Exclusive (or is it selective) call forwarding

[messyshack1]

According to AT&T documentation exclusive call forwarding is supposed to send all non-exclusive calls to voice mail, it doesn't in my case.  On the website I have 7 phone numbers in my exclusive call forwarding list and my cell phone number is the forward to number.  When I activate exclusive call forwarding, either through the website or with my landline phone, nothing goes to voice mail.  If one of the people in my exclusive call forwarding list calls they get forwarded to my cell phone, if someone else calls my landline phone rings instead of the call going to voice mail.  Am I misunderstanding this feature?

Also, AT&T makes searching these forums difficult, they are not consistant with the names of their features.  For example on the website they call a feature exclusive call forwarding but when I activate it with my landline they call it selective call forwarding.  Another example, on the website they have all call forwarding, when I activate it with my land line they call it call forwarding variable.

[aviewer ACE - Wizard]

messyshack1 - Please clarify - You say the callers identified on the exclusive list are forwarded. It is the rest that are a problem.

They are are passed through & ring the land line. You would like them to go to voice mail so that no calls come through.

Is that correct?

[messyshack1]

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aviewer wrote:
messyshack1 - Please clarify - You say the callers identified on the exclusive list are forwarded. It is the rest that are a problem.

They are are passed through & ring the land line. You would like them to go to voice mail so that no calls come through.

Is that correct?

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Yes, that is correct, all the stupid political calls I've been getting are driving me nuts.  I would prefer that certain people; parents, siblings, friends; get forwarded to my cell phone and all others go to voice mail.  According to the following link exclusive call forwarding should do that.

http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB401020#fbid=D6zzXwlwLAC

[aviewer ACE - Wizard]

messyshack1 - Yes, that is what it says in the block. The thing that is overlooked is the situation paragraph that says it is when you are unavailable. So, it will go to voicemail after you do not answer.

I believe what you need to do is set up exclusive call forwarding for the numbers you want and safe call forwarding to catch the remainder.

I believe if you set safe call forwarding to your own number they will end up in the voice mail without ringing your phone.

The phone may chirp. I believe I get that when I set it to forward all calls.

[messyshack1]

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aviewer wrote:
messyshack1 - Yes, that is what it says in the block. The thing that is overlooked is the situation paragraph that says it is when you are unavailable. So, it will go to voicemail after you do not answer.

I believe what you need to do is set up exclusive call forwarding for the numbers you want and safe call forwarding to catch the remainder.

I believe if you set safe call forwarding to your own number they will end up in the voice mail without ringing your phone.

The phone may chirp. I believe I get that when I set it to forward all calls.

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I ended up forwarding all of my calls to voice mail, my phones didn't even chirp.  I checked my call log and at one point, while I was out voting, I got 32 calls in 31 minutes, I'm glad I wasn't home at that time.

In order to get the safe call forwarding to work wouldn't I have to unplug the cat5 cable coming into the RG?  I wonder how all call forwarding (or call forwarding variable as they call it when I activate it from a phone) and exclusive call forwarding work together, I presume all call forwarding would override exclusive call forwarding.

In the 30+ years that I've been voting I have never gotten political phone calls until now.  I don't know if my phone number got out somehow (my phone number has been non-pub for 30+ years also) or if these robo-callers are just dialing numbers.