My new house phone - not craft related but amazing!

I was getting mega annoyed with unsolicited phone calls from withheld and international numbers especially when I'm unwell or on my day off and I'm no where near my home phone as by the time I got to the phone they'd gone.

I called BT and asked what they could do as a disabled customer as I'd nearly fallen 'running' for the phone. Their response....they could block my phone from calling international numbers? And give me a new number so for a while I wouldn't get the calls? They can't block incoming international calls apparently. I gave up and was looking to get Truecall for £100 to screen calls but it was just so expensive. My husband said just dont answer the phone as if it was important they could call my mobile but it just annoyed me the phone ringing especially when I'm in bed with a migraine!

I explained my annoyance with BT on a craft forum (see it was kind of craft related in the end) and to see if anyone had Truecall and someone mentioned an article they'd seen about a new phone...from BT?! You could block international and withheld calls and at an introductory price at only around £40 for 2 phones it sounded perfect, why BT never tried to sell me this I'll never know.

I did have to wait for nearly a month due to no stock, but today my new phones arrived! The old ones are going to Lee's brother (my brother in law) as he has just brought a flat so they are going to a good home.

The phone is BT 6500. The phone is a lovely size and shape, sound is amazing too. The main unit has the answer phone functions but you can listen to the voicemail from any BT6500 handset connected. The phone had visual voicemail so you can choose which message to listen to and who its from and see missed calls. I like this as I always use to forget to call 1571 to listen to messages.

Now for the bit I brought it for - call barring! I set it up to block International and withheld numbers but wondered what would happen if someone really needed to speak to me....well I didn't need to worry, the barred callers hear the phone ringing and then get put through to the voicemail so if they do need you they can leave a voicemail! At our end the phone is silent but you can see on the phone that a withheld or international call is coming in, then when the voicemail kicks in you don't hear anything (usually the voicemail greeting would play out loud and you would hear the caller too).

Other features are shown below but I'm sold on just the call barring feature! Plus you can put the phone on 'do not disturb' setting but have a list of VIPs who can still get through.

I love our new phones and we've had no annoying calls yet since installing them!