CPR Call Blocker for Landline Phones V108 - 1000 Number Blocking - 200 Pre Programmed - Block All Unwanted Calls At The Touch Of A Button

Though both my wife and I have cellular phones, we have a primary landline through AT&T. Our home is fairly large so in addition to the main hard wired telephone (for use during a power outage) we have an additional 8 wireless phones along with an answering machine. We have had the same landline telephone number for a bit over 20 years.The Federal Do Not Call Registry was great while it lasted. But today it appears to be a waste of time even bothering to list your number.Like many others, we were constantly annoyed by the nuisance telemarketers, requests for political and "charitable" contributions, surveys, polls, etc. On average we would receive 4 to 6 nuisance calls a day. So when the phone rang, either my wife or I would have to put on the reading glasses to view the caller ID to decide whether to answer the phone or not. The really annoying part was to stop what we were doing (like exercising, cooking, working on a home project, not having our reading glasses handy, etc.)My 91 year old mother that lives out of state usually calls 2 or 3 times a day. She gets a little lonely living by herself. I enjoy her calls. My wife is close to her sister whom also lives out of state along with daily calls from my wife's or my friends. So simply letting incoming calls go to voicemail is not a practical option and neither of us care to walk around the house with our cell phones glued to our hips.If we recognized the phone number as an out of state telemarketer, we would let the call go to the answering machine. But that got to be annoying to listen to the phone ringing 4 times and hearing the prerecorded answer message played out only to be followed by silence after which the machine would answer back with a "Thank You For Your Call".Day after day we had these nuisance calls. We tried answering some calls, listening to the long prerecorded message which might end with a "Touch 5 to have your number removed from our list". That didn't work, just a waste of time as our number never got removed and the calls continued unabated.We tried answering some calls and hit 1 to speak to a live representative. As soon as we asked to have our number removed, the live representative would hang up and we continued to receive calls from the same number or company day after day.So I tried many of the suggestions I found on the internet that would supposedly help reduce the volume of calls. For instance answer the phone and hit the star and pound keys followed by a hang up hoping that would fool the automatic dialers into thinking it had phoned a computer or Fax machine and bounce our number out of the system. That didn't work.I tried the "hit 1 for a live representative" then when someone answered, I put them on hold. That didn't work. Heck, sometimes if we tried to hit 1, we would get disconnected since a representative wasn't available.The final insult was when my wife asked the live representative "how can we get removed from your call list?" and the person replied "Have your phone line disconnected".So I searched the internet and found this device. I read the reviews and ordered it. Since the unit is shipped from the UK, I spent the extra few dollars for expedited delivery. I received it within a week of placing the order.The unit I received is the V.106 International model. Connecting it was a breeze. Though a little tricky at first, I used the provided preset blocking codes to block all "out of area/international calls", all "IP dialing systems which include Skype and other overseas nuisance call centers", all type "0 or single digit spoof calls", and all "private/unknown callers".Then I went through the past caller list stored in the phone memory and blocked all of those previous nusance calls.We saw an immedite drop in the number of nuisance calls getting through. As new ones came in we would simply cut them off and bock the number by hitting the button located on the top of the device. Or, if we weren't close to it, we would let the call go to the answering machine then use the "block last call" or review the caller ID list and block the number that way.In the few weeks we have had it, those nuisance calls have dropped dramatically. This device works great.It seems that once this device disconnects the call so quickly our number gets removed from their list. I can suspect that numerous telemarketing companies might use a common computerised database so when one telemarketer has their call immediately disonnected, our number then gets removed from a common or shared database. After only a couple weeks, we seemed to have been dropped by many telemarketers to the point we don't even hear one "single ringer" over a day or multple days. We are not quite to the point of not looking at the caller ID before answering but I expect it won't be much longer until we don't bother to reach for those reading glasses.A couple things worth noting. When a call comes in from a blocked number, the phone does ring once while the caller ID is beng sent to the device. The device then immediately disconnects the incoming call. The call is disconnected so quickly after the device receives the caller ID, the incoming call is never logged by our phones.Personally, we like to hear that single ring of the phone. It tells us the device has just blocked a nuisance call and we can chuckle about it knowing the device is giving us our money's worth.If you are tired and frustrated by nuisance calls, this is the device you want!!! I would give it 10 stars if I could:)

I gave the CPR Callblocker a low rating because it did not perform blocking for our landline. I repeatedly attempted, over almost 3 weeks, to block nuisance calls by entering # 2 on the handset while the phone is in the answered mode. Pressing the “Block Now” button on the blocker is not an option because the Vtech phone base is not conveniently located in our residence. I used the “in line” setup on my Vtech digital telephone (per the manual). Each time a nuisance call came in I would press the “answer” button on the handset, then enter “# 2” (supposedly equivalent to hitting the “Block Now” button) and then end the call. I would then check to see if the number I just tried to block was stored in the blocked number list in the blocker – it always was in one of the 4 possible versions (see following).In many cases after I received another call from the same nuisance number I would then manually enter the 3 additional phone number versions for this callerID making a total of 4 versions of the nuisance phone number. For example:* * 7 # (beep) 718-395-1874 # (beep)* * 7 # (beep) 1 718-395-1874 # (beep)* * 7 # (beep) 01 718-395-1874 # (beep)* * 7 # (beep) 001 718-395-1874 # (beep)This method was suggested on the CPR web site and also by the CPR technical consultant with whom I corresponded. Its purpose was to cover all possible versions of the phone number.I was then told that when using the # 2 or “Block Now” methods the phone had to be answered first and the callerID information had to be displayed on the handset. On our Vtech handset the callerID information disappeared when the phone was answered and was replaced by an elapsed time indicator while the phone was in the answered mode. However, the callblocker did add the number to the blocked number list (I checked each number). I continued to get calls from several numbers already in the callblocker’s blocked number list, most of the numbers I had manually entered all 4 versions (see example above).As a final test I had my wife call our landline Vtech phone with my cellular phone. I used the same # 2 technique on the Vtech handset to block my cellular’s callerID. At this point my cellular phone should have been blocked by the callblocker. It was not. I could still successfully call my landline using my cellular phone so it appears the callblocker was not blocking calls for whatever reason(s). This would explain why I continued to get calls from numbers I thought I had previously blocked.The v.108 CPR Callblocker is a very straight forward electronic device. All it requires is plugging the main phone cable into one side of the callblocker and plugging a short cable (supplied with the callblocker) between the other side of the callblocker and into the phone. If the 2 lights glow when the dial tone sounds that means the unit was installed correctly (mine lit up immediately). That’s a very easy and straight forward installation. The unit should then function “stand alone” without any extra attention required other than inserting the nuisance phone numbers using multiple methods described in the manual and online. I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to get it to work for almost 3 weeks. That seems to be long enough evaluate an electronic device that is supposed to be very simple to set up (true) and very simple to use (not true). Since it isn’t working for me for whatever reason (maybe incompatibility with my Vtech phone or my CenturyLink phone service). It could also be a defective unit even though it seems to be performing some of the functions indicating it’s working.Finally, on the plus side, the CPR customer service technical support person was extremely supportive and always emailed me back within 24 hours after each question. You don’t see that kind of excellent product support very often!I have returned the v.108 CPR Callblocker to Amazon for a refund.