Managing Privacy Defender

Privacy Defender allows you to control incoming calls, giving you the ability to screen and reject unwanted calls from telemarketers and anonymous numbers.

Enjoy access to both of the following call screening features when you subscribe to Privacy Defender as an Armstrong Telephone customer:

Telemarketer Call Screening

Prompts callers to confirm that they are not telemarketers.

If you have activated telemarketer call screening, whenever someone calls you Privacy Defender does not put the call through to you directly. Instead, if you have enabled telemarketer call screening, the calling number is first checked against a permitted numbers list and a blocked numbers list.

Anonymous Call Screening

Prompts callers with anonymous numbers to record their names and gives you the opportunity to accept or reject the call.

If you have activated anonymous call screening, whenever someone calls you from an anonymous number, Privacy Defender does not put the call through to you directly. Instead, the caller hears an announcement explaining that you do not accept unidentified calls, and is asked to say his or her name so that it can be recorded. You have three options:

• Accept the call.
• Play a message informing the caller that you do not accept telemarketing calls and asking to be removed from his or her calling list.
• Play a message informing the caller that you cannot accept the call at this time and asking him or her to call back later.
• If you do not select any of these options, Privacy Defender connects the call after a short timeout, as though you had selected the option to accept the call.

You can turn on or off either call screening feature, at any time.

You can also specify a three-digit bypass code. You can give people this number to allow them to bypass the Anonymous Call Screening feature. Instead of being required to record their name, someone who knows this code can simply press the * key followed by this code to be put through to your phone.

If you have activated any call screening features, Privacy Defender acts before any other call services you have enabled that act on incoming calls.

• If you have any Call Forwarding services enabled, and a call that has been handled by Privacy Defender anonymous call screening is forwarded, Privacy Defender present the caller's name to the person who picks up the call; this person then has the standard options to accept or reject the call. The same applies to a call that is picked up by another line using Basic Line Hunting, SimRing, Find-me-follow-me, or Off-Premises Extension.
• If you have Voicemail enabled, and a call that has been handled by Privacy Defender is forwarded to voicemail, it will not be transferred to the voicemail system until the Privacy Defender announcement has been played and the timeout has expired. This means that the caller will not hear the first 30 seconds of the voicemail greeting. If possible, ensure that your voicemail greeting is longer than 30 seconds, so that the caller will hear the last part of the voicemail greeting followed by a tone and will know when to start recording a message.
• If you have any services configured that can reject calls, Privacy Defender will not attempt to connect any call that would otherwise be rejected by these services. After responding to any prompts, the caller wll be informed in the usual way that you cannot accept the call.
• If you expect to receive emergency calls from Firebar, it is highly recommended that you turn off telemarketer call screening. It is important that emergency calls are put through to you without delay.

Managing Privacy Defender

Dial *94 from your phone.

Press 1 to Turn Privacy Defender On or Off

• Press 1 at the main menu.
• To turn Anonymous Call Screening on or off by pressing 1.
• To turn Telemarketing Call Screening on or off by pressing 2.

Press 2 to Change or Clear the Bypass code

• Press 2 at the main menu. You will hear a message telling you what your current code is, if you have one, and giving you another menu of options for managing it. After using each of these options, you are returned to the top-level menu.
• To set a new bypass code, press 1. Then type the new three-digit bypass code you want to use. Alternatively, to leave the previous bypass code unchanged, press 9 and wait for confirmation before pressing any other keys.
• To clear the bypass code, press 2.
• To return to the top-level menu without changing the bypass code, press 9. The previous bypass code is left unchanged.

Press 4 to Manage Screening Lists

• Press 4 at the main menu. You will then be given menu options for managing your screening lists.
• To turn the screening lists feature on or off, press 1 from the screening lists menu. You hear a message to confirm the updated state of the system after the key has been pressed.
• To manage your permitted numbers list, press 2 from the screening lists menu. You will then be taken to the permitted numbers list management menu.
• To manage your blocked numbers list, press 3 from the screening lists menu. You will then be taken to the blocked number list management menu.

Add a number to the permitted numbers list or blocked numbers list.

This option allows you to add a specific number to the list by entering the number on your telephone keypad. The permitted numbers list or blocked numbers list contains a maximum of 20 numbers.

• To add a number to this list, press 1 from the permitted numbers list or blocked numbers list management menu.
• You will hear a message prompting you to enter the number followed by #.
• Once you have entered this number and pressed #, you hear a message informing you that the number has been successfully added to the list.

Move between numbers in the permitted numbers list or blocked numbers list.

After the options in the permitted numbers list or blocked numbers list management menu are played, you will hear the first number in the list. You can move backwards and forwards through the numbers in the list using the keys on your telephone keypad.

• To skip to the next number in the list, press 2. You will hear the next number in the list, or a prompt if you try to skip beyond the last number in the list.
• To go back to the previous number in this list, press 3. You will hear the previous number in the list, or a prompt if you try to go back from the first number in the list.

Deleting a number from the permitted numbers list or blocked numbers list.

• Navigate to the number you want to delete using the 2 and 3 keys. Once you have reached the number you want, press 4.

Exiting the permitted numbers list or blocked number list management menu

• Return to the screening list menu by pressing 9.

Press 5 to Add the Most Recent Caller to Your Blocked Numbers List

• Add the number that most recently called you to the blocked number list by pressing 5 at the main menu.

To Exit the Privacy Defender Interface

• Either press 9 when you hear the main menu (before or after using other options), or simply hang up.