Caller ID shows "Unavailable 1"

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@jfw wrote:

If you have Uverse Voice, you can do the following.

 

Anonymous Call Blocking provides the message, "The number you dialed will not accept your call", to those callers who have their Caller ID information marked as private, restricted, anonymous, unavailable, or blocked. This feature is included with your service at no extra charge.

 

Your phone does not ring and the caller is unable to leave a voice mail message. You can access Anonymous Call Blocking using your online account manager or using your phone. Just press *77# on your phone to activate Anonymous Call Blocking and *87# to turn off.

 

Note: Unsolicited toll free calls can be stopped by registering them with the National Do Not Call Register. This can be done be done online by going to the National Do Not Call Registry at https://www.donotcall.gov/.  It can take up to 31 days for the number to be removed from all calling lists and an entry must be made for each telephone number that you wish to stop.

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This ONLY works if the number is not listed. But, if the number is merely the number "1" it can't be blocked. Furthermore, many of the calls these days are listed as "Out of Area" regardless of whether they are calling from inside or outside the receiving party's area code. And, to make things worse, everybody who has ever registered their phone number(s) with the National Do Not Call Registry knows what a complete and utter waste of time that is; they do absolutely nothing to stop these people! I registered my phone number as soon as the law had been passed years ago. But, I have continued to receive calls from more than just charities, which are allowed to continue making unsolicited calls. And, it's only gotten worse since I switched from an AT&T landline to Uverse phone service. I am seriously considering doing like lots of other people and cancelling my phone service and switching entirely to wireless.

I had an AT & T rep actually tell me that he didn't mind that all of these calls from "Unavailable 1" come in to his own phone.  This man is craven and has probably been told by management that this is what he needs to say to keep his job.  This just shows you what a cynical company AT & T is as they have their employees say ridiculous things like this.  If AT & T wanted to fix this, they could.  They spend all of this money on advertising, but don't put a few techs to work to solve this problem.  This issue should be on "60 Minutes" or "Frontline."  [Per Guidelines:  Keep it Relevant and Appropriate].  These pithy little descriptions about why the technology cannot be put in place to solve this problem by the AT & T sycophants (Teacher? Professor?) make no sense. 

I just saw that "Per Guidelines: Keep it Relevant and Appropriate" pop up on the last message I put online. There is nothing wrong with my suggesting that this issue be addressed on "60 Minutes" of "Frontline" as this is the kind of venue that we need to have AT & T called out on. People have been complaining about this for years and the solutions offered in this forum do not work because AT & T does not address it. As I said earlier, they have their employees tell us that they don't mind when calls like this come in on their own home phone lines. I am angry with this response, but also feel saddened that these reps feel the need to say things like this to keep their jobs. The posting I made on Sept 22, 2014 is Relevant and Appropriate. AT & T's handling of this situation is unacceptable.

Seriously, try anything. No matter how crazy. I'm adding 000-000-0000 to my blocked list.

We'll see.

Sigh. Does not work.

Now I'm trying international call blocking.

Although I haven't been bothered by this/these individuals as much recently, I did get another call like this today. However, my caller ID is showing "Out of Area" and the number 1. If it said "Anonymous" it wouldn't get through because I do have the Anonymous Call Blocking set up.

Last week I spoke with someone at AT&T about this and was told that nothing can be done about it since they are spoofing their number with only one character, the number 1. I told her that while I didn't believe it would work, I entered my area code followed by 6 zeroes and last the number as the number 1,e.g., xxx-000-0001. As noted above, it apparently didn't work since I got another call today. I just don't answer them, (but I'd like to stick the xs#@ phone down their throat)!