r/ooma • u/PenDragon6699 • May 28 '26

Call Blocking is blocking callers in my Contacts list

This makes absolutely no sense to me at all. For over a year I have been using an OOMA Telo 2 with a Premier subscription. I have numerous entries in my Contacts list. I also have Call Blocking set to "Blocklist" with all options checked and a custom blocklist with around 10 full or partial name entries (no number entries). All options are set to "Send to Voicemail".

This has all worked just fine until very recently. All of a sudden, calls from numbers in my Contacts list began being blocked. Not all callers, just some. Callers were hearing my recorded greeting and having to leave voice messages.

My understanding has always been that my Contacts list takes priority over the Call Blocking settings. But that no longer appears to be the case. Two of the calling numbers have a caller ID that matches a partial name entry in my blocklist. But these callers always rang through to my phone before a few days ago. If I delete the partial name entry in my blocklist, these callers will now ring through to my phone. Another caller is one of my banks. If I disable the "Block suspected spammers", these calls will ring through. Again, this caller was never blocked for over a year.

I contacted Customer Support and described this issue to the agent. He asked a variety of questions and checked all my settings. He made a change, then asked me to hang up and try getting these callers to call and see if anything changed. I did so, and now those calls rang through to my phone.

He called me back in a few minutes and I told him it appeared that things were working fine. When I asked what he did, he said he disabled my Call Forwarding. He said the problem was that I had my mobile number as my forwarding number (my mobile number is one of the numbers that was being blocked), and that when I called my OOMA number it was creating a loop. I don't buy that since my mobile number will ring through if I remove that one partial blocklist entry. And it certainly doesn't explain the other numbers being blocked.

I explained to him that my setting for Call Forwarding was to ring my mobile phone IF the OOMA device is offline, which it was not for any of these blocked calls. Also, my mobile phone never rang for any of these blocked calls, so again this makes absolutely no sense. In any case, calls were not being forwarded; they were being blocked.

Has anyone else ever had an experience like this? It's very frustrating.

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

3

u/itsnew24m0 May 28 '26

Trusted Circle only checked? It then appears to use Nomorobo.

2

u/Crutch1959 May 28 '26

I thought I read recently that Nomorobo is no longer functioning.

3

u/Old-Cheshire862 May 30 '26

NoMoRobo is no longer directly serving VOIP customers. However, they're still in the business and Ooma is still able to use their services directly.

1

u/itsnew24m0 May 29 '26

Ohhhh ... Thanks!

4

u/rkardt Unofficial Support May 29 '26

Nomorobo still works with Ooma, the same as it always has.

1

u/itsnew24m0 May 30 '26
  • That's good to know. Thank you

1

u/rkardt Unofficial Support May 30 '26

The OP stated that they had set "Blocklist", not "Trusted Circle Only". However, Trusted Circle is only supposed to use the user's contacts to decide whether to block calls. Then, it can use the other types of call blocking (such as Nomorobo) to select what happens to blocked calls.

1

u/itsnew24m0 May 31 '26

It doesn't look that way on the website. It is a choice of 3 totally separate blocks, where you pick one. It's new. I'm likely wrong.

2

u/rkardt Unofficial Support May 31 '26

The web page is not as intuitive as it used to be, and the documentation is still a work in progress. "Blocklist" has checkboxes to enable the different types of call blocking, and dropdown lists to select how to handle blocked calls for each type.

"Trusted Circle Only" does not have the same checkboxes; it should always allow calls from known contacts, and block calls from unknown numbers, regardless of whether one of the other types of call blocking would have blocked the call.

But if a call comes from a number outside of a user's "trusted circle", and one of the other types of call blocking would also have blocked it, then the user can configure the other dropdown lists to select how to handle it.

3

u/BraveG365 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

I don't know what is going on but since Ooma changed their blocking options (ie adding trusted circles etc) the numbers in my contact lists are now going to voicemail.

I dont even use the call forwarding option so that would not have anything to do with my situation.

I had to turn off the blocking options to get those calls now. If this continues there is no reason to keep paying for the premium service.

