A Whitelist for Phone Calls?

javacowboy asks: "I've been getting lots of strange phone calls lately. Most of the time, my phone would ring less than three times and then stop before I can answer. Then, a couple of nights ago, I got a call at 3am in the morning. It had stopped ringing by the time I woke up. *69 revealed a number with an area code of 632, which does not exist. I called the number, and the call would not complete past the area code. I want a product or service with which I can set up a -whitelist- of numbers that I allow to make my phone ring. Any number not on the list, or an unlisted phone number, tries to call me, and the phone doesn't ring at all. I would pay as much for this service as I would pay to have my number removed from the phone directory. Is something like this possible? If so, how would I do it?"

I'm getting fed up with: wrong numbers; callers hang up on me as soon as I speak into the phone; telemarketers; crank calls; late night calls; people I know that I no longer wish to speak to; etc. My telco charges $8 a month for call display, which is exorbitant. Still, a call display won't prevent my phone from ringing. A do not call list will not prevent my phone from ringing. Getting my phone number removed from the phone directory will not prevent wrong numbers. How can filter out the calls that I don't want to deal with?"

In Soviet Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

Cute little pants poops YOU!

I've got a new one... Anybody seen this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a new solution, a new kind of problem.

I get very few marketing calls, thanks to do-not-call lists and such. I screen the rest with an answering machine.

Recently I was getting no-message calls at random times of day, a sure sign that some call-center was trying to reach me.

Then one day immediately after hanging up from a legitimate call, the phone rang. I thought my friend forgot to tell me something, so I picked up. It was a call center looking for a political donation.

The odd thing was that they managed to call immediately after a real call. That's a high coincidence considering that I get few calls during the day.

It made me wonder if they paid for some kind of special "camping" feature. Anybody else seen this?

Re:Asterisk / Broadvoice?

[walt-sjc]

If you are running asterisk and don't want to be disturbed at night, use time based routing. It's quite simple. Between 9pm and 7am, I have it setup so you have to press 5 to get through unless you are on the "family" whitelist. This allows emergencies to get through, and zero automated calls. I also require non-whitelisted calls to press 5 at all times. This has stopped all automated calls. The wording of the message strongly discourages non-personal calls from continuing. End result is that I have peace and quiet when I want it, zero wrong number calls, etc. It's easy with *99 after a call to add a new callerID to the whitelist.