Ooma Forums

What does your ooma box (box it came in) say? does it list it as included? If so then I would pursue it. My box (purchased 7/2009) clearly has a section in the back labeled "step up to ooma premier" where the first feature listed as premier is "block telemarketers with community and personal blacklists".

I purchased my ooma hub/scout in January 2009. The box does not even mention the Blacklist. Premier features listed are:
- Make or take two simultaneous calls with the instant second line
- Screen calls with the Broadband Answering Machine
- Listen to your voicemail from your favorite email program
- Choose additional phone number for your family and home office
- Control our privacy with Do Not Disturb and Send to Voicemail

At that time, I believe the Blacklist was in beta and available to all for testing and improvement from feedback. ooma is well within its rights to offer the feature as either a core feature or a Premier feature. They have chosen to make it only available with Premier and I have no problem with that. It makes sense for ooma and is well within their rights.

What I do think should be offered until there is a fix in place is the ability to block your own number only. This is not an added feature - it is a workaround for a security flaw that has not been addressed (to my knowledge). Some spoofing companies will not let you spoof the number you are calling with the same number - but others do and if you have your own system capable of spoofing, the limits are gone. When a person calls in showing YOUR caller ID, the ooma system thinks it is you and does not require your voicemail password. All I am asking is the ability to block your own number to prevent this flaw from opening up your voicemail to everyone with the technical expertise to spoof your number. This feature could go away as soon as the security hole is gone.

Well...today I tried to blacklist a telemarketer/scammer and the ooma site responded that Blacklisting is a Premier feature. So it appears that Blacklisting is fully no longer a feature of the Core service. I would agree that it's certainly ooma's prerogative to remove features as they see fit, but it just would have been nice (professional business-like) to have notified their customers and update the Terms and Conditions declaration...or at least respond in this thread.

I would not expect providing such a service really costs ooma much; rather it's a way to drive customers to their Premier service, which is obviously where they generate their revenue. My significant concern now is, "How much longer until Call-waiting, Caller ID, and the Broadband Answering Machine become Premier service-only features?"

Blacklisting has always been a Premier feature.
You had access to it during your Premier trial.

murphy wrote:Blacklisting has always been a Premier feature.
You had access to it during your Premier trial.

Hello Murphy,
That is what others in this thread have posted. However, based on the documentation and communications provided to me (and most likely all of us) by ooma (where that was never stated), and the feature's continued operation after my Premier trial ended, that assumption could not realistically be made.

It almost seems that I may have pointed-out a hole in their implementation and they have (quietly) plugged it. However, without any ooma representation in this topic, I may never know.

ItsAllGood wrote:

murphy wrote:Blacklisting has always been a Premier feature.
You had access to it during your Premier trial.

Hello Murphy,
That is what others in this thread have posted. However, based on the documentation and communications provided to me (and most likely all of us) by ooma (where that was never stated), and the feature's continued operation after my Premier trial ended, that assumption could not realistically be made.

It almost seems that I may have pointed-out a hole in their implementation and they have (quietly) plugged it. However, without any ooma representation in this topic, I may never know.

I've always understood it to be Premier. If you have communication that you can point to that says it was a basic feature, you should point it out. The lack of a statement saying it was not a basic feature is not the same thing (proving a negative). For example, AFAIK Ooma has never stated that Instant Second Line was "not free", so the lack of such a statement does not mean that it is free.
When Ooma introduces a feature as a public beta, they may open the beta to all users so they get maximum feedback (that's what betas are for). That does not mean when the beta concludes that they are obligated to provide the feature for free, unless they have made a specific statement to that effect.