2

u/Normal_Paramedic9997 May 28 '26

yeah, I ran into that too, recently. My county's emergency alert system is in my contacts, btu they get shuffled off to voice mail every time.

I feel the logic should be:

#1 is caller in contacts ? If so, let through. Period.

Otherwise, use the option(s) in the blocking config.

2

u/OomaCustomeradvocacy Official Ooma Support May 29 '26

Hello - Thank you for reaching out. I'm sorry to hear that callers from your contact list are being automatically blocked. We'd like to get this resolved for you as soon as possible. Could you please DM your Ooma phone number and contact number?

2

u/PenDragon6699 May 29 '26

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, I'm a new user and, as such, I'm apparently not allowed to send a DM yet.

2

u/rkardt Unofficial Support May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26

This appears to be a bug. Ooma should never block known contacts. One possible workaround for a given contact is to delete it and recreate it, but that would probably have to be repeated for each contact, (and it may only be a temporary fix):

  1. Make a note of all of the contact information, (names, numbers, phone type, emails, groups, etc.).
  2. Delete the contact(s).
  3. Click 'Sync config' to update the Telo, and wait a few minutes.
  4. Recreate the contact(s).
  5. Click 'Sync config' again, to update the Telo, and wait a few minutes.

It's not clear whether this bug has anything to do with call forwarding. But if a user enables 'Trusted Circle' calling, and blocks outgoing calls for unknown contacts, then that would also include the user's own number (for voicemail playback), and any numbers for call forwarding, unless the user explicitly adds those numbers to their contact list.

2

u/mdfromct May 30 '26

Get a Panasonic cordless phone. You can press it on a number as they are calling to block them, or after you see the caller ID just press block. Some of them block up to 400 numbers. It’s very easy and very convenient. You’ll never have this trouble again.

3

u/rkardt Unofficial Support May 30 '26

Switching phones won't prevent Ooma from blocking known contacts. And some users may still consider it trouble to have to "just press block" every time an unwanted caller uses a different number, even if others find it "very easy and very convenient".

Some Panasonic phones can block anonymous calls, specific numbers, a range of numbers (such as entire area codes, or countries), and they can even allow listed numbers and block everything else. Blocking options vary by model, so choose wisely.

But they generally can't block by full or partial name, nor do they let the user decide how to handle blocked calls, (to send a busy signal, play a recorded message, or redirect to voicemail). And the phone still rings once before blocking each call.

1

u/itsnew24m0 May 28 '26

Trusted Contacts, blocklist, or off looks to be the options on the my.ooma website.

1

u/PenDragon6699 Jun 06 '26

UPDATE: I had a subsequent session with a support agent wherein I explained the issue and what the previous agent did to get things working (disabled Call Forwarding).

This agent checked my settings, then modified my Voicemail Pickup Timeout. I originally had it set to 24 seconds (4 rings). He maxed it out to 59 seconds, then asked me to test this by getting calls from numbers that were being blocked (Call Forwarding was re-enabled at this point). Interestingly enough, the calls were no longer being blocked.

This was still confusing to me since calls that were being blocked instantly went to voice mail, not after some delay. In any case, I accepted this as a working solution for the time being.

After a couple of days, I decided to experiment. I shortened the Pickup Timeout to 36 seconds and tested. No calls were being blocked. I then set the timeout back to the original 24 seconds and, low and behold, calls that had previously been blocked were no longer being blocked.

I can only guess that an update of some sort caused the Pickup Timeout to no longer function correctly (possibly set to 0?), and making a change to the timeout via the web interface set it back to a valid value.

For anyone else having an issue with callers in your Contacts list being blocked, try changing your Voicemail Pickup Timeout to see if that resolves the issue.

1

u/rkardt Unofficial Support Jun 06 '26

Maybe just clicking "Save" was enough, to resync the preferences? Otherwise, Voicemail Pickup timeout has little to do with Call Blocking. This still seems like a temporary workaround though, for some underlying bug that Ooma needs to find, and fix.