Call Blocker

[Cathar Tours]

I thought I might mention this because when I was looking for one for my dad an old post on this forum came up about blocking nuisance calls.

First up it appears that some form of system was started in France but it is not very good and many have called it a waste of time so an alternative is needed.

I bought my dad a CPR V5000 call blocker. It is pre programmed with 5,000 numbers. As it was bought on a French website I assume they are French and international numbers.

Anyway it works and he tells me it is brilliant. In the last couple of months he was getting three or four calls per day including those where there appears to be nobody present. They either come at lunchtime or early evening when he is eating which really annoys him. Those that have got through he simply hits this big red button (or uses a code on his cordless phone) and that's it gone for good.

The unit is available for 80 Euros on Amazon France BUT you can get it for half that price (40 Euros including delivery) via Ebay France from CPR direct. They are "returns", come in a new sealed box and are "as new". I think this may be down to the fact that the instructions are in English and judging by the comments on Amazon the French can't cope and return them.

He tells me it is the best Christmas present yet and would recommend it. He can now eat his dinner in peace.

By the way love the way Google translates the French Amazon where the heading for it comes up as "CPR V5000 - Unwanted call blocker for landline phone - "STOP the n1ggers! »- capacity: 5000 numbers". Obviously racism is alive and well in France sad to say.

Oh yes it works with ordinary landlines as well as an adsl box and requires no external or internal power supply.

[NormanH]

Perhaps google isn't your friend...on the  product site it says

Stop aux appels indésirables

https://callblocker.fr/

[Bonnie]

I was one of the first to subscribe to Bloctel.   Wonderful to start with but now the calls are worse than ever.    I'm going to look at this, Cathar.

In the meantime, my problem is with 09 numbers.   I know they are most likely to be cheap running internet calls and are non-geographical but can anything else be found out about them?

I'm now taking a note of these numbers and, from the 6 I've had so far today (it's now 16.40!) they are all different.    They never leave a message presumably because they could be traced and therefore, fined!    I now no longer answer my phone which is a bit inconvenient but most people know to send me an email anyway.   The phone is basically only used for emergency calls from my house.

[Cathar Tours]

My father discovered that with many of these numbers they hope you will phone back when of course you end up listening to a recorded message about something or another. If you put the phone down or never call them back they just keep calling you.

He has about an extra 25 numbers that he has added to the block list most of which are these funny numbers with nobody there. If you want to see the manual before you buy here is a link.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1239/6196/files/CPR-5000-USER-GUIDE-Small.pdf?8495124600801285241

There is a new version (V10000) that allows you to create a "white list" (that's numbers you know like friends and families) and block everything other than those. Personally I wouldn't use that because you could for instance have somebody trying to contact you from say a hospital because a friend or family member has been admitted as an emergency.

My father did say the number of dodgy calls has dropped considerably.

[Bonnie]

Thanks Cathar.

Can't get your link to work and when I shortened it to just https://cdn.shopify.com/ I got

"403 Forbidden".    I'll try anotherway but at that price, even used and discounted, it had better work [:)].    Amazon.fr gives the new version only one comment and it's a one *.

Is it really necessary to have 2,000, 5,000 or even 10,000 blocked numbers?    I can't imagine needing that many.

[Cathar Tours]

OK to get to the manual go to the makers website

https://www.cprcallblocker.com/

Go to the bottom of the page and you will see "LET US HELP YOU" under which you will see "User Guides", click on that and a new screen appears listing all their products, the manuals and video setups for them.

With regards to the bad reviews on Amazon, there is no French instruction manual for the 10000 which is why the guy gave it 1 star. Fair comment, how can you use it if you have no instructions. If you look at the reviews for the 5000 at the start it was the same and it got bad reviews.

Like I said I wouldn't buy from Amazon anyway. You can buy them direct from CPR via Ebay for half the price.

I have also bought one for Germany. Deutsche Telekom does have a built in system but it does not catch all so after my fathers success I decided to get one as well, works a treat.

The V5000 has 5000 pre stored international nuisance numbers pre programmed (the V2000 has 2000 and the V10000 has 10000) so most top calling straight away. Those that get past that list can be added by simply pressing the big red BLOCK NOW button on the box. Nice and very easy to use. I highly recommend the product especially at half price on Ebay.

[Bonnie]

OK - thanks.   There are others which I'd like to look at but this does seem a good one.

I agree about Amazon but I look at their sites for other people's reviews and star ratings.

[Cathar Tours]

My father takes Which magazine and there was an interesting article (Nov or Dec 2018) on fake reviews. The three sites picked out as the worst were TripAdvisor, Amazon and Ebay.

That does not mean they are all fake by any means but you need to be careful and use your best judgement.

[Bonnie]

I'm very well aware of fake reviews and that people get "paid" for them but they are an indication.   As I'm in France I look at other French sites' reviews too - takes a lot of time but I think I get a pretty reasonable idea of what they are about.