Automated Call Screening blocking all calls from landlines

[sparhawk]

We have been using Automated Call Screening on our MagicJack GO for a long time.

Lately (unsure of when it started), when called from at least certain landlines (and maybe all), instead of getting the recording saying to press a number, callers get a recording advertising the MagicJack service and stating that the MagicJack number they called is not assigned to a MagicJack customer (not sure of exact wording).

This issue does not occur when calling our MJ phone number from any of the cell phone numbers we have tried, on multiple carrier networks.

All landline numbers we have tried are on CenturyLink (formerly Qwest).

Turning off Automated Call Screening immediately resolves the issue, and all affected landlines can call our MJ number without a problem. Turning it on immediately causes the problem again. I could be wrong, but this suggests that my issue is a service issue, not a hardware problem.

MJ technical support chat was as useful as an inflatable dartboard. After a 35-minute wait, when I explained the situation detail, the agent tried to restate the problem as "I understand that you can't receive calls?", and their helpfulness went downhill from there. It was clear they were trying to fit my problem into one of their basic scripts, and they failed miserably, but I attempted to play along.

The agent had me unplug/replug the MJ device (Troubleshooting 101 much?). They even did something on their end that ended up sending me an email "Thank you for your magicJack purchase!" order confirmation that showed a $0.00 "FREE magicJack Number Change" and a $0.00 "magicNumber - Free", but (thankfully) our MJ phone number did not change.

Then the tech support person had me upgrade the device firmware by plugging it into the computer (it is normally plugged via Ethernet into our router). This process disconnected me from the chat, after which the program told me the firmware was up to date already. So, that 20-minute process was a waste of time. And then the chat told me it would be 45 minutes before I could get further help. I gave up when I was stuck at "you are 14th in line" for 20 minutes.

Previously (unsure of when this stopped), the Automated Call Screening feature gave us the ability to add a list of "approved" phone numbers that would bypass the call screening and go straight to our phone, but that feature appears to have disappeared off their website at about the same time this issue began. At least, it disappeared from the How-To pages, and is no longer in an obvious place to access, so I can't use it if it is there.

Why would activating Automated Call Screening prevent all (tested) landline phone numbers from calling our MagicJack?

Before we activated the call screening, we were getting a few calls per hour from telemarketing robocallers (even though the number is listed on the DoNotCall list), so we would prefer to be able to use the call screening.

A family member with a disability relies on calling us at this number in urgent/emergency situations, so we can't enable the Automated Call Screening because it is blocking all of their calls with the recording trying to sell them MJ service and saying the phone number is unassigned.

Any help would be appreciated, as I'd be better off trying to sell shoes to a snake than attempting to chat with those people again.[/i]

[lonestar]

Beginning today I'm having a similar problem. My issue is with calls from Verizon Wireless. To my knowledge, all other landline and wireless carrier calls are coming through.

When an incoming call is from a Verizon phone I'm getting the same MagicJack commercial and then it is stated that "the number being called has not been assigned to a customer".

I have not tried turning off the Automated Call Screening like the OP did, but I'm not willing to do that.

Any ideas?????

[toga2]

Sparhawk
I am having the exact problem you had yesterday. I had the same response with tec help, only with a 15 min wait. She had me do all the firmware, reseting, just like your tec. Now the wait time for tec is over an hour@#%$# I called the sales # to see if they had any idea what was going on, but she acted like this was the only call she had. Strangely she offered some help describing the problem, SHE WAS LYING! I hate a company that has a good service but treats customers like this. To make things worse, the day before the problem i signed up for the 3 year discount price!I heard from reading reviews MJ does not GIVE back money for any reason!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By the way, this problem is happening on all of the cell phones that I have tried!

[toga2]

One day later, automated call screening system still blocking all incoming calls.service the same. Tried to chat, the system said it was overloaded. was overloaded!

[H2OO]

All local landlines get the msg above Long Distance and cell calls get call screening. 1-1/2 hours to get to chat with support and if you turn off call screening all is good. Got 5 robo calls in minutes. They need to fix this.
Suddenlink..Arkansas and ATT landlines.
Please post if solution is found. Support escalation did nothing but reset my # problem still there.

