Con men don't pay attention to do not call lists. I had a huge problem with abusive callers and didn't want to go through the pain of changing my phone everywhere. So, I have sort up my phone system using asterisk. A personal PBX. VOIP integration, plain old telephone line (POT) and all the voicemail bells and whistles you could want.
Verna, you'll like this....
I cost me a little money, and one unused PC and a few hours to set it up. But, if you call I use your caller ID, the PBX searched a database, if you are blacklisted it plays the "tones" then announces the number is out of service. If you don't have caller Id it forces you to enter a number. Robo dialers can't do that. Meeting that criteria, it then checks the time of day.
If you call after 9 and before 7 it announces we don't take calls at this hour, and asks if it's important. Then, depending on your answer it will ring the phones otherwise it drops into voicemail. This is the first time I would even be aware there is an incoming call.
I can also do things like only ring the "soft phone" running on my iPhone if the caller ID is from my work number, bypassing all of the above rules.
I get about 5 calls a year that make it through that gauntlet....then I add them to the blacklist.
The total cost was around $200 for the hardware to connect the phone to the PC. Money well spent!
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