Call Blocking never sends junk calls to voicemail

[chip_r]

I've checked off the following call blocking preferences:

Block anonymous calls and : Send to Voicemail
Block specific names/numbers and : Send to Voicemail
Block known spammers and : Send to Voicemail
Block suspected spammers and : Send to Voicemail

And have left this one unchecked:

Block all numbers not in my contacts

My setup is I have the Ooma Premier service and a phone with an answering machine. Ooma voicemail is set to pick up after 6 rings. My answering machine is set to pick up after 4. The goal is to have the phone pickup unblocked calls and any Ooma-blocked calls will be sent to the Ooma voicemail. This way I would never risk missing an improperly blocked call.

Unfortunately I still receive about 5-7 junk calls a week to the phone answering machine. About half are hang-ups after they are transferred to the phone answering machine. The other half are either recorded junk messages or live junk callers recorded on the answering machine. MyOoma Call Log dutifully records the ID of these unwanted calls that are picked up by my answering machine. My machine also logs the ID.

I fully understand that these Premier blocking services can't catch 100% of the junk calls but I have never had a spam call sent to the OOMA voicemail. When setting my account to "Block ... calls and : Send to Voicemail", I would expect the 6 ring count to be irrelevant if Ooma actually flagged these as junk and they would immediately be sent to the OOMA voicemail. Instead, none of the 5-7 weekly junk calls are ever sent to OOMA voicemail. They ring my phone and I either pick up or my answering machine picks up.

My question is, does OOMA call blocking actually work? How can one prove it actually does anything?

I'm looking for any account setting that shows a call was actually blocked by OOMA. After more than two years of being a Premier customer, it would be great to see a single call is captured as junk. I have contacted OOMA customer service and they are useless and read from scripts. Generally forum members (customers) are better versed in a product than customer service.

[TonyW]

I have my call blocking set up just like yours, probably for all the same reasons. Occasionally, I will get a voicemail msg from a blocked call, but it's rare, as they usually hang up & the 'minimum duration' voicemail settings typically auto-delete them. Set this to 'none' if you really want to track hang-up calls, I would imagine.

The unblocked calls you are getting, are the 'new' spoofed numbers being used by the scammers & it's a constantly moving target.

Currently, call logs will not reflect 'blocked' calls, but that is slated to change... someday. This change will allow us to see how effective call blocking services actually are... when it happens. It's been MUCH requested for as long as I've used Ooma.

IF you'd like to contribute to the efficacy of the available call blocking methods, create a NoMoRobo account & report new, unblocked numbers when they happen. That list is uploaded to Ooma servers sometime on Monday, each week. Additionally, I typically add them to my personal blacklist pending the NMR update & never get > 1 call from any unknown number.

I've always wondered why Ooma hasn't added all invalid area code/exchange combinations to their community blacklist rather than leaving industrious users to fend for themselves? These seem to be showing up more often these days.

Anyway, hope this helps?

[chip_r]

Thanks, your reply does help a lot.

Oh yes, I very much agree the calls getting to the answering machine are "new" spoofed numbers. They are often "from" my area code and local exchange. I believe this technique is to increase the chance you will pick up thinking it's from a neighbor or local business. There is no way any blocking service can fix this spoofing. The funny thing is I've long since moved but kept my old number w/Ooma so it's more obvious now. I do have an area/exchange prefix setup on my personal blacklist.

Regarding call logs not reflecting blocks calls, in a way I can see why Ooma wouldn't want to do this. If a spammer had a single valid Ooma account to detect if that number has been blacklisted, then they would know when to move on to the next number. Although I think the spammer wouldn't waste the money on that Ooma account to test blocking. Easier just a spoof another number for the next call.

Yes, I do add each of those unwanted calls to my personal blacklist. In theory that prevents callbacks later in the week. If I'm slow to blacklist, I may receive multiple calls so I know what you mean. Unfortunately with the limited personal list size, I'm constantly deleting old ones to make room.

I really wish there was a way to check to effectiveness of the block. Even if Ooma kept a personal "counter" on your dashboard saying, for instance, "4 calls were blocked this week", one could associate a value to it.

I'll check on the Nomorobo site and look into creating an account. Although I would hope that the community blacklisting feature really is just Ooma collecting data from personal blacklists and doing some statistics to detect a pattern. Also, I would suspect that Ooma would sell and/or share its personal blacklist data with Nomorobo and have them create good blacklists.

Thanks again for the pointers and confirmation. I appreciate your time and insight.

[Tom]

See MyOoma. The suspected spammers list uses Nomorobo.