Is Premier worth the cost?

[lmacmil]

A year ago, I would have said yes. When I signed up at the promo rate of $5/month I was getting 2-3 robocalls per day. Once I signed up, it dropped to 3-4 a week. It's held pretty steady at that number so when Premier was automatically renewed for $10/month, I let it happen. Recently I had a couple legitimate calls blocked (sent to VM) so I turned off NMR. That was 3 days ago and I haven't noticed any increase in robocalls. I'm not sure how many other Premier features I use. Are the other call blocking features part of Premier or just the addition of NMR? It's not clear to me looking at the Premier features and I don't remember what the call blocking options were before I signed up for Premier.

[TonyW]

To my mind, absolutely, All call-blocking is part of Premier.

https://support.ooma.com/home/ooma-premier/

[andyross]

I disabled all the call blocking and have not noticed any change. I still use many of the Premier features like voicemail monitor (like an old-school answering machine), number forwarding (to my cell phone) if the Telo is down, text notifications of voicemails, etc...

[normw2]

Greetings,

Yes, but......
I was getting close to 1200 spam calls in 2016. I was at the point of ripping the phone line out of the wall. I now "only" get about 150 to 175 spam calls a year. which is part of the reason I checked the forums today. Ooma allows you to add numbers to the block list( 1200 numbers in addition to nomorobo auto blocking of known spammers). I'm currently at 722 personal black list, since 2016. These are spammers who have gotten past nomorobe, which only blocks about 85% of spammers.
Which is way better than 1200 spam calls a year.
I figure I will max out my personal blacklist in 3 years.
Ooma will need to step up their game in blocking spam calls, or, increase the block list number.
I do like the feature of simultaneous ring to my cell phone, along with all calls go to my cell if my internet goes down.
Is there room for improvement? Yes.
Would I want to go back to the days of 2016? Absolutely NOT.
I have attached two log pages (of 37) of before/after ooma.
I have kept call logs since 2014, to document my spam calls.
Wait about 30 days, please report back how it is working for you.
I would be curious to see your results.
stay safe.

[TonyW]

Some suggestions...

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21374#p141445

[andyross]

The problem with personal blocking of some robo numbers is that they are spoofed and you may never ever see it again. They can often be genuine numbers that actually belong to a real person or business. I've often gone through my list of numbers that have called me, and it is VERY rare to get more than one call with the same number.

Let's hope that the now mandatory SHAKEN/STIR support coming soon will help a little bit making it hard to spoof other people's numbers.

[Stelcom66]

Not even referencing call blocking Premier is worth it IMO. I use many of the features like text/email messages for voicemails. I sometimes have it set to ring my cellphone simultaneously, or only if there's no power/internet. Before going to work I usually put the line in DND until I'm done with dinner and watching the news.

Not sure what features require Premier, likely some that I mentioned.

[Cruiser1956]

I have been a Ooma Premier subscriber in Canada since 2013 and a basic seasonal subscriber in the United States for 3 years. In the beginning the service was well worth the extra money but now a days your local companies have finally realized they needed to lower their prices to compete with companies like Ooma. Today I can get a telephone service from my local company as cheap as I can from Ooma and I do not need to worry about hardware issues. For example my Ooma box is a 2013 model and I am expecting it to crap up one of these fine days. Here in Canada I am going to have to buy a new one at a cost of $130.00, then I have the Premier package at $130.00 annually ( just for the record, they offered this same package in the United States in the spring for $59.00 which works out to be about $90.00 Canadian. No such offers here in Canada) anyway, add the monthly taxes and it works out to be dam near the same cost as the local cable company where I live and I do not have any hardware costs. Just for the record, I called Ooma this morning to see when my Premier service expired, when I told them why I needed this information the Ooma employee said is that all you need. I then asked if they would come to the party and she never offered me a cheap hardware credit or a reduced Premier rate but she did offer to set me up with a month to month Premier service which is of no use to me. SO bottom line is the Premier service worth it, do the math in the area you live in. You may be just surprised. OH, for the record I have steered a dozen customers at least to Ooma here in Canada and others in the United States long before they offered referral credits. I guess they don't really care about their existing customers.

[lmacmil]

I was sitting at the computer just now and the voicemail light went on. Checked the voicemail and it was my wife's doctor calling from one of the large local clinics. I assume NMR blocked it and sent it to voicemail so I reported it on the NMR website, turned off NMR call blocking and (again) added it to my contacts. This is not the first time NMR has blocked a call from a local medical practice. What's really strange is we got a call from the same office yesterday and it was not intercepted.

I have decided I will not renew Premier next year and will see how much the robocalls increase. I did a 10 day experiment turning of NMR after I made the initial post and did not notice any increase in robocalls. I only have a couple dozen numbers in my block list and I suspect most of those were spoofed and won't be used again.

Btw, does the "ring continuously" option allow you to answer the phone if you see it's a legitimate caller? What if it's already started the voicemail message?