Less than 5 days after FiOS phone service more than 10 vendors calling?
schorschi
Newbie

Why is it... That less than 5 days after I get FiOS phone service from Verizon i now have more than 10 vendors calling, including LA TIMES and others calling my brand new number?  With Vonage, a customer for more than 4 years, this did not happen, in fact my total number of advertising calls went down to zero, including political group calls.  Does Verizon instantly sell numbers to vendors?  How do I block the unsolicited calls?

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Re: Less than 5 days after FiOS phone service more than 10 vendors calling?
mleduc35651
Contributor - Level 2

First sign up at donotcall.gov

Then start telling each caller to remove you from the list.

I am fairly certain Verizon is not selling the number. Your new number is a published number and some company out there found it and sold it is my guess. If this was happening by Verizon all the time we'd hear a lot more about it on these and other forums. I have had 2 new Verizon numbers in the past year and have not had your experience.

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Re: Less than 5 days after FiOS phone service more than 10 vendors calling?
schorschi
Newbie

Yeah, I got to dontcall.gov, opt-out, etc.  That should filter some of it.  I wonder of there is not a trolling process that calls numbers just looked for a active response... voice mail or human off hook... I also reported to Verizon that specific number kept calling but no one was ever on the line.  I have seen a lot of google hits on this specific number as some sort of active polling, verizon should block that number as well, nasty.

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Re: Less than 5 days after FiOS phone service more than 10 vendors calling?
mleduc35651
Contributor - Level 2

Well. We are talking about a few concepts.

Legitimate telemarketers must work with lists and do not auto-call every possible number.  They have to abide by the do not call list.

Many do use predictive Dialers. That automate the calling and transfer those calls to an agent when it detects a human. Luck of draw will mean that every now and then there is no agent free at the time a connection is made. The system won't start dialing if no agents are free but if calls are in process and the agent becomes busy it can happen. Also if they turn on too many lines for the number of agents this can happen more.

I know the FCC is talking about setting mandatory limits for these dialers on the percentage of dropped calls but that implementation could be a ways off.

Now there are also some unscrupulous operators who are currently a real pain. They autocall every possible number. They ignore do not call lists. One of the main ones I see is one that offers to save you money on your credit card bill and pretend like they are being referred by your bank/credit card company but will not be able to tell you which card they are talking about.  The other main one wants to sell you an extended warranty for your car. Again they imply they are connected with your car purchase is some way but can't provide details on your car.  Both seem to me to be likely phishing scams or scamming your money for a non-existant or inferior product. Pressing for details on these calls will either get a rude response or a hangup. They also often spoof their return number so if you call back you get a not-in-service number.

None of the above has anything to do with Verizon providing the numbers. Also Verizon won't do much to block the numbers. They will refer you to Call Blocking and Call Intercept products.

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Re: Less than 5 days after FiOS phone service more than 10 vendors calling?
jkiv
Contributor - Level 1

I had exactly the same thing happen when I switched to FIOS from Cablevision Phone service.  Except I got dozens of calls from multiple vendors.  With Cablevison I had an unpuplished number.  With Verizon the number is public and the telemarketers went after it like sharks in a pool of blood. The do-not-call registration ended it in about 2 months.

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Re: Less than 5 days after FiOS phone service more than 10 vendors calling?
schorschi
Newbie

Yup, donotcall.gov, takes at least 30 days, most firms scrub databases every 30 days or so.  But still verizon could control this and should.

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