lbmofo wrote:thunderbird, when incoming call is private, there isn't a number coming in so the contact wouldn't help right?
There are many misconceptions about "private" calls.
First of all, the data passing between telephone systems always contains the number and never contains the name. It also contains an indication, separate from the number and name, that the call is "private" -- but even for "private" calls the telephone network always -- always! -- sends the number.
Second of all, the local exchange (for us, that's Ooma's servers) reformats the information before sending it to your telephone instrument. First, though, if you pay for CID name service, it looks up the name in a LOCAL data base -- the maintenance of which causes many problems discussed in these forums. Then it reformats the name-and-number information and sends it to your telephone instrument (between the first and second rings). The information sent to your telephone includes the local time, month and day (but not the year), calling number (as a character string, 15 characters max), and the name obtained from the local data base (also 15 characters max). If the call is "private", the name is given as a single character, capital P. If the call isn't private but the local data base didn't have the name-and-number, then the name is unknown and is sent as a single character, capital O, although some systems will send something like "Florida call" or "Dallas call" based on the area code and exchange.
Incidentally, if you call a law-enforcement agency or an 800 number, the call is almost never treated as "private" even if you thought you were making a private call.
Most telephone instruments recognize the single capital P and display the word "private" or "blocked" or similar. Also they recognize a single capital "O" and display "Out of Area" or "Unavailable" or similar. But these displays typically are generated by the hardware in
your telephone instrument, not by your local exchange and not by Ooma.
Summing up, telephone systems indicate "private" calls to each other independently of any text in the name. So if Ooma's servers are finding, in their local data base, names that happen to include the word "private", and are then interpreting that to mean the call is a private call, then Ooma has a bug that's entirely in Ooma's own servers and ought to be corrected.