Only accept incoming calls on home phone if they are in the phones contacts.

[PaulAM]

My father in law suffers from alzheimers and gets very confused with calls received outside his family. Sometimes they are rogue calls asking him to call them back which costs him a fortune.

Simple functionality needed from bt landline/phone

 - Any call outside the phone's contact list is diverted to voicemail 

Anybody have a simple solution to this simple requirement ?

Thanks

Paul

[Keith_Beddoe]

@PaulAM 

The BT4600 phone has this facility, and can be configured to only allow numbers stored on the phone.

I also think the advanced version of BT Call Protect has this option, if you did not want to change the phone.

This issue has been raised before.

[PaulAM]

Great, thanks Keith

[PaulAM]

Keith, here's the specific info from the product spec. The requiremt is for incoming callers, not in the contact list, to be automatically blocked without any interaction from the user. I've read through the user guide and can't find anything that allows this functionality.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Advanced Call Blocking
The BT4600 includes BT’s Advanced Call Blocking, which means you’ll never have to speak to another
cold caller again:
 The Advanced Call Blocking screens incoming calls:
o Numbers on your contact list get straight through
o Numbers you have blocked are rejected (selected by user)
 For all other calls the Advanced Call Blocker asks the caller to say their name and then asks the user whether they want to accept or block the call without speaking to the caller

[Keith_Beddoe]

There are two Call Guardian modes for numbers that are not in the phone.

Announce - callers will be asked to announce themselves first, and the end user can accept or reject the call. Spam calls are automatically generated, and do not announce themselves. It useful however if a hospital or doctor calls, and their number is withheld, as they can say who they are.

Answer phone - all numbers not in the phone are sent to the answer phone. If you turn the answer phone feature off, the caller gets a message to say the call cannot be taken.

See https://www.bt.com/content/dam/bt/help/legacy-ug/phones/3653%20BT4600%20UG%20Call%20Blocking%20Versi...

Page 18

Your BT4600 has two BT Call Blocking modes to help you easily manage your
incoming calls in different ways. When set to:
• Announce (all calls not saved in your Contacts, Allow and Speed dial list list must
say their name. They will hear, “Callers to this number are being screened by a
BT Call Blocking phone please say your name after the tone and then press # and
wait to be connected”. Those on your Blocked list will hear, “Callers to this number
are being screened by a BT Call Blocking phone, the person you are calling isn’t
accepting your call. Please hang up”).
• Answer phone (all calls not in your Contacts or Allowed list are sent straight to the
Answer phone, including those on your Blocked list).

I use that same phone, set to announce, and have not received one spam call.

[rbz5416]

@PaulAM 

You're correct in that unknown calls can't be automatically blocked by Call Guardian. They either get shunted to the answering machine or if they do announce who they are, the call is forwarded with an option to accept or reject. I suspect neither would be desirable.

You could however use the Do Not Disturb feature. With this you can assign VIP status to any contact. Once Do Not Disturb is enabled then no call will get through unless it's on the VIP list. The down side being that he could just switch the DND setting off.

Another option is the Trucall Secure device. This is a standalone device so he keeps his original phone. It'is the technology that the BT Call Guardian is a stripped down version of. This would allow unknown callers to be completely blocked with interaction but is a bit costly & requires an annual subscription after year one.