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Home phone call blockers: Do they work?

Posted at 3:06 PM, Dec 05, 2017
and last updated 2017-12-05 20:32:12-05

They're either trying to sell you something or trying to scam you.

A lot of you say those are most of the calls you get on your home phone.

So, we put two highly reviewed landline call blockers to the test.

RELATED: Blocking telemarketers on your cell: What works best?

And Ed Ricketts was very willing to help us.

Ed was getting about between 10 and 15 calls a day saying, "it was driving me crazy."

Ed tested the CPR V5000 which costs about $90

And he tested the Digitone ProSeries that costs around $75.

And the timing was great.

Just before he installed the first one, he received 28 calls in one day.

First the CPR.

Ed really liked the big red button you push to block the call.

"I get a lot of satisfaction pushing it," he tells me.

He found it also allowed calls to be blocked remotely and was simpler to connect.

Ed says that was confusing with the Digitone because of all its instructions.

On the plus side, he says Digitone's screen showed blocked numbers.

He says the CPR V5000 did not.

So, Ed says he had to guess at what really mattered.

He says "I have all zeroes under blocked. I don't know how many calls were actually blocked."

Ed's notes show in a five day period, Digitone blocked 5 calls, and let 31 suspected telemarketer calls through.

CPR let 24 suspect calls through,

But again, he's not sure how many were blocked.

Most of the calls let through would have to be blocked manually on both devices.

Ed says "they're not as easy I guess or block as much as I would like."

While he calls the devices similar, overall, he liked the CPR V5000.

So we gave it to him as an early Christmas gift for all his hard work.