Ways to stop overseas sales calls discussion

vickyanne_2

I used to go down the 'aww they're just desperate for a job be nice to them' route but many many calls on I now just vent my anger and are sarcastic or rude.
I'm xd, tps and pay for my phone so what right do they have to disturb me? They invade my home without my permission so they deserve all they get I'm afraid.
Currently lifestye surveys are driving me crazy yet again along with companies selling home insulation.

I'd change no but I've heard it can make the problem worse.
I asked a caller the other night for their no so I could disturb them at home but strangely the line went dead.....
They're parasites:mad:

FlakyDawn

I DO NOT condone call calling. But it is always going to happen even if you are ex-directory and TPS registered.
Happens to me.
My point was that if people can think of all sorts of rude inventive things to say to the person of the other end, then why not just be polite, thank them for the call and hang up? It would make a massive difference to the person at the other end and it makes you a better human being.

God forbid, any of us on here will ever be in a situation where you have to take one of the worst jobs on the planet because of desperate need.
Just have a moment's thought next time before you take PLEASURE in being horrible to a stranger. Says a lot.

JuniorSherlock

I used to work in a call centre but I still have little sympathy for these cold callers. I understand they are doing a job and I am never rude, but all the tricks in the book DO NOT WORK.

We receive around 4 calls a week, usually trying to sell insulation grants or get us to claim for accidents or mis-sold PIPs. The number is either international or withheld and dialing 1471 does not give me a number to re-dial or look up.

The callers never give me the name of the company they are calling from, but they always seem to have very English names (the one today was Justine) but with heavy Indian accents.

If I put the phone down, they call me back. Yet if I question them, THEY put the phone down.

My husband also gets these calls in his cab (he's a truck driver and the cab phone is for office use only when he's stationery) and he answers thinking it's a call from the office with important info about his delivery.

Nothing I have read about stopping these calls works, and I have tried everything. A company who is prepared to call you back if you put the phone down or just leave them on hold is not a company who deserves respect or much politeness.

smallfry27

Had a call this morning from a lady with a difficult accent. She said she wanted my opinion on something, so thought it was some random opinion poll. Then she told me my name and address correctly (I'm xd and on TPS and tick no to having address sold on by electoral register). Then she said she was maintaining databases and wondered why I was on some of her databases and not others. I told her that I did not want my address sold on to anyone. Think she then said to expect someone to ring me back and hung up. The number she left was 08844511237, but when I tried to call it back it said unobtainable.

John_Pierpoint

JC57 wrote: »

I have had many calls from share brokers trying to sell me sure fire shares! Which are almost certainly duds. Usually the broker will have an American accent. I have tried putting the phone down, leaving them on hold but the most effective has been:-

Me: Are you American?

Them: [ Usually proud to say it] Yes Sir I am.

Me: I don't think there's much chance of us doing business as there is only one person who dislikes Americans more than me and that is a guy called Osama Bin Laden.

SILENCE and no calls for a long long time.

Crude but it seems to work:T

These boiler room calls are costing this near bankrupt country £MILLIONS per year.

Almost every financial product offered by a cold caller is poor value for money and an "Investment" is almost [I hope MSE has not timed me out !! **] certainly a fraud.
This forum runs a lively thread about the latest financial investment crooks and will help you identify fraudulent web sites.
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/brokerages/14154-boiler-room-scams.html#linkbacks


There is one scam web site based in the Mid West; there has been a thread running on this MSE forum for at least a couple of years; but our toothless authorities cannot shut it down.

headache5678 wrote: »

Yep, my nuisance calls have slowed down a bit. My current response is to be polite and when a voice caller asks "is that Mr X" - I say sorry you have an obsolete number, he has moved recently and no you cannot have my name. It works well in most cases.

Yesterday I got a junk fax from a boiler plate scam outfit trying to sell me undervalued Swiss shares.

I am getting junk text messages from Screwfix and Memorybits.

Don't we all have a "spam" number and email address to give to one off traders ? - I check mine about once a week just in case something that I do want to read has turned up.

Shantiji wrote: »

@ Lyster.
I was so proud of my daughter finding a job within a week of leaving school. She was just eighteen at the time (it was last summer). It isn't at all easy to find jobs in the current climate and she went for so many interviews in her last month of school.There is little choice for a school leaver with no experience, and the fees for university are so high now, we could not provide all the money.

