Using *77 to set 'anonymous' or 'unknown' call blocking is not working
lorikay4
Newbie

Per instructions from Verizon, I used *77 to turn on anonymous call blocking last night. I dialed *77, and got a voice telling me that I have enabled anonymous call blocking.

However, it's NOT working. When I call home from my office, it shows up in caller ID as "unavailable"; shouldn't a call that is identified as 'unavailable' be blocked with this service?  Does anyone understand why this would be the case? Are all 'unavailable calls' the same?

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Re: Using *77 to set 'anonymous' or 'unknown' call blocking is not working
MagicMan
Contributor - Level 1

Calling from the office is a bit complicated because you are using your company's PBX to place the call (assuming your company has more than a few telephone extensions). 

When you call from the office, does your home phone caller id display the office telephone number and the name as unavailable? 

As I understand anonymous call rejection, it works only with people who chose to block their caller id information from being displayed.  If you have a cell phone, you can dial *67xxx-yyy-zzz (replace xxx-yyy-zzz with your home phone number) and see if you get the anonymous call rejetion message.  Adding *67  before your home phone will temporarily for that call, block your cell phone caller id and trigger the anonymous call rejection.

If you do that and it still goes through, then either try the *77 sequence again or call verizon as there was a problem setting up the ACR.

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Re: Using *77 to set 'anonymous' or 'unknown' call blocking is not working
phillyphone
Enthusiast - Level 3

Unavavailable/unknown calls and anonymous/private calls are two different things. Anonymous calls are calls from someone who has chosen to block their telephone number from being displayed on your caller ID screen. This means the caller has dialed *67 before dialing your phone number (or they have what is called line blocking where all their outgoing caller id info is automatically blocked without them having to dial *67 before every call).  *77 is used to block anonymous/private calls and force the caller to allow their caller id info to come through to your phone in order for the call to complete.

Unavailable/unknown calls are calls in which no caller id information has been sent. These are generally from collection agencies or telemarketers.  *77 will not block these calls in any way. The only services which will block or screen these calls are Call Intercept or Do Not Disturb.