Caller (Samantha) said she was with GE Home Alarm Equipment. Claimed she could sell me an upgrade to my alarm system that my provider either will not supply or they could sell directly to me cheaper. when asked who my alarm provider was she could not tell me, just repeated that they provide equipment for the top 20 alarm providers. Told her I was not interested.
Got a call from 972 112 8766 on May 18, 15, with 'Name Unavailabl' as the CID. 'Name Unavailabl' has to be fake, the usual suspects are 'Unknown', 'Unavailable', or 'Out Of Area', maybe others, but not like 'Unknown Call TX' either. Pretty dense caller/company to not even realize the name field can ONLY hold 15 characters, so that was my first clue it wasn't legit. I didn't answer, it rang only 3 times and that was it. I called it back since 972 is a local area code and got a rapid busy signal. I'll report if it continues. I did get one sort of legit and correctly spelled 'name unavailable' when I had phone in hand and answered it on mid-first ring. Thought I was quick on the draw, it was a relative calling.
PS. Have had the same alarm company for close to 30 years, I wonder if it matches your experience.
I did recently change phone companies from regular ol' landline AT&T to very unfamiliar VoIP with Time Warner Cable.
AT&T offered call blocking for up to 20 numbers, and something called "Privacy Manager" that unwanted calls could still get through if they pressed a "0" or something. Ticked me off b/c they could still make my landline phone ring, and caller ID would show a call from 'Privacy Manager' came in, but NO CID info. I guess for emergencies, people could also bypass it with the '0' or a pre-set code as well, and leave a message. Believe it or not, some robo calls got thru that.
VoIP with TWC allows me to block up to 30 numbers and calls listed as "PRIVATE" never ring through. I do have to remember when I call the Police and want a callback (it'd be marked as "PRIVATE") I have to do the *87 and *77 thing to quickly turn that feature off. Not bad, but one of my docs has a PRIVATE number and he gets thru just fine (maybe I forget to turn it of, he calls so rarely, and haven't gotten any other PRIVATE calls except call backs from the Police.
It would be great if the phone companies would allow us to block some NAMES instead of just numbers and more than just 20 or 30.