About two weeks ago I began receiving calls from “Private No.” on the Nokia phone I’ve been using. At first I thought nothing of it, until these calls began to increase in frequency. It peaked a couple of days ago, when I received 55 such calls in ONE DAY.  I know the fundamental spam-resistance technique: don’t answer it. Of course, sheer morbid curiosity got the best of me. I had a few words in mind for these mumbling, non-English-speaking nimrods that keep leaving me indecipherable voicemails. These voicemails sound like people talking in the background as opposed to actually talking to me.
So when I answered the call, the guy said some crap I couldn’t understand and managed to stay with me on the call for all of about 8 seconds before hanging up. When I’m in a meeting and I get 12 calls in a row, I look like a dweeb. I have to do something to silence my ringtone, so I dump the incoming private calls to voicemail. The other option would be to turn off my phone, but I just can’t afford to do that. What’s worse, when these morons go into my voicemail, they’re paging me and leaving me voice messages. The SMS page notifications I receive as a result incur SMS usage, which equals $$$ out of my pocket, sucks my phone memory, and creates a REAL nuisance. We’re talking 20 – 30 voicemails and 20 – 30 text messages every day.
Now here’s the real crap of it: AT&T says they “cannot block private calls”, period, end of story. How idiotic is that? Privacy management out to be the hallmark feature of a usage-based system like AT&T’s cell phone service. This is why companies like Iotum, GrandCentral, and TalkPlus are getting so much attention. They allow you to manage *more* of your own privacy than the cell phone companies do.
Problem is, I already use one of these services and I’m still getting Private No. calls, because the spamming caller isn’t dialing my GrandCentral number–they’re dialing my direct cell phone number. I cannot change my cell number because many of my clients use it to get a hold of me. My number is already on the national Do Not Call list (I registered it even though I shouldn’t have to since it’s a cell). Automatic callback to the private number doesn’t work.
It dawned on me that I should be able to turn my private call ringtone to silent with no vibrate, but as it turns out, this phone won’t let me do that either. So I started investigating call-blocking add-ons for the Symbian OS that runs on my phone. Haven’t been able to find anything yet. Any Symbian lovers out there know of a good solution?
I don\’t suffer with the large number of private calls you suffer, but your post alerted me to look around, and I have come across an app which might help you.. have a look at http://tinyurl.com/3a3jlp
regards
Companies like AT&T *sell* their list of active phone numbers, which is why they LIE LIE LIE about being somehow unable to provide such features… and is also why they order their handset manufacturers, like Samsung, to eliminate such features built into the phones themselves. I have worked for both companies, and I can confirm this fact from both ends. The telcos benefeit financially every time you accidently answer an unwanted call, and for every minute you have to review unwanted voicemails.
Shut off your cellphone and use Skype to retrieve your voicemails, or try using one of those other services which retrieves your voicemail and delivers it to you via webmail or email attachment. Look closely at your Message Inbox to see whether the spammers are really sending you text messages, or if they are sending you emails. Chances are, there is a special email address like “your10digitnumber@mobile.att.com” which people can also send you messages through. You can call your service provider and request either or both “email gateway” and “text messaging” (NOT SMS Service itself – that’s vital for your phone to work!) to be “unprovisioned”. They will always pretend they don’t know what you’re talking about, so press them until they xfer you to the “Data Group”. You won’t get a discount, but that form of spam will stop coming in. Have folks text you at your Grand Central or Skype phone number instead.
You can do the following: forward your cell number to one of those services (including ParusOne from parusinteractive.com) and then get yourself a new cell phone with a new number. Now try to port your former cell number to one of those services. If everything works, you will end up with a new cell number you should never give to anyone except your family and the number in the cloud that will allow you to control the calls you get. I think ParusOne is the best call filtering tool.