Blacklist maximum reached

Having trouble placing or receiving calls or using your voicemail system on Ooma Telo VoIP Phones? Post your questions here.
Post Reply
Lord Vader
Posts:121
Joined:Sun Sep 04, 2011 5:12 pm
Blacklist maximum reached

Post by Lord Vader » Wed Nov 14, 2012 9:19 am

Is there any possibility that the current limit of 256 blacklist entries can be increased or even lifted altogether? Believe it or not, I've maxed out at 256--no joke. It's unbelievable how many different calls I get from telemarketers and even bogus collection agencies, as well as spoofed numbers from callers who are telemarketers, etc.

jhphone
Posts:76
Joined:Mon Aug 16, 2010 3:49 pm

Re: Blacklist maximum reached

Post by jhphone » Wed Nov 14, 2012 2:25 pm

Lord Vader wrote:Is there any possibility that the current limit of 256 blacklist entries can be increased or even lifted altogether? Believe it or not, I've maxed out at 256--no joke. It's unbelievable how many different calls I get from telemarketers and even bogus collection agencies, as well as spoofed numbers from callers who are telemarketers, etc.
I guess Ooma uses one byte for the blacklist index variable!

I suspect I'm getting close to that number. If Ooma cannot (won't) increase the list size, then we should have the option of auto-deleting numbers that haven't called in, say, the last 3 months.

7732379778
Posts:4
Joined:Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:55 am
Contact:

Re: Blacklist maximum reached

Post by 7732379778 » Wed Nov 21, 2012 9:02 pm

jhphone wrote:
Lord Vader wrote:Is there any possibility that the current limit of 256 blacklist entries can be increased or even lifted altogether? Believe it or not, I've maxed out at 256--no joke. It's unbelievable how many different calls I get from telemarketers and even bogus collection agencies, as well as spoofed numbers from callers who are telemarketers, etc.
I guess Ooma uses one byte for the blacklist index variable!

I suspect I'm getting close to that number. If Ooma cannot (won't) increase the list size, then we should have the option of auto-deleting numbers that haven't called in, say, the last 3 months.
I called support this month asking the same request. They said they can t help and
delete the oldest Blacklist callers to see if they call again(WRONG ANSWER)
Whats wrong with A WhiteList and A CONTACT LIST ONLY ?

Lord Vader
Posts:121
Joined:Sun Sep 04, 2011 5:12 pm

Re: Blacklist maximum reached

Post by Lord Vader » Wed Nov 21, 2012 10:24 pm

That's a piss poor answer by customer service.

User avatar
lbmofo
Posts:9337
Joined:Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:37 pm
Location:Greater Seattle
Contact:

Re: Blacklist maximum reached

Post by lbmofo » Thu Nov 22, 2012 9:50 am

No one has anything close to what Ooma already has. You might be able to get what you want if you have Google Voice manage/redirect your calls (still, lacks treatment options). Outside of that, you'd need to get a hardware unit to do what you want (still very limited from what I've seen). When Ooma comes up with the enhancements asked for, Ooma will be on top of everyone if not already.

I'll pick one carrier for example. Uverse Voice.

Whitelisting max of 20 & you won't even know what other callers tried to reach you (no way to have other treatment such as redirecting to VM). Also, once whitelist deactivated, all stored numbers would be lost. Won't work for most people.

http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB401021

Call Block max of 20 & again, no treatment options such as sending to VM. Also, once deactivated, all stored numbers would be lost. For sure not going to work for folks used to Ooma Blacklist.

http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB401019

rbarkley671
Posts:7
Joined:Fri Nov 23, 2012 5:37 pm

Re: Blacklist maximum reached

Post by rbarkley671 » Fri Nov 23, 2012 6:49 pm

I'm glad you brought this up. I, wrongly, figured that it was unlimited. I noticed last week that I am at 240. Just looked and it is now 249. Given that it doesn't seem that Ooma can or will increase the length of the list, it would be useful to be able to see how often a given # had called, and maybe be able to sort the black list so as to be able to easily delete the ones that have only called a few times.

Also, a strange thing happened today. I got a spam call and when I went to 800notes.com to enter it, I saw that I'd already submitted that number. Looking deeper, I downloaded my blocked call list into Excel and sorted the list and found that there were 9 instances where there were duplicates. Then I noticed that each pair had a different Caller Name. For 8 of them, the earliest one had a normal CID (like FLORIDA) and the most recent CID was "Unavailable". However the one that came in today was originally "Unavailable" but now "unknown"

So it appears the Ooma is looking at both the phone # and the CID for a match, at least in some cases. I can't see the advantage of doing this.

User avatar
lbmofo
Posts:9337
Joined:Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:37 pm
Location:Greater Seattle
Contact:

Re: Blacklist maximum reached

Post by lbmofo » Sat Nov 24, 2012 1:09 pm

Ooma blacklist only goes by number. If you added your blacklist entries via call log, you shouldn't have any dups. If you have dups, get rid of the dups.

rbarkley671
Posts:7
Joined:Fri Nov 23, 2012 5:37 pm

Re: Blacklist maximum reached

Post by rbarkley671 » Sat Nov 24, 2012 1:22 pm

Well, that's what I assumed but the evidence is to the contrary. I will get rid of the oldest dupes as needed but it still is a mystery to me.....

User avatar
lbmofo
Posts:9337
Joined:Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:37 pm
Location:Greater Seattle
Contact:

Re: Blacklist maximum reached

Post by lbmofo » Sat Nov 24, 2012 3:08 pm

Ooma goes by number so as long as you have 1 entry in there for the number, you are good. The "Caller Name" field can be edited to anything you'd like.

Lord Vader
Posts:121
Joined:Sun Sep 04, 2011 5:12 pm

Re: Blacklist maximum reached

Post by Lord Vader » Sat Dec 29, 2012 3:42 pm

With technology the way it is today, allowing these telemarketer scammers and so-called collection agencies that are actually fraudulent boiler room scam shops to continuously call from different numbers, a limit of 256 blacklisted numbers is no longer sufficient. I keep having to delete entries to make room for new ones. I'm getting bombarded with calls like these.

Today, in the span of 10 minutes, I received 4 calls from 4 different unrecognized numbers. One was from a toll free number, while the other three from some area code I never saw before. About a week ago, during the course of one afternoon, I received 9 different calls! This seems to be a never-ending game with these people! What makes it irritating is that Ooma doesn't permit more than 256 numbers to be on one's blacklist. If there was no limit, I'd easily be over 500 blocked numbers. I'm not exaggerating.

Post Reply