Help Wanted

Dear me, I brought home the neatest little phone from Walgreens. What I wanted was the caller id, and it has so many other little functions, it's actually a telephone, a speaker phone, -- made of aluminum in China, ten dollars, just darling.

And I find it causes all the outgoing calls I want to make via modem or telephone to get one answer: "this line is out of service". I had a grievous hour before I actually diagnosed what was happening here and unplugged the darling little phone.

Help, help? Is there some way I can keep and use the thing (I do enjoy its structure) and neutralize it so it doesn't kill my whole connectibility to the world? What a strange way to kill, anyhow -- how does a phone manage to get every number I tried to be "out of service". ??

No, I haven't yet tried making an outgoing call on it. It's just staying unplugged for now.
Help, help?