MagicJack's Faulty Call Screening

Joined
Aug 16, 2019
Messages
1,245
I wasn't receiving calls on my MJ land line phone, so last night I chatted with one of their reps, some guy with a foreign sounding name.
He basically didn't know what to tell me. Then I admitted to him that there was a chance I have a defective LL phone. He wasn't even able to call me to prove my phone doesn't receive calls. He told me to "have a friend call me" or "call it with your "mobile phone" (which I don't own.) I knew it didn't work because Chase bank couldn't call me to send me a code to verify my PC. Plus I tried a website that calls your phone number and that didn't work either.

After the call I recycled everything, my fiber optic, router, and MJ stuff, I unplugged and plugged in all cords again.
Still no incoming calls. I hooked up another phone too. Nothing.
Then in bed this AM I got thinking, and figured it might work if I disabled the automatic call screening.
I did, and I now get incoming calls.
One of MagicJack's own features are what the problem was, and the silly rep couldn't even suggest that I try disabling call screening.
So for me anyway, call screening seemed to disable all incoming calls.
 
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Scammers commonly spoof a bank's phone number as their caller ID, because people will pick up when they see the Caller ID Name as "X_Bank". All it takes is a few people to hit the 'spam' button on their call screening app and walla, the bank's phone number is now reported as spam to everyone else. False positives are a big problem.
 
Magicjack is still a thing? I remember infomercials for this like 20 years ago.
Yes and it's much improved. I had MJ when it ran through my PC and after a while their data would clog my PC or something and I'd have trouble hearing people, and people would have trouble hearing me. It now doesn't go through my PC at all. It borrows from the router and takes a little bit of electricity, that's all. It's not perfect but it only costs me about $4 a month.
 
I sometimes see numbers that are scam callers from "Bank of America". The thing is I do zero business with BofA and the calls go unanswered.
 
Update : My MagicJack phone is not ringing again.
It's not a problem with my 2 phones, it's a MagicJack problem and their tech support doesn't know why.
I wouldn't recommend MagicJack to anyone.
 
Scammers commonly spoof a bank's phone number as their caller ID, because people will pick up when they see the Caller ID Name as "X_Bank". All it takes is a few people to hit the 'spam' button on their call screening app and walla, the bank's phone number is now reported as spam to everyone else. False positives are a big problem.
What’s a good one for hand phones ? - I registered a few electronic items I just bought and suddenly scam calls are out of control on my iPhone …
 
What’s a good one for hand phones ? - I registered a few electronic items I just bought and suddenly scam calls are out of control on my iPhone …
The only tool I use to block spam calls on the iPhone is "block unknown callers" no app needed or wanted. Blocking all unknown callers works perfectly and I never ever get a spam call.
 
The only tool I use to block spam calls on the iPhone is "block unknown callers" no app needed or wanted. Blocking all unknown callers works perfectly and I never ever get a spam call.
It seems like more and more carriers are implementing spam screening on their end now. So while your phone still rings, the caller ID usually says something like "Possible spam".
 
Wow, what a difference a day makes 😄

I think it's fixed now. I contacted TP Link twice. The USA rep told me my AC750 isn't made to be used for a VoIP phone (which I think is nonsense). A guy on a tech forum I'm on thought he could help me configure it to work, and today while trying to configure it, I found the SIP / ALG setting and disabled it, and then restarted the router. The phone has worked 3 times and I really think it's all set now. It took a lot of fooling around with to get it right. I think the TP Link USA rep hoped to sell me a new router. It's a few years old and they don't want to support it any more, but I persisted and it didn't cost me a cent. If it keeps working, and I think it will, I plan to renew my Magic Jack. Hey, at $4 a month, why not?
Some guy was telling me he pays $109 a month for his cell, and thought that was a good price. No thank you!!
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SIP ALG stands for Application Layer Gateway. You will find it on many commercial and residential Firewalls, Routers, or Modems. It is a NAT tool that inspects SIP Messages and transforms the Private IP addresses and Ports to Public IP Addresses and Ports.

Should I disable SIP ALG?

You should disable SIP ALG because it: Interrupts SIP traffic like calls and conferencing apps. Affects the perceived reliability of desk phones and VoIP apps. Isn't needed when using cloud-based VoIP providers. Oct 1, 2020
 
Wow, what a difference a day makes 😄

Magic Jack recommends disabling the SIP / ALG setting on their tech support page because they say it can interfere with many VoIP functions, but after the USA TP Link rep told me my AC750 doesn't have an SIP / ALG setting and is not made for VoIP phones, what was I supposed to do, think it would work anyway?!?!? :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
Wow, what a difference a day makes 😄

Some of you guys sure seem quick to ridicule others.
I was trying to keep you all updated on my progress with this issue for the benefit of others here that might also use Magic Jack phones.
But something I like about this forum is the ignore function, and I will use that right now, because some of you have no other place to play, it's like this your little playpen.

I'll definitely keep your reactions in mind the next time I think about keeping this forum updated about issues like this.
Some of you are really here to ridicule anyone you feel you could turn into a victim. I find that to be cruel and not cool at all.
You donate to the forum every year, as if that gives you the right to bully and abuse others here.
I'm sure the MGMT is more lenient with the donors too.
Too bad I can't delete the post, that's the part of this forum I don't like.
I'm stuck here with you donor bullies.
 
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Update :

My Magic Jack phone is working all the time now.
I believe I have it fixed by disabling the SIP / ALG setting on my TP Link AC750 router.

SIP ALG.JPG
 
Another surprise today : my phone went quiet again and would not ring when I called it.

So I guess I need to talk to the tech guy at Office Depot and get a different router.
Maybe the TP Link man was right after all, that the AC750 isn't designed to work with VoIP phones.
I really want to get this taken care of and get a phone that will do more than just call out.
Because someday the love of my life might decide she wants to talk to me again and I want to make it easy for her if she calls.
It rang for 2 days in a row after I disabled SIP / ALG.
Then it went quiet again for some odd reason.

Thanks for trying. :)
I'll update this again.
I probably need a different router.
 
Yes, ALG is like a poor man's SBC and the implementation of ALG is usually poor at best. If you have having troubles and ALG is enabled, turn it off and see if the problems go away.

Would disabling any other ALG settings help, do you think?
I'm about ready to throw in the towel with this phone setup.
 
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