What a stunning idea

Thanks to paul178 for reminding me about the ‘whocallsme’ site. They’ve had about 150 complaints about this number, over a period of about two months or so. Some responders have mentioned that the caller has their address details, apparently from the electoral roll, and several have received abuse when they’ve questioned how the caller has obtained their number. One responder has tracked the origin to Narainghar, a village near Ambala in north-west India. I have been registered with the Telephone Preference Service for years, but I’ve lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) since, unlike TPS, they will investigate even if the caller’s name is unknown.

Will be interesting to discover if other forum members get calls from the same source in the near future. The full number they’re using is 01734 533443, by the way.

If you answer a call the caller on the other end knows its not a dead number(especially mobiles) They then hang up and sell your live number to other telepests. I always if its a number that you don’t recognize use this on my computer

Who called me

http://whocallsme.com/ or similar sites

Don’t know how it works, but there appears to be some sort of system which presents the calls coming aparently from a UK based operation, I have recently had a number of calls recently apparently from Glasgow, answered one call and the caller was most assuredly not a native of Scotland or indeed any part of the UK, challenged the source of the call which was quickly terminated.

Apologies for thread drift, but something that intrigues me occurred yesterday with regard to unsolicited calls. On my return home, I did the usual check to find out what calls there had been in my absence. I was somewhat amazed to find that the most recent call was registered as coming from an 01734 exchange number … a number for the Reading area that hasn’t been in use since 1996. I then received four more calls from the same number (without answering them), the last one just after 20:00 hrs. This morning, the phone rang at about 08:15 from the same number, so I decided to bite the bullet and engage in conversation with the ‘subcontinent-type’ voice at the other end. It was an attempt to get answers to ‘a survey’ etc, etc … so I interrupted the flow to ask why the number of their call centre was registering as one that’s at least 17 years out of date. Cue ‘that’s the number our company is registered to use in UK’ bluster. Anyone had a similar experience, or any idea why this might happen? By the way, I’ve tried dialling the full number, with the 01734 prefix and the current 0118 9 version, and both get ‘the number you have dialled has not been recognised’ recording.

Spot on!

The only problem with your last paragraph, as I experienced during a lean period earlier in my life, is that if you work freelance in many fields a ringing phone might be a job offer!! Mind you in those days phone sales to private numbers were non-existent.

And of course never answering a call whose number you do not recognise is another way of dealing with it. Messages will either be left or not and responded to at your choice.

It always astounds me so few people realise this is the perfect way to arrange things and get all het up and bothered by cold calls.

That’s what caller display is for.

But then up to about 1990 I always answered any call, someone was ringing, you answer. It was Pavlovian conditioning.

Then I met a lovely lady who, after 7.30 at night simply didn’t answer any calls as it was ‘her time’. If you wanted her and you knew, you let the phone ring three times and then rang off, before ringing again. She’d answer the second call, but it had better be important.

She taught me many things, but “You don’t HAVE to answer a ringing phone” was one of the best.

Moggy

Well there are two sorts, aren’t there? Computer selected numbers where they know nothing and “cold-call”. And organisations who phone with a specific purpose based on the knowledge they have. These days there is little some organisations do not know about us. Much of it supplied by us on demand.

And of course they never take no for an answer – few salesmen ever have. But replacing the receiver on the cradle or whatever the today’s equivalent is, terminates the conversation. And of course never answering a call whose number you do not recognise is another way of dealing with it. Messages will either be left or not and responded to at your choice.

They are very persistent, to be sure, and I can sometimes hear them begging me not to put the phone down as I am doing so.

My policy is that if I want a service, I will ask for it. What annoys me, though, is how they get our phone numbers and seem to know so much about us.

Trouble is you can’t judge them by voice only and they don’t take no for an answer.

The 21st century door to door salesman and even earlier hawker. You opened the door and said no thanks. I pick up the phone and say no thanks.
They are just men and women trying to earn a living – like some of us.

Easier still buy an answer machine and don’t pick up the calls.

Apparently there are all sorts of conditions attached to setting up a premium rate number though. Nice idea, but I don’t think it’s practical for most people.