Telemarketers

[Leanne33]

can I block robo-telemarketer calls?

[Nezgar]

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@Spiritmale wrote:

Hi. I am getting telemarketing calls daily - can Telus/Public Mobile do anything to prevent these types of calls on their network?

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[Spiritmale]

Hi. I am getting telemarketing calls daily - can Telus/Public Mobile do anything to prevent these types of calls on their network?

Thank you.

Grant

[Nezgar]

@Leanne33 Telus and Koodo offer a service called "Call Control" which will intercept unknown callers and require pressing a random digit before ringing through to your phone. Unfortunately Public Mobile, Telus's 3rd tier flanker brand, does not offer this as a "basic/bare bones" service.

However, Public Mobile does allow customizing the conditional call forward settings, do you can direct unanswered and/or blocked calls to things other than your voicemail, such as the "Lenny" bot as previously mentioned by @darlicious, or an alternate voicemail service such as YouMail.com.

Even if you block or decline unknown/spam calls, it can still be annoying if they leave junk or empty voicemail messages that you then have to delete... this is where free youmail.com service is handy, because the voicemails are just emailed to you as a sound file attachment + text transcription, so you can quickly delete and move on without having to call in.

The last thought is that since every current Public Mobile plan includes unlimited incoming calls, and connected calls cost the spammers money, is to just answer the calls and then put down the phone. 🙂 That also prevents those calls from reaching your voicemail.

[darlicious]

@BKNS27 

He can make a bad day good.....

[BKNS27]

@darlicious 

LoL, never heard of Lenny.

[darlicious]

@Leanne33 

Here's our resident expert on voice calls and such.... @Nezgar 's post on call forwarding that you may find useful along with Lenny who you will find amusing and I'm sure he will weigh in later.....

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Using-Your-Service/Lenny-the-Telemarketers-worst-nigh...

Spoiler

I wrote about conditional call forwarding way back here: https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Using-Your-Service/Fun-with-Conditional-Call-forwardi...

In brief, there are three types of "conditional" call forwarding - all are set to Public Mobile voicemail by default, but can be changed: When busy (or blocked, declined), when offline (ie airplane mode), and when no answer.

You can use these to utilize voicemail from another provider - for example, if you sign up for a free account from YouMail, fongo mobile, TextNow, your unanswered and missed calls will be sent to your number at these systems - and the first two will send you an email with a sound file attachment of the voicemail. YouMail will even try to transcribe it to text as well which works very well, and most of the time you don't even have to listen to the message! If you are travelling outside of Canada without a roaming plan, this will allow you to continue to receive voicemails, and if on Wifi, potentially continue to receive calls forwarded to these services as well.

Then there is "unconditional" call forwarding that always immediately forwards, regardless of the state of the phone. I use this sometimes when I'm at work, or at home and would like to have my incoming calls go to a "higher quality" connection...

So.. here's the commands you can dial:

Query conditional no answer forward: *#61#

Set conditional no answer forward: *61*xxxyyyzzzz#

Reset conditional no answer forward back to Public Mobile Default: ##61#

Query conditional unreachable forward: *#62#

Set conditional unreachable forward: *62*xxxyyyzzzz#

Reset conditional unreachable forward back to Public Mobile Default: ##67#

Query conditional busy/decline forward: *#67#

Set conditional busy/decline forward: *67*xxxyyyzzzz#

Reset conditional busy/decline forward back to Public Mobile Default: ##67#

(Set or reset all three of the above at the same time using 004 instead of 61/62/67)

And lastly:

Query unconditional forward: *#21#

Set unconditional forward: *21*xxxyyyzzzz#

Reset unconditional forward back to inactive: ##21#

[LurganIeUk]

Yes absolutely.  Do you have call block? Use it.  Keep in mind some caller ID’s are spuffied and will get a call tomorrow using a different number. Or only allow calls from numbers in your contacts list. Keep on blocking. 

[Leanne33]

Thank you

[esjliv · Accepted solution]

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@Leanne33 wrote:

can I block robo-telemarketer calls?

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Hello @Leanne33 ,

You can block certain phone numbers on a device level. But Public Mobile does not provide a service to do this or block these types of calls.

Note, these callers can also spoof numbers to make it look like a familiar number, so blocking would not work in these cases.

Don't answer numbers you feel that are telemarketers, and hopefully they go away or lessen soon.