The Joys of Call Blocking with AT&T U-Verse Voice


We have been using AT&T DSL for several years, but we finally bit the bullet and switched to AT&T's U-Verse service for voice and internet access, primarily because we kept banging into the pitiful 150GB monthly data cap with DSL due to my son's addiction to huge video game downloads and my daughter's addiction to lengthy Skype and Netflix sessions. With the U-Verse "Promotion of the Day" the price differential was pretty small to move to U-Verse (and their unregulated 250GB data cap) so we did the switch.

What I did not realize is what my favorite new part of the deal was - Voice Call Blocking! We always receive annoying telemarketing calls from charities soliciting for donations and from pollsters and survey people (i.e. who are not restricted by "Do Not Call" lists) but with our new U-Verse Voice we realized we now have Caller ID included and the ability to block certain numbers. You can even log onto http://att.com/myatt and look at who calls you and figure out what numbers to block. I quickly noticed a bunch of toll-free numbers that call us repeatedly:

866-757-1687, 866-757-1689, 866-757-1690, 866-757-1691, 866-757-4259, 
866-763-9254, 866-763-9256

 Through some simple Google searches it sounds like these are all from the same telemarketing firm that is outsourced by a bunch of charities like the American Heart Association. We have donated to the AHA in the past, but never again if they use annoying telemarketers like these folks. So I added all those numbers into our call blocking list, and sure enough, now they keep calling, but they cannot get through! It seems they try to call us at least once every single day from one of these numbers to try to extract donations from us. But now I can check our call log to see them being blocked as they try to annoy us at home. The sad thing about the Call Blocking service is that they only allow you to block 20 numbers. After having the service only for a month, I already have 10 of the 20 numbers used. I am guessing it will not take long to fill up my quota of 20. I can then also use their "Exclusive Call Forwarding" to forward up to 20 more numbers to another number to call. I could redirect them to a Google Voice number or maybe a FAX machine or something. Better yet I could forward all the telemarketers to just another telemarketer number! Let the two telemarketers try to extract money from each other! They are all crooks anyway! Why do reputable charities use such terrible companies like these?

And speaking of crooks, I guess we are sticking with our AT&T U-Verse Internet and Voice. Here in St. Louis you are forced to use either AT&T or Charter for broadband and home phone and we still receive some weekly junk mail from Charter with deals for us to switch. I thought now that we were U-Verse customers, AT&T would stop with their weekly U-Verse mailing, but they still send them to us anyway, trying to convince us we need U-Verse TV as well! It never ends...

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