[H2OO]

But they will when the doctor or local friend tells them they been trying to calls for days

[sparhawk]

At least I'm not the only one, and it sounds like I am correct about it being related to Automated Call Screening. Still no resolution yet, though, and I've had to leave ACS off as I mentioned before.

I just tried chatting into tech support:

SYSTEM MESSAGE: Please wait while we connect you with the next available representative. You are currently number 32 in line with an estimated wait time of 55 minutes.

I guess I really shouldn't expect more for less than $20/year, but still, people, SL/DB.

edit
Only 10 minutes later and:

SYSTEM MESSAGE: Thank you for your patience. You are currently number 21 in line.

edit
Only another 5 minutes later and:

SYSTEM MESSAGE: Thank you for your patience. You are currently number 17 in line.

edit
Total of 35 minutes waiting and:

SYSTEM MESSAGE: Thank you for your patience. You are currently number 9 in line.

edit
Almost exactly an hour later and:

SYSTEM MESSAGE: You are next in line. Please confirm that you are ready for the next available representative by typing in YES and pressing the Enter key.

[sparhawk]

Update, per MJ chat agent (bold is my emphasis:

Thank you for that clarification and I'm sorry also that you are having an issue with the Automated Call Screening, however to set your expectation this is an on going issue.

But we will be performing some trouble shooting steps that could possibly resolve the issue.

For now we are still fixing the issue however for us to resolve the issue we need to do some trouble shooting steps and also to get a call samples for us to determine what causes the issue.

Clearly, they are still following a Troubleshooting 101 script, because:

I'm sorry for the experience, I need to check all the possible trouble shooting steps that could possibly resolve the issue.

Wish me luck!

[sparhawk]

The agent has resolved the issue (after only 2 hours , of which 1 hour was waiting). She says she:

I refresh the magicJack signal of your device.

Not sure what that means, and it appears to still require you to chat into tech support.

She did say, as noted before, they are aware of the issue, and she supposedly is escalating using the timestamps and phone numbers of the 6 incoming test calls (3 from mom's landline that got the error, 3 from wife's cell phone that didn't), to try to resolve the whole issue on their end.

So, fixed for me, maybe not for thee.
But, maybe for thee later.

[H2OO]

Refresh and still didn't work..I believe.
I left call screening on with in minutes with it off I get robo calls.
Will check today if local calls are coming in?

[H2OO]

I have to turn it off to recieve local calls even after 2 refreshes

[H2OO]

The gentlemen did a few of the same things and said he would escalate but did not receive any updates via email yet..12 hours later?

[sparhawk]

Maybe it isn't fixed. Although the ACS is showing as ON on the website, no one that calls us is getting the recording requesting to press a specific number.

So, it appears their fix for the problem is to pretend that it is on.

Oddly, though, we haven't received any more spam calls since yesterday.
They may have enabled some other form of ACS without the recording, but I can't speak for exactly what happened or what their solution is. But, no robocalls have happened, and Mom (and other test calls) can call us, so I'm hoping that they fixed whatever was going on and didn't just disable ACS while pretending it's on.

[sparhawk]

I stand corrected. It is fully functional for all incoming phone numbers we have tested (cell, landline, VOIP).

[dproff]

All local landlines get the msg above Long Distance and cell calls get call screening. 1-1/2 hours to get to chat with support and if you turn off call screening all is good. Got 5 robo calls in minutes. They need to fix this.
Suddenlink..Arkansas and ATT landlines.
Please post if solution is found. Support escalation did nothing but reset my # problem still there.

This describes my experiences exactly in North Carolina. Does not happen on incoming cell calls or incoming long distance; only affects incoming local calls and only when Call Screening is on.

[H2OO]

I called from my neighbors phone today and got the call screening message.
Also, Suddenlink had a whooping 6-7 day.. 3 day upgrade that apparently had issues. Could not log into my Suddenlink account and I suspect their upgrade process may have contributed to this issue. I am amazed that in this day in age that a company takes (twice as long) 7 days to do a major upgrade and suspend phone support services. Amazing!

