Ascendis Software LLC Support Forums

Is it possible to block any calls that come in with no caller id? Many telemarketeers are now blocking their numbers.

Hi Pauley,

Pauley wrote:Is it possible to block any calls that come in with no caller id? Many telemarketers are now blocking their numbers.

That depends on how the call appears in Ascendis Caller ID. If the call appears as "Anonymous Caller", "Unknown", or "Out of Area", then yes, you may block the calls. If the call appears as "No Caller Information", then you currently cannot block them effectively. (The latter case should happen rarely, and if it does, it is most likely not due to anything the caller has control over.)

In any case, you would run the risk of blocking calls that are not unwanted. This may or not be an issue in your situation.

To block the unwanted calls, right-click on one of them in the Calls list, and choose "Edit Contact". In the Edit Contact window, change the action specified in the "Action" box on the right side of the window to "Block". Then click OK to save the change and close the Edit Contact window.

Finest regards,
Bill Root
Ascendis Software

When one of these calls come in, there is nothing displayed. It is just blank. What I was hoping to do is to block any calls that come in that do not display any info.

Bill Root wrote:Hi Pauley,

Pauley wrote:Is it possible to block any calls that come in with no caller id? Many telemarketers are now blocking their numbers.

That depends on how the call appears in Ascendis Caller ID. If the call appears as "Anonymous Caller", "Unknown", or "Out of Area", then yes, you may block the calls. If the call appears as "No Caller Information", then you currently cannot block them effectively. (The latter case should happen rarely, and if it does, it is most likely not due to anything the caller has control over.)

In any case, you would run the risk of blocking calls that are not unwanted. This may or not be an issue in your situation.

To block the unwanted calls, right-click on one of them in the Calls list, and choose "Edit Contact". In the Edit Contact window, change the action specified in the "Action" box on the right side of the window to "Block". Then click OK to save the change and close the Edit Contact window.

Finest regards,
Bill Root
Ascendis Software

Hi Pauley,

Does the call appear in the calls list, but with a blank name and number?

Can you please send a Technical Support Report after one of these calls completes, so I can check for correctable problems?

Finest regards,
Bill Root
Ascendis Software

Yes, the name and number are blank. When another one comes it, I'll send you the report.

Bill Root wrote:Hi Pauley,

Does the call appear in the calls list, but with a blank name and number?

Can you please send a Technical Support Report after one of these calls completes, so I can check for correctable problems?

Finest regards,
Bill Root
Ascendis Software

I have experience this very same issue. I tried making the blank number call a contact and blocking that, but this did cause intermitten blocking of legitimate callers. I will be following this issue to see if there is a possible resolution.

jsprouse,

Normally, a call with no caller information is reported as "No Caller Information" within Ascendis Caller ID. I suspect in your case and Pauley's case, you have deleted the contact named "No Caller Information", and therefore the call is reported with a blank name and number.

Either way, calls with no name or number are not supposed to happen, and most likely indicate a problem with the device capturing the caller information (a modem in most cases). Normally a caller id device would at least report "Out of Area" or "Unknown" when the caller's name and number is not available.

If either of you can send a Technical Support Report shortly after one of these calls completes, I can verify that the device did not return any caller information.

Assuming the modem/device is not reporting the caller information, this could be caused by many factors:
- the modem/device is failing
- the modem/device drivers have a bug
- the modem is a softmodem or winmodem and the computer was busy when the call came in
- too many devices are connected to the phone line
- the phone line connection to the modem/device is noisy, flaky, or otherwise imperfect

Also assuming the modem/device is not reporting the caller information, blocking the call would be bad, since it could be from anyone. As far as we know, there is no correlation to specific phone numbers and modems/devices not reporting the caller information. Of course, this is possible, and it would not be the first bug in modem firmware that we have seen.

Finest regards,
Bill Root
Ascendis Software