Your Cell Number Will Be Available To Telemarketers, UNLESS YOU ACT NOW!!!

Which the phone companies are happy to bill for.

I used to get a lot of junk faxes. I'd phone to have my number removed from their list, only to find it's only legally effective for a certain amount of time. Then, I blocked their number, only to discover the 'more than 25' tactic. Then I got smart. I sent faxes to the companies that the fax service was advertising for. Lots and lots of faxes. Some with notes. Problem solved.

 

This is correct. The auto-dialing at call centers is done statistically: X number of human operators can handle Y number of auto-dialed calls. It doesn't always work. Even when it does work, you get the short pause while the system transfers the call to a human.

Speaking of auto-dialed calls, have any of you turned the tables by pretending to be an answering machine? It's kind of fun if you have the time. It works like this:

"ring, ring, ring" - you pick up the phone.

Short pause, human comes on the line and starts sales pitch.

You, in your best synthetic machine voice: "I am sorry, this phone number does not accept unsolicited calls. If this is a personal call or an emergency, please press 1."

Sales person presses 1.

You: "Hello, you have reached 555-1212. Please state the nature of your call."

Sales person starts talking.

You, interrupting: "If you would like to talk to Aunt Mary, press 2; if you would like to talk to Bill, press 3; if you would like to press 4, press 5..."

See how long you can keep them playing.



Tom

 

Here's a thought. Would smartphones be able to do this?:

Set your basic ring to null or to a recording of silence. The caller would think it was ringing but you'd hear nothing and the call would go to voice mail. Then, set the ring for everyone in your phone book to whatever ring you like, and optionally set your distinctive rings for family members.

You'd get calls from everyone in your phone book, and legitimate callers not in your phone book could leave a message. You'd still get messages from automated recording calls, but you'd delete the recording as soon as it starts playing.

 

Seriously, I do not work for OOMA but they have something that kind of resembles this, though I've not looked in depth. You can however listen to a caller as they leave voice and pick up if you want (same as you could with a normal answering machine) and in other cases direct a call to voice or to you or to "number disconnected" based on certain behavior, particularly if you mate it with google voice.

 

A friend of mine tried something that sounds like OOMA, though I don't know if it was the same company. It didn't work. Reliability of service and voice quality were sporadic.

There's a saying in Mexico, "Musica pagada, mal tocada." Literally, music paid for in advance will be played badly. I gather that OOMA charges you a big fee for the box, and then provides free calling. But once you've paid, they have reduced incentive to make it work right. And since it's VoIP, they can always blame your ISP. I know a lot of people are very happy with Vonage, but from my limited experience calling people who have Vonage, I don't think VoIP has reached the quality I expect from a phone.

 

I am very diligent when I do things like switch services, which is why I read a good number of reviews first. There are almost 1000 reviews on amazon with an average 4.5/5. You absolutely will never find a product on amazon with any meaningful number of respondents (almost 1000 is a HUGE number) and 4.5/5 unless the product seriously delivers. This is why I had no hesitation going with OOMA and thusfar it's been fine. If they were a fly by nite they would be destroyed on amazon reviews. On Bestbuy the product gets 4.6 or 4.7/5. It is the real deal. Its quality is considered by most reviewers comparable to landline.

 

Please keep us posted about how you like it. I'm reluctant to make my phone dependent on my ISP, but I'm still interested to hear how it works out for you.

 

Shoot me a PM in three months and I'll let you know how it's going