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Canton of Colerain. A man’s calls to his 97-year-old mother were wrongly blocked as spam
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Canton of Colerain. A man’s calls to his 97-year-old mother were wrongly blocked as spam

COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio — After weeks of telephone problems with Altafiber, a family-owned Milford business has a solution.

Bacher’s Window Cleaning was showing up as spam on caller ID and calls to their customers were not going through. After weeks of trying to resolve the issue with Altafiber, the Bachers asked WCPO 9 to get involved last month. The Bachers told us the problem has since been resolved.

After the initial story about Bachers’ problems aired, other viewers contacted the channel saying they were facing the same thing.

John Murrell, a Colerain Township resident, contacted us to say calls to his 97-year-old mother have not been returned for almost a month.

“My number can’t get through,” Murrell said. “So he hangs up.”

Murrell said his mother’s health was deteriorating and he needed to be able to contact her.

“Almost every day I have to call her to see how she’s doing, if you know she needs me to do something for her,” he said. “So this is a very big problem for me.”

Murrell called Altafiber to figure out what was wrong and fix it, but he said they told him there didn’t seem to be a problem.

“I kept explaining that it wouldn’t reach my mother, they told me my mother’s phone had blocked my number,” he said. “Well, how would that work?” How did this happen? »

He said he knew that wasn’t the problem.

“I knew it wasn’t right, because my mother is 97 years old and she doesn’t know how to use this type of service,” Murrell said. “Yeah, it was really frustrating.”

After investigating, he said Altafiber determined his number had been placed on a national call-blocking network, but the company was unable to remove him.

“I’ve probably called six, seven times, and every time I find someone new, and they try to fix it, but they can’t, and I don’t know what else to do,” he declared. “That’s why I contacted you.”

I went to the Murrell house in Colerain Township to check it out. When he tried to call his mother, she told him the call could not go through.

“Fix it so I can call my mom.” That’s all I want,” Murrell said. “You know, it’s a simple solution. It seems that would be the case. You know, I call my mom’s number and, you know, the call goes through, and for some reason they can’t handle it.”

Murrell contacted us to let us know that an Altafiber technician came out this weekend and fixed the issue.

He said he was very happy that they were able to find a solution and that he could call his mother again.

An Altafiber spokesperson said it did not know if this problem was caused by its software, but was looking into it to determine the cause.

If a spam blocker is preventing you from making calls, you can call Altafiber at 513-565-2210.

Altafiber provided the following statement:

“Altafiber uses software to reduce the number of unwanted calls our approximately 100,000 landline customers receive. We follow industry best practices to reduce these calls, which our customers say is an important part of their expectations in terms of service.

We understand that in some cases this software blocks calls from a specific number that our landline customers would like to receive. This usually happens when the call comes from another provider – for example a wireless service provider – and is identified as spam.

In these cases, customers are asked to contact altafiber at 513-565-2210. We will work with the customer to resolve the issue.

“Don’t Waste Your Money” is a registered trademark of Scripps Media, Inc. (“Scripps”).

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