Harassing phone calls, frustration w/Verizon

[P. Aaron]

Some punks started calling my phone using a restricted number. I thought I had it settled a month ago: complaint to Verizon, a police report. Nope. They're back. The calls are just kids, with nothing particular to say but, it is my business number, that I've had for 14 years.

Verizon was of little help. Citing FCC regs & even with the police report will not contact the 'restricted' carrier to request that they contact that subscriber. I have to go to court. I have to do everything. The best Verizon would offer:

Change my number, or offer me a call block option. Either way, I have to then do all the recovery work to retain my contacts. A blocker will not help since I am also in the referral business. So any referral from a friend or past client may not get through. Plus, I get referrals and property info calls from restricted numbers all the time. My realty signs, Internet ads, bus cards, it adds up.

So I am off to city hall tomorrow to get started on punishing these punks. I also have 3 VM's, and a prank number they had call my cell. It's a bit of evidence to start. Grunt!

[DigMe]

Good luck. Let us know when you nail them.

bc

[fdeck]

Can you subpoena them in small claims court?

[Ursus Tyrannus]

My brother once had to turn himself into the police for making a prank call.
Late one night after a party at a friends house, and being young, dumb and drunk (yet WAY too old to know better), on a dare he made the classic "refrigerator running" prank call.
The next day we got a panicked call from our friend because the police had just left his house ready to arrest him for harassment. Turns out my brother just happened to completely at random call someone who had been harassed for months with obscene crank calls. So my brother had to go to the police station to turn himself in for making a crank call. After the desk sergeant told him to get lost or he was gonna have him arrested for "being a pain and wasting my time" he finally managed to find someone who knew what he was talking about. They had caught the person making the obscene calls earlier that day and my brother was told to go home and stop being an idiot.
At the time he wasn't amused but I was howling in laughter at his having spent the day being called an idiot by cops. They kept tellin him to get lost but he was so earnest in trying to explain he made a prank call and he really was wanted. Hey, its one of the jobs of the big brother to laugh at your little brothers misfortune.
If Ma Bell can get the cops involved in the days before touch tone phones, caller ID and *69 there should exist the technology and legal channels to help resolve the OP's issues today. It seems to me Verizon and so many other big companies today just don't care that deeply about their customers. Good luck sorting out the issues and its sad you are forced to do all the leg work on this issue.

[P. Aaron]

Originally Posted by fdeck

Can you subpoena them in small claims court?

I have to build the case & file a complaint. Once that is in motion, I think evidence collection can commence. Where it goes, from there? Don't know.