Calling with a Phone as the Calling Device

Click on any of the following questions to jump to the answer:

1. 1. 1. 1. I’m calling from my phone and see an unexpected Caller ID when turboDial calls me!
            
         2. I want to use a Phone as the Calling Device, but when I start a call my phone doesn’t ring.
            
         3. I want to use a Phone as the Calling Device, but the person I call hears my voice mail system!
            
         4. What phones can I use to make outbound calls with?
            

Questions & Answers

I’m calling from my phone and see an unexpected Caller ID when turboDial calls me!

IF the Caller ID number you’ve set is the same as the Calling Device number you’ve set,
THEN turboDial will use a different Caller ID for the initial call to your Calling Device.    read on…

The Caller ID you set in turboDial is the number that will be displayed to the people you call. This is always true unless you enable the “Auto” feature for the Caller ID. Otherwise, the person you are calling will ALWAYS see the Caller ID you chose.

The Caller ID you set in turboDial will also be displayed to you when turboDial calls your phone at the beginning of a call, but only if that Caller ID number is not the same as your Calling Device phone number.

If the Caller ID you’ve set is the same number as the Calling Device phone number you are calling from then turboDial will use a different Caller ID for that call to your Calling Device number. But this won’t affect the Caller ID displayed to the person you are calling.

You may ask: Why does turboDial do that? It does that to avoid being intercepted by your voice mail system. There is a problem with most phone companies where calls to a number from the same number are intercepted by your voice mail system.

You may also ask: What Caller ID number does turboDial choose when it does this substitution? turboDial orders your list of Caller ID numbers from smallest to largest and then chooses the first number in the list that isn’t the same as your Calling Device number.

If you don’t like this Caller ID substitution, here is one possible solution. Some turboDial users acquire a new phone number in turboDial that will intentionally be ordered first in their list of Caller IDs. For example if your current Caller IDs are +14081234567 and +14081234568 and you acquire a new number of +14081221212 that new number will be ordered first in the list. Then if you set your Caller ID and your Calling Device both to +14081234567 turboDial will call your Calling Device using +14081221212 as the Caller ID but still use +14081234567 as the Caller ID to the person you are calling. This approach allows you to not be surprised by the Caller ID substitution turboDial makes.

See the next FAQ for additional information.

I want to use a Phone as the Calling Device, but when I start a call my Phone doesn’t ring.

Please note: When you start a call in turboDial and are using a phone as your Calling Device, the first step is for turboDial to call your phone. When the call to your phone is answered turboDial says “Now Connecting” and begins the call to the phone of the person you are calling.

There are 3 common problems that can cause your phone to not ring:

• Your mobile carrier or VOIP service believes your phone is busy or it is not reachable in the network.
• Your carrier sends the call to your phone but your phone chooses to not ring.  This can happen if you have blocked the number that turboDial is using as a Caller ID when it calls your phone.
• If you have only 1 number in your Caller IDs list in turboDial then turboDial must use that number as the Caller ID when it calls your phone. If that Caller ID number is the same as your phone number then your carrier may intercept the call and send it to your voicemail. You may be getting some strange voicemails if your voicemail system is answering the call (also read the next FAQ answer for additional information).

Please note:

turboDial cannot force your phone to ring. turboDial sends a call to your phone, but your phone settings and your carrier determine if your phone will ring.
Please read further for our suggestions.

Here’s more detail about the underlying reasons we’ve seen for this problem:

• You have the incoming call blocked in your cell phone. See the FAQ above for more information about the Caller ID number you will see on your Calling Device when turboDial calls it.
  You must be careful not to block calls from that number.
• You have a spam call detection app or service, and it intercepts the call because it believes it is spam.
  You must be careful to configure any spam detection feature so that calls from your Caller ID numbers are not intercepted.
• Your cell phone is not currently connected to the cellular network and the carrier cannot reach it.
  In this case you need to move to a location with better coverage.
• You have a Sprint or T-Mobile cell phone and it is enabled to use WiFi for voice calls when it cannot get a cellular connection. We’ve seen from experience that these carriers are not able to reliably deliver calls to cell phones over WiFi. You are likely missing other phone calls too, not just calls from turboDial.
  Our recommendation is to contact your carrier’s customer support and ask them why your phone isn’t ringing when called. If you cannot get their attention on the problem then you should escalate to find alternative solutions that allow you to reliably receive incoming calls.
• You have a VOIP phone service and either your Internet connection or your LAN is intermittently blocking access to the phone at your premises.
  You need to work with your VOIP phone service provider to isolate the problem.

Another Approach:

If none of the above causes apply to your case then we recommend you try this test call to learn more about what is happening:

1. Install your phone’s number into a Contact record in Keap.
2. Move turboDial to focus on that Contact record and select your phone number in the selector.
3. Retain the same Caller ID setting you have been using for the calls that haven’t been working
4. Set your Calling Device to ‘This PC’
5. Click the Call button in turboDial – this will use your speakers and microphone on your PC to make a call to your phone.

It is likely that your phone will not ring, since it hasn’t been ringing for your other call attempts. Listen on the call and try to determine what is happening:

• Is your voice mail answering?
• Is the carrier rejecting the call?
• Is there a busy signal?

Use the results of the test to determine the cause of the call failure and solve it. This test call scenario must succeed before you will be able to use your  phone as a Calling Device.

I want to use a Phone as the Calling Device, but the person I call hears my voice mail system!

This can happen for a couple of different reasons.

The first case is when the phone you use as a Calling Device has an associated voice mail system and when the call comes inbound your phone cannot be reached and the voice mail system answers. An example would be if your Calling Device phone is on another call, or it’s a cell phone that has temporarily lost service. (Please scroll up and read the previous FAQ).

The second case is when you have only a single Caller ID number validated in turboDial and that number is the same as the number for your Calling Device. In that case, some phone companies will intercept the call to your phone and send it to your voice mail system. You can solve this by simply validating a second number as a Caller ID. That gives turboDial a choice of Caller IDs to choose from when it calls your Calling Device, and it can avoid using the Caller ID number that is the same as the Calling Device number.

If you are unable to resolve the problem using the above information then try making a call from turboDial to your Calling Device phone number using ‘This PC’ as the Calling Device. If it seems to ring and operate normally then please send a request for assistance to support@turbodial.biz and include the date, time and phone number called for this test you just attempted.

Also see the first FAQ above for additional information.

What phones can I use to make outbound calls with?

With turboDial you can call from the PC you are using (called ‘This PC’). With turboDial you can also call from any phone listed in your Calling Device list. Your Calling Device list consists of the numbers you have validated as Caller IDs and any additional numbers you have entered directly into the list.

If you want to call from a phone that can only be accessed by dialing an extension then you must enter it directly into your Calling Device list; validating the number as a Caller ID will not result in the extension being included in the number. So in this case you may choose to validate the number as a Caller ID and also enter the number and extension directly into your Calling Device list.

A number entered directly into the Calling Device list by another User in your account will not appear in your list – you must enter it for yourself.

Note, you do not need to set your Caller ID number to the same number as your Calling Device. For example, you could verify your desk phone as a Caller ID and setup your mobile phone as a Calling Device. Then for making calls you could choose your desk phone as your Caller ID and choose your mobile phone as your Calling Device. The people you call will see your desk phone number on their display, but you will actually be talking with your mobile phone.