She was just a youngster trying to provide for her education. The firm were incredibly unpleasant in addition to the abuse she received from so many of the people she called.

I just wanted to remind people that these are human beings on the end of the phone, and they they all have their reasons for doing this unpleasant job - its surely better than eating up your taxes in claiming benefit.

It is quite up to you how you treat them, but being nasty in any one of a thousand creative ways may give you a little thrill of victory but it dosen't do any good, you understand? It just contributes to weight of human misery.

Be happy that you do not have to do such a job.

I don't know how to put this to a new member of the forum,
I try to be polite for the first few words of exchange, but if the caller tells me any lies "We are conducting a survey" that sort of thing. I feel empowered to mess them about as much as I like. I managed to get some young(?) woman in the Philippines (yes I analysed her web site) swearing at me after she had rung me back for about the 6th time.

I worry what that call centre job is doing to the integrity of your young daughter. Once you have prostituted your integrity it is difficult to get it back.

John.

[**] Would you believe it, I had to break off to answer the phone - quite a mature sounding woman trying to sell me a will writing service. She admitted she was 'phoning from West London; I explained I was TPS and she apologised and rang off.

womble_lancs

I used to get a lot of calls in the middle of the night, from someone speaking a foreign language. They didn't speak English at all. Fortunately for me, one night, an Indian friend of mine was at my house when a call came at about 11pm. I immediately passed the phone to him and he had a brief conversation with them and put the phone down. It turned out it was someone trying to reach a relative and had simply got the wrong number. They had apologised to my friend, and I never received another call from them.

However, as a result of those late-night calls, my mum bought me a telephone which has a 'do not disturb' feature on it, and it is superb. You can set times between which your telephone will not ring. The display will light up, but there will be no sound. Mine is currently set to 'do not disturb' between 9pm and 6am. An additional feature is that you can assign names in your phone's contact list to one of three groups, and you can exclude any (or all) of these groups from the 'do not disturb', so if my mum calls me in the middle of the night, I will still hear it ring. This way, I know that if the phone does ring at night, it's someone I know, calling for a genuine reason. This phone wasn't expensive either. I think it was about £60 for the phone & four handsets, and it has an answerphone too, although I just use BT Callminder anyway.

I never answer calls from unrecognised or withheld numbers because I figure that if it's important, they'll leave a message and I can call them back.

NonGeographicalMan

I was called today by some further incarnation of these rogues who I last heard from two or more years ago and who then sold my details as someone wanting to be cold called about wills, double glazing and even charitable giving that they claimed to be conducting research about.

Today they said they were the National Consumer Research something or other but either way they were in the Philppinnes and the technique was just the same as that used by the Lifestyle Research Centre and Consumer Research Centre documented at https://www.whocallsme.com and elsewhere. Just be thoroughly rude and/or sarcastic to them and hang up as if you even vaguely start to answer their so called survey questions they will tick you as someone agreeing to be cold called by numerous further disagreeable UK sales operations.

They provided a fake CLI of 08844 511237 and I presume that despite not being a valid UK number range it is probably good enough to overcome Anonymous Call Rejection and similar features I do not have on my line because you have to pay for them

On various evidence they probably seem to be linked with an outfit called https://www.phruit.co.uk who hang out at The Barn at Huddlestones Wharf near Newark but an 0844 number is listed on their website which I refuse to call. A number of 01636 671022 at precisely the same address for SLI Training Services reveals itself on Google but when called it clicks and clicks and goes through hunting as though it is searching around various mobiles or whatever. It went to unobtainable when I called. If you are called by this mob and are in Newark perhaps you might pop down to The Barn in working hours and see if there is anyone there who looks like they are linked with this scam.

I suppose I could report this to TPS against Phruit giving their address at The Barn and if they start to get letters about this offshore call centre operation that they seem to be commissioning it slightly put them off, although probably not as they are obviously hardened scammers of the worst possible kind.:eek::mad::mad::mad:

FlakyDawn

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I don't know how to put this to a new member of the forum,
I try to be polite for the first few words of exchange, but if the caller tells me any lies "We are conducting a survey" that sort of thing. I feel empowered to mess them about as much as I like. I managed to get some young(?) woman in the Philippines (yes I analysed her web site) swearing at me after she had rung me back for about the 6th time.

