse whatever this
is the device for you. The web sites are http://www.privacycorps.com
and http://www.person-to-person.net . The last one is the one with
the FAQ and a tips section consisting of portions of the manual.
Regards.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am glad it works for you. Southwestern
Bell (SBC; their chairman's office, or rather, the flunky who responds
in his name) has a rather odd philosophy on customer privacy. If you
do all the things you are able to do to block out unwanted calls, and
still continue to recieve calls from caller ID '000-000-0000' or some
similar nonsensical number, SBC none-the-less insists that they have
delivered caller ID. If you ask them why can't they do a database
dip and treat obviously undialable/unreachable numbers as anonymous
(and you have paid to have anonymous calls rejected). "We received
caller ID and passed it along, therefore it is _not_ an 'anonymous'
call and not subject to anonymous call rejection." And other telcos can
reject calls from interLATA numbers; why can't SBC? Well, they could
if they wanted to; but customer privacy is not a big thing with them.
SBC is such a sleazy, cheap operation. PAT]
Paratwa (