[Closed] Call blocking home phones (specifically withheld numbers)

I bought a BT one which screens all calls except those in your approved phone book. Call Guardian I think it's called.

If an unrecognised number - including wihheld - calls, the call is answered by the phone , they have to say who it is, the phone then rings and says " You have a call from .......Do wish to answer it?"

It's enough to discourage most cold callers.

Another one with a BT phone with Call Guardian. You can set it up to deal with different types of calls in different ways.
Call types: In phone book, displaying number but not in book, International, Withheld and Unknown.
For each type do you want to: Let through automatically, get answered by the phone as mentioned above by PP, go to answer phone, or block completely.
You can also create a 'block list' of specific numbers.
The setup menu I find confusing but once done it seems to work well. Need to have caller display on the line but after that no extra charges to Plusnet (in my case) or Sky.

don't think you can get Call Guardian with a Sky phone package?

I've just signed to BT Call Protect this afternoon. It uses their blacklist to divert call but you can have paid service to add your own.

Have you registered your phone on TPS?

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html

Doing that and being ultra careful about what boxes I tick about who can contact me, who I give my number out to, and being ex-directory, has resulted in virtually no cold calls. It takes a few years though to drop off all lists. Reduced calls dramatically within 6 months.

Though where you have (possibly unwittingly) given permission to a company to call you, TPS doesn't help and you do have to order that company to remove you from lists. After that, TPS applies by law.

Even the ones that use international numbers and scammers have stopped now.

We cannot reach a fair number of our patients because they implement this. So they wonder why their GP cannot reach them.

Call Guardian is ok if a pain to deal with as someone calling in.
TPS is worth doing
But only a twit would [i]purchase [/i]the ones you just do 1470 in front of. The real spam callers shift numbers so quickly they just don't care if you know it. And TPS usually cannot deal with them.

don't think you can get Call Guardian with a Sky phone package?

Just checked my phone specs (BT 8500 phone) and the blocking feature seems to be called "trueCall" rather than Call Guardian. Sorry for any confusion.
I dont see why trueCall wouldn't work on Sky. All it needs is the caller id enabled on the line. Everything else is done on the phone side. Might want to either disable the voicemail or 1571 service if you want to use the phones built in answerphone.

deadkenny - do you honestly believe 'companies' consult lists before phoning? TPS is powerless to stop random generated dialling where we're subjected to silent calls.

Or alternatively there are insurance companies such as [b]Aviva[/b] who employ dishonest staff who sell off customer's personal details. They of course denied this, at CEO level, until a customer went public naming [b]Aviva[/b] who then went on a charm offensive.

Just checked my phone specs (BT 8500 phone) and the blocking feature seems to be called "trueCall" rather than Call Guardian. Sorry for any confusion.
I dont see why trueCall wouldn't work on Sky. All it needs is the caller id enabled on the line. Everything else is done on the phone side. Might want to either disable the voicemail or 1571 service if you want to use the phones built in answerphone.

an elderly family member of mine used Call Guardian until recently and having been a BT customer, had purchased it as a service on his line- though i think youre talking about a device or handset type that has this 'truecall' functionality. its similar to CG as far as i know, though im pretty sure CG is a feature exclusive to a standard BT line regardless of handset type.

cinnamon_girl - Member 
deadkenny - do you honestly believe 'companies' consult lists before phoning? TPS is powerless to stop random generated dialling where we're subjected to silent calls.

Genuine companies in the UK absolutely do. They filter the lists. If they don't they are breaking the law, you can report them and they do get fined (have reported a number of them and subsequently seen they have been fined).

It doesn't stop the illegal ones, but they tend to operate from overseas numbers. But with care you can get removed from lists by just being dead. i.e. don't answer those numbers.

Silent calls are now covered by TPS so long as they are sales calls. Marketing and survey calls are not covered and some companies try to get around this by starting with a survey then pass onto a seller, but you can still report them for this.

Aside from that you can report nuisance repeat offenders to Ofcom and they can and do fine those companies.

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/news2.html
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/problems/tackling-nuisance-calls-and-messages/abandoned-and-silent-calls

Trust me, I've cleared my phone over time of virtually all these calls through TPS, not answering unidentified numbers (but leave it to the answer machine), and being careful what I tick and who I give the number to. I used to get loads. Got to a point of literally a dozen a day from a few companies (KwikFit worst offender).

Genuine companies in the UK absolutely do.

Well not absolutely as I still get the odd one but certainly reduces the amount.

Have been with TPS for years and double checked yesterday.
Looking into it, I don't think the BT ones will work with Sky.

I think the phone still allows a caller to record a message which would allow proper callers to get their message across. The phone just doesn't ring.

Another happy BT8500 user here.
Since we bought it we have had precisely 0 unwanted calls.

It works a bit like a personal answering service. The phone does all the screening, nothing to do with your line.

Bit of a cock on for callers who aren't in your phone book (whitelist), but as far as I am concerned its been the best thing Ive ever bought.

(almost)

Good shout for BT it turns out.
Got a BT8600 twin pack for £50 from Amazon and very impressed.

As mentioned above, Call Guardian has many options and I chose to direct "with held or unavailable numbers" direct to answer phone. Phone does announce the call but we don't jump up to answer it.

An important call like a hospital will leave a real message.

Funny thing is we have been plagued by 2 or 3 calls a day for the last few months. But, after a couple of days they have stopped completely now 😀

Thing I found is the calls would often be clustered around particular dates. Usually related to the renewal of something. Car insurance for example, but never the insurance company you're with just insurance resellers who can easily get the renewal dates.

We have Truecall - anything that comes up as unknown number or international gets ignored, gets rid of 99% unsolicited calls as they simply hang-up. Been on TPS for years, but doesn't really make much difference, the scammers simply re-route via international. Get lots of scam calls on mobile now too - annoyingly, haven't got number blocking on that.

I just use Caller Display on the house phone and ignore those I don't recognise. Genuine callers will leave a message. Similar approach on mobile.

Binned the BT phone a couple of weeks ago, we still have to pay for a line but I cant remember the last time anyone called on it I wanted to speak to.

[quote=stoatsbrother]
We cannot reach a fair number of our patients because they implement this. So they wonder why their GP cannot reach them.

Erm, because their gp's are stupidly with-holding their number. Mine does it, drives me nuts.....

don't think you can get Call Guardian with a Sky phone package?

Untrue, i use sky phone with bt call guardian and it works fine