[dproff]

I re-installed my call screening option back in Sunday and, after testing, thought everything was fixed. Today I had a local incoming call fail with no message (nor an ad) going to the caller. When he shifted back to his cell and tried again, it went through. I have turned off the call screening service once again.

[H2OO]

1 1/2 our to chat.. awaiting EMAIL.. scam calls coming in 5 an hour..

[dproff]

I stand corrected. It is fully functional for all incoming phone numbers we have tested (cell, landline, VOIP).

Did your problem go away? I restarted my call screening and it stayed fixed for a day or so. The next problem I got was local calls would not get through, and the callers got nothing - no message, no rings, nothing. I duplicated the problem with my closest neighbor and then turned off the call screening again.

[MikeLieberman]

I am overseas and so I have no 'local line' to test with... However in the past week I have started getting Robocalls again.

As I am GMT+8, those calls tend to come in when I am sleeping. (Before the feature was available I had to kill the service from my Cell phone completely and disconnect the MJ device at night!)

When I started using the feature, I was able to leave the device connected and reinstall the Android app. I was never awakened at night.... until the past four days.

The Robocalls have started again. The last one was fifteen hours ago from Google!

So either robocall technology has found a way to defeat the feature or it has been turned off.

Anyone know anything about this?

[Bill Smith]

I do not know the reason this is occurring. A few years ago, I changed my outgoing message to discourage (not block) calls by having the "beep-beep-beep" out of service tones at the beginning of my outgoing voice mail message (available at http://yourhomenow.com/sit.html). These tones are on my MJ and cell and it seems to work (no guarantees). At least I don't get calls from the same number again. To put the tones on your message, download the file, load it in any media player program, and then simply play it from your computer speakers when you revise your outgoing message.

[MikeLieberman]

Thanks, Bill, but as the tone would have to be on my VM message, that doesn't solve the problem of the phone ringing and waking me up in the middle of the night.

The problem is that the Automated Call Screening doesn't seem to be working anymore.

Of course the feature is only for non MJ callers. What if the spammer is using MJ?

[Bill Smith]

I realize that your phone will still ring with what I suggested. Do you expect important calls during your night? If not, then unplug the MJ when you're sleeping for a month or so. That will likely reduce the number of junk calls. I seriously doubt that the spammer is using MJ since MJ's terms do not permit excessive calls. I have no idea why the Automated Call Screening is not working and apparently MJ doesn't either.

[JimShaw]

I help 5 neighbors with their MJ and for a year all 5 have loved Automatic Call Screening.

Until a few days ago, ACS worked perfectly. But now when a caller calls the MJ phone number, ACS activates, the caller pushes the screening number and 14 (I have counted many times) seconds later, MJ terminates the call. The call is terminated even if the caller was in the middle of leaving a message. If it were 1 neighbor having a problem, it might be something in their system but all 5 at the same time, it's MJ's problem.

Like everyone above, I was with an MJ tech for 1 1/2 hours testing and testing. The tech gave up and sent the problem up the chain. I have a ticket number and was told they will get back to me. What are the odds they will?

I thought this problem might be a fluke but after reading this thread, it looks like ACS has been having different problems for a long time.

ACS was the reason all 5 joined MJ. They may reconsider if ACS has many problems.

[Bill Smith]

What are the odds they will?

Don't hold your breath. The odds of winning the powerball are about the same as MJ getting back to you.

[JimShaw]

Bill Smith, I hope you and I are wrong and they do fix the problem

[Bill Smith]

I, too, hope they solve the problem. Just don't expect them to directly advise you of that fact.

[JimShaw]

[quote="Bill Smith"]I, too, hope they solve the problem. Just don't expect them to directly advise you of that fact.[/quote]

You were correct

Problem solved but as you stated, they never advised me of that fact

[Bill Smith]

Jim - Thanks for informing the forum that the problem was solved.