We’re pleased to announce that we’re launching three new beta features to keep unwanted callers out of your life. That’ll be one less thing for you to worry about this holiday season. Keep reading to learn more about how ooma can keep the peace in your home!
Anonymous Call Blocking 
Fed up with anonymous calls? Force callers to expose their identity with Anonymous Call Blocking. In order to reach you, callers will need to show their caller-ID – this way you’ll always know who is calling. With ooma, you have the option of blocking anonymous calls completely, or sending them straight to voicemail.
Personal Blacklist 
ooma can now be your personal bouncer. Review your call logs in the Lounge. For anyone who doesn’t make the cut, add them to your blacklist. They’ll get diverted next time they call. You have the option to block them completely or send them straight to voicemail. For a limited time, all ooma users can take advantage of our sneak preview of this feature!
Community Blacklist
Harness the power of the ooma community to block unwanted callers. Think of it as Survivor for telemarketers. As other ooma users vote callers “off the island” by adding them to their blacklist, we’re there to tally up the votes. Combined with our sophisticated algorithms for detecting phone spamming patterns and, with ooma Premier, you’ll get access to the mother of all blacklists.
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PERSONAL BLACKLISTS may be the one feature that takes my trial of Premiere into the subscription phase! And I will definitely try the community blacklist as well. There are a rare few services that offer telephone blacklist, but this is a real competitive advantage over most phone company services and most VOIP services as well!
I think this latest addition of blacklisting is terrific – thanks!
One comment – as I look through my call log to find numbers to blacklist, it’s hard to see the difference between incoming and outgoing calls. How about using different colors for the little logos? Leave outgoing green but make incoming calls a different color. The left and right arrows are just hard to see.
I am not sure how the community blacklist is arrived at. Is it about combing through the personal blacklist of the Ooma users and arrive at some higher level intelligence?
Hi bjasleep, you have the right idea – if a number exists on a certain number of personal blacklists, it would be added to the community blacklist. Just of note — the personal blacklist data will NOT be used in any user-identifiable way. In the future we may allow users to view and publish comments for numbers that exist on the community blacklist.
The community blacklist is also generated by analyzing telemarketer and phone spamming patterns for inbound calls to the ooma network.
I bought a Magic Jack and it works, but my wife doesn’t like that we have to dial the area code even for local calls. With Ooma, will I need to dial the area code when I dial a local number?
Thanks.
how about allowing me to simply push the garbage button on the hub/scout when a telemarketer calls? Seems like an unnecessary step to have to wade through the call logs to accomplish what a simple button push could do.
I love my ooma!
Hi John, great suggestion – the ability to block calls from an ooma device (using the trash key) is on the shortlist of items to enhance blacklists.
-Bobby
Wahh! I want ooma in Australia!
How is it so many people get telemarketing calls anyway? I have had the same number for 5 years or so and after I registered my numbers with the goeverments do not call list https://donotcall.gov/ I only get a few calls from local charities.
KieranMullen
http://360oregon.com
I just received my OOMA today and was so excited to use it. I couldn’t activate online and had to call cutomer service. I was onhold waiting for over 12 minutes. It turns out that there were no available phone numbers in the area code I requested even though I checked availability prior to making my purchase. We checked on other area codes close by but none were available. The closest one was 500 miles and 3 states away!!! This is a disaster ! I was told that OOMA is ordering new numbers for my area code and will contact me once they are received. This will take weeks to accomplish. Not what I expected from OOMA after I was so excited to use it. I would say that if I don’t get my local number within a week or 2 I will be returning my unit and going back to other tested solutions. Too good to be true and it turns out that it was not true. Good luck !
Hi Maher, it is likely we ran out of inventory for numbers in your local calling area — usually it takes a couple weeks for new numbers to come in. What area code and prefix did you type into the phone number availability tool?
Well the next day after calling in my issue above OOMA customer service called me back with great news that a number was just released in my area code and was assigned to me. My OOMA is working very well and I am already seeing great service from it and had no issues. Thank you to the OOMA team for jumping on this issue quickly. Looking forward to testing out the PRIMIER benefits !!
I have a slightly confused grandparent in my house(when i’m gone to work), and was thinking of doing something like this only with whitelists instead of blacklists…. any number not on the whitelist would go to voicemail. think about it.
Can you please allow certain phone numbers to be blocked and some to be sent to voicemail
I want certain numbers to automatically be blocked but some to be sent to voicemail automatically.
right now, you can only do one or the other.
Thanks
love the service.
what i would like to see is a list of important numbers that will ring through even if do not disturb is active.
I just got my Ooma with Scout and there are no numbers in my area code either (210). I called customer support and was on hold for over 30 minutes and then there was a tone as though it went to a recording, but there was nothing.
Not impressed, but still hopeful as I really want to get rid of my current phone service.
I really enjoyed the comments in this section. Very useful to a new ooma user.
How much difference is the ooma hub versus the new ooma telo? I really want to try ooma and have been reading up on the new ooma telo. I have fiber to the home 100mb connectivity and would like to place the ooma box (hub or telo) behind the router because I don’t want to leave the box in the basement where all the wires coming in. I see that the telo has one handset included with the box, is it possible to get additional handsets for this system?
Hello all.
After trying most of the available voip telephones, I am considering to buy ooma. Although hub may be as good as telo, I will like to get telo as there must be a few improvements. Does anyone know the date telo will be available?
Thanks.
Hi, I am a current AT&T Callvantage voip customer for a couple of years now and am desperately searching for a new voip service since they are discontinuing Callvantage altogether . I’ve been researching a lot of different Voip options but I keep coming back to ooma. The only thing that’s keeping me from taking the plunge is the lack of ala-cart features (and questionable fax reliability). I’m paying $1.99 for their Call Filtering feature which is the same as ooma’s Blacklisting feature. I don’t need all the other feature included in the Premium upgrade. I don’t need and extra line, multi-ring etc. If I could make a suggestion. Please keep the Premium option available but also allow customers to pick and choose only the service that they need at a reduced price such as $1.99,$2.99 per feature. I would even be will to pay $3.99 just for the Personal Blacklisting feature. Paying 12.99 month or $99.00 per year for features that I’ll never use is looking more and more like a deal breaker for me. Please let me know if this is something you’re willing to consider. Thank you.
Can OOMA WORK OUTSIDE THE US IF GETTING A US AVAILABLE NUMBER?,
AND WHAT IS THE BANDWITH NEEDED TO MAKE IT WORK FLAWLESSLY.?
REGARDS,
Please keep the Premium option available but also allow customers to pick and choose only the service like community black list that they need at a reduced price such as $1.99,$2.99 per feature.
Hmm it seems like your blog ate my first comment (it was super long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I wrote and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog. I as well am an aspiring blog writer but I’m still new to the whole thing. Do you have any points for novice blog writers? I’d genuinely appreciate it.