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Vonage [font=Verdana:eb105fefb7] No, of course not. It's a totally reasonable thing
[font=Verdana:eb105fefb7] No, of course not. It's a totally reasonable thing to want. I want ACR too.
I had ACR with Pac Bell and I do miss it. I don't miss the $6.95 or $7.95/month they used to charge me for it though.
But here's a whole new angle on the subject ... Let me I tell you about the last thing that happened with the old phone company before our Vonage account was active:
On 5/20/05 at 3:40 pm, I got a 'silent caller' call from 818-449-0420. I *69'd his ass right back, only to get the following recording:
"We're sorry, the call return feature cannot be used to return your last incoming call."
For kicks, I also tried *53. As I suspected, that option still doesn't work here. Maybe its the City of Pleasanton, Alameda County or the State of California. I don't know. Somehow though, law enforcement in this neck of the woods does not think we citizens can use the *53 Call Trace feature in a responsible manner, so they have not allowed the CPUC to permit SBC to enable it.
Muttering under my breath by this time, I dialed the # direct. Here's the recording:
"You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Please check the number and try your call again. PUALA14"
So, I had just been called from a bogus number that didn't really exist.
After a few moments of blinding rage, it dawned on me that I'd been paying for ACR all this time, and it didn't really work. I'd forked over something like $200 to Pac Bell for a twelve-foot high perimeter wall, but I had really been getting just a short little picket fence.
Good marketing job, Pac Bell. Thank you so much for misrepresenting what your product could do, just so you could take more money out of my pocket. Again, what a joke. What a scam.
A moment later I called SBC. When Theresa came on the line, I cancelled ACR straight away.
Back online, I did some more googling. You can get the same results I did. Try (google) "caller id forgery" .
The best example I found was SpoofTel . Guess what? Anybody can spoof their caller ID now.
For a service provider, what's the point of deploying ACR if your customers will still get unwelcome calls from unethical people using a system such as SpoofTel?
For us customers, what's the point of using or paying for a feature that won't really do what we want?
Somebody at Vonage is probably working on ways to prevent this sort of thing as we speak, but I have no idea when they'll nail down a fix for this.
It also wouldn't surprise me if this is actually a moving target, i.e. if there aren't other variations on this basic hack that emerge down the road.
Kind of like an arms race, huh?
This new twist on phone phreaking may not be so easy to defeat. I hope it CAN be solved, but I am not certain of that. So, I'm not going to hold my breath for ACR. I'm also not going to sign up for it again until I see in writing that my provider guarantees their system is immune to all known forms of Caller ID forgery/spoofing, and that my provider will actively keep their ACR program up to date as new threats emerge.
And there are obvious parallels between this contest and the ones between virus writers versus antivirus software companies, spyware hackers vs. the antispyware ninjas, and the spam-gangs who dump on every other netizen on the planet. 8)
In the end, my annoying little call from 818-449-0420 turned out to be an epihany of sorts.
Cheers ~
PS: I should have proofread my last post better. Item 3 was backwards. My wife and I used to get just a phone bill with OUTGOING calls of course. Now we can see a log of INCOMING calls as well.
Read The Full Thread: Anonymous call rejection
• Anonymous call rejection and call blocking would be nice, I am looking forward
• I agree. It would be great if the Dashboard or Activity page had a check box for "Block
• I posted this message in another forum, but...
I just contacted customer care
• Call waiting only beeps once in the background.
Has anyone else had this problem.
• No, never noticed how many beeps with call waiting.
The local PSTN here has
• ANONYMOUS CALL REJECTION is a definite must!!!!!
• I have a friend that has VoiceWing and they are coming out with these filter type
• Why is implementing ACR such a problem for Vonage? Lingo has it and they also charge
• Anyone have an update on the vonage anonymous call block?
• NEED ANONYMOUS CALL BLOCK NOW!!!! I'M GETTING STUPID SPAM CALLS ATT 4:30 AM!!!!
sojs posted "[font=Verdana:eb105fefb7] No, of course not. It's a totally reasonable thing" on 06/18/2005 |
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