I switched my land line over to Ooma Telo and ported by number over from Century Link. Unit cost under $100. All you pay is the tax. For our area it’s $4.85 a month. They offer a premiere service for $9.99 a month that I have. One of the features is custom call blocking. Only the numbers you add will ring your phone. All others go to voice mail and you never know they called unless they leave a message. Example a doctors office calls and will leave a message. Robo-calls or telemarketing call no message. In the event you get a voice mail you will instantly get a text informing you. I have been using this service since January with no issues.

Once I registered my home and cell phone on the "government no call list" I now get 2-5 calls a day. I guess the government sold the numbers?

I have an Android cell phone. I have been looking at an app called Call Blocker and Number Blacklist. It almost sounds too good to be true. Is anyone using this free app, if not could you suggest a blocking app please.

They get more and more sophisticated
 

I heard a radio story the other day that if you talk to them they can capture your voice and use it for companies that use voice ID.

Far as calling yourself with your number showing, I think the psychologists probably have a name for that.

We add all contacts to our directory so when a call comes in their name appears on the phone. We kept our former telephone numbers when we moved to The Villages. If we get calls from that area code we don't answer as most all are robo calls. If we get calls from area code 352, or other area codes, not associated with our area code, we answer and the calls are usually legit.

If you are using Verizon, Verizon has a free basic spam blocker. You get more control (add you own blocks and other features) for $3 a month.

Verizon has a free basic spam call blocker and a pay for version with more features, if you are using Verizon.

We were at Best Buy yesterday and noticed that AT&T is selling a phone system that features Smart Call Blocking. When someone calls your number, the system prompts the caller to press the # key before the call goes through. Since a robocall can't do that, they are automatically blocked. The system in Best Buy was about $90 for an answering system with 3 handsets but they are on Amazon for less then $70.

For android phones, I recommend a free app called Should I Answer. Very effective and good customer support.

Thank you for your reply, but I don' have Verizon, used to, but not now. Will call my provider and see what they have.

I am a retired ATT employee and switched to Ooma several years ago and the last year the Robocalls became more frequent.
I found the AT&T smart call blocker phone at Best Buy works perfect and have not had a single Robo call.

YET...this thread was about land-lines and NOT cell-phones. We have both and I do know about blocking on cells.

The AT&T Smart Call Blocker is for landlines and VOIP (modem based landlines)

We have a land line from Century Link and connected thru copper. We used to get a lot of Unknown Name or Not Provided calls. It got so bad that we changed our number. That was good for a while, but it slowly built back up to an annoying number of calls. The robo callers and scam callers fake the number that shows on the caller ID, so the Do Not Call list is totally useless. Some of the calls only ring 3 or 4 times and if you answer, there is no one there, just silence. I've read that there are companies that do that so they can sell a list of numbers where someone actually answered. They even go a step farther by calling the same target several different times during the day. Then they can improve their list of numbers where someone will answer by showing the best time to get them is between the hours of xx and yy. So I was a smart-a$$ and answered one of those calls where no one was there and just laid the receiver down for about 20 to 30 minutes. I figured since I didn't hang up, they couldn't call anyone else for that 20 to 30 minutes. And the worst thing you can do to an unsolicited caller is waste their time. The robo caller figured me out and just setup my number to be called a LOT more often. He probably thought, I'll teach that SOB a lesson! So... I just made my problem worse.

But I came up with a solution, but not everyone will be able to do this. I have a wireless printer/copier/fax. I silenced the ringers on all of the extensions except the one on my desk where I spend a lot of time. I then set my printer/fax to auto-answer after 3 rings. I tried 2 rings initially, but I couldn't always pick up the phone in that amount of time if needed. So now when the phone rings, I look at the caller ID and if it is someone/business/etc that I know, then I pick up the phone. Otherwise, I let the fax answer it. These robo callers are smart and I believe their software recognizes a fax and removes it from there call list because they don't want to waste that time. Our nuisance calls have dropped from 10/day down to 1 or 2, and I've only been doing this for less than a week. Of course, we've notified our family, close friends, and important professionals that they should call us on our cell phones. And yes, we've missed some calls we should have answered, but if it was really important, they'll call again. I plan this to be permanent and will put things back at some point.

Your thoughts?

I just ordered the AT&T smart call blocking phones, thanks for the tip!!

Many doctor offices, etc, use a recording for you to confirm your appointments. You would miss those calls with a smart phone, as it could not enter #.

The smart call blocking has a 'safe caller' list, so these numbers could be placed on that so you would get the message, but you have a good point, I may have them call the cell phone.