Quit hanging up on me!!!

[Dips]

Check with your phone company and see if Anonymous Call Blocking (or its equivalent) is available, or indeed, even already on your bill --

While that may sound wonderful it has serious drawbacks...

Did you call your doctor's answering service with an important question? He's probably going to call you back from his home phone and he's going to turn off caller ID. So you're not going to get a call back from him unless you remember to turn that "service" off.

Ever been waiting for the cable company and hoping the technician will call if he's going to be late? He might call, but you won't know it because your phone won't even ring.

The person at the software company who can answer your tech support question is working from home that day, but she will call the phone in the school's computer room in fifteen minutes from her personal cell phone. Unfortunately, she couldn't get through because the school has anonymous call blocking and she's not planning on revealing her personal cell phone number to a customer. You'll just have to wait until she is back in the office the next day to get tech support.

[EricKei]

You certainly have a point.

However, I was not referring to "blocking all unknown numbers" or "blocking number which lack a name". I was referring to blocking those numbers -- used almost exclusively by telemarketers and collection agencies -- which explicitly prevent the number itself from appearing on the Caller ID screen. If actual digits are available, the call will get through, even if the "name" shown is "Unknown Number". Anonymous Blocking just reroutes the "blocked number" calls to a computer which tells them to call from a normal phone number.

For example, this call will get through, and ring at your house: "Unknown Number 555-555-5555"

This call will get rerouted: "Unknown Number NUMBER BLOCKED" or "UNLISTED". The latter would certainly pose a problem, but, again, they would get a message telling them to use a different phone.

[Broomjockey]

You certainly have a point.

However, I was not referring to "blocking all unknown numbers" or "blocking number which lack a name". I was referring to blocking those numbers -- used almost exclusively by telemarketers and collection agencies -- which explicitly prevent the number itself from appearing on the Caller ID screen.

That was what she was saying. Every example Dips gave was where the person calling would explicitly not allow their number to show up on caller ID for reasons of privacy or security, so it wouldn't show up "Unknown - 555-555-5555." It would get your redirection.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I have call blocking on my home phone. What happens with a blocked call is I get a computer call saying to press 1 to hear who is calling. Pressing 1 lets me hear the person say their name, then I can take the call or not. I don't recall ever having a blocked call that wasn't a legitimate call, such as the furnace service guy.