I worry what that call centre job is doing to the integrity of your young daughter. Once you have prostituted your integrity it is difficult to get it back.

*****
@ John_Pierport
Gosh you must be so proud of upsetting some poor young Filipina girl to the point where she swears at you. What a admirable man. Bullying young women.

Shantiji's daughter took a job rather than go on benefits. She can only be admired for that. She did not "prostitute her integrity". Talk about an OTT reaction.

You must be fortunate enough to not to have do unpopular jobs and to be in your cosy little bubble
That does not "empower" you to be rude to others
If you want to rave and rant, don't do it to wage slaves. Hassle the global corporations that out-source the work and make massive profits. If you have a pension, shares, savings etc, chances are that you are part of these institutions. Most of us are guilty.

You Sir, are a tube !!!!!!!!!!

John_Pierpoint

FlakyDawn wrote: »

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I don't know how to put this to a new member of the forum,
I try to be polite for the first few words of exchange, but if the caller tells me any lies "We are conducting a survey" that sort of thing. I feel empowered to mess them about as much as I like. I managed to get some young(?) woman in the Philippines (yes I analysed her web site) swearing at me after she had rung me back for about the 6th time.

I worry what that call centre job is doing to the integrity of your young daughter. Once you have prostituted your integrity it is difficult to get it back.

*****
@ John_Pierport
Gosh you must be so proud of upsetting some poor young Filipina girl to the point where she swears at you. What a admirable man. Bullying young women.

Shantiji's daughter took a job rather than go on benefits. She can only be admired for that. She did not "prostitute her integrity". Talk about an OTT reaction.

You must be fortunate enough to not to have do unpopular jobs and to be in your cosy little bubble
That does not "empower" you to be rude to others
If you want to rave and rant, don't do it to wage slaves. Hassle the global corporations that out-source the work and make massive profits. If you have a pension, shares, savings etc, chances are that you are part of these institutions. Most of us are guilty.

You Sir, are a tube !!!!!!!!!!

What piece of English do you not understand?
What cosy little world are you living in?

The woman in the Philippines was a fraudster trying to steal a considerable sum of money from me.
If you would care to send me you email address, I will forward it to her and suggest you might be more receptive to her scam.
In no way was I bullying her, all I had to do was to pretend to be a vulnerable old pensioner and she was virtually salivating down the phone.

We don't actually know what Shantiji's daughter was trying to sell; but she seemed to upset her potential customers.
Perhaps it was something parasitic like a "whiplash" legal service for those involved in minor vehicle accidents?
Just because these liars are paying wages, does not mean that they are not reducing the wealth available to us all.

I believe boiler rooms pay down-on-their-luck itinerant students rather well, but that does not stop them being parasitic fraudulent enterprises.

NonGeographicalMan

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

If you would care to send me you email address, I will forward it to her and suggest you might be more receptive to her scam. In no way was I bullying her, all I had to do was to pretend to be a vulnerable old pensioner and she was virtually salivating down the phone.

We don't actually know what Shantiji's daughter was trying to sell; but she seemed to upset her potential customers.
Perhaps it was something parasitic like a "whiplash" legal service for those involved in minor vehicle accidents?
Just because these liars are paying wages, does not mean that they are not reducing the wealth available to us all.

I believe boiler rooms pay down-on-their-luck itinerant students rather well, but that does not stop them being parasitic fraudulent enterprises.

Hear, hear John I couldn't agree with you more.

These people ring in deliberate violation of the TPS usualy to try and grab your data for some highly malicious fraud and the only way you can retaliate is to be as rude and personally unpleasant as possible to the person calling you because there is no other way you can strike back. As they have withheld your number you can't even report them to the TPS (who in any case dooesn't cover overseas call centres) or the Information Commissioner or the Police.

If everyone was switched on and thoroughly rude to them about how they could sleep at night fleecing little old ladies then sooner or later they wouldn't be able to find anyone to work of them and make these calls. The sooner they are all made unemployed and go back to to planting rice in the fields or doing something more useful like making cheap (although not faulty or dangerous) consumer goods for western countries under proper supervision the better as as far as I am concerned. Even working in prostitution would almost certainly be a more useful line of work (leading to satisfied and happy consumers) than the work these foreign call centre people are engaged in.

The amount of time I have lost by the stress caused by these calls and the need to post on forums like this about it is really quite substantial. So they are a major nuisance.