Ways to stop overseas sales calls discussion

John_Pierpoint

There are even more crooks per head in Nigeria ? I am at least prepared to listen to an Indian until they start talking "spam" misinformation, as I do have some commercial links with Indian and I don't with a corrupt petro economy that has failed its ordinary citizens.

NonGeographicalMan

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

There are even more crooks per head in Nigeria?

Probably. But there are only one tenth the number of them and I believe that internet access is still relatively limited and expensive in most of West Africa.

MartJ

If you speak any foreign language you could try this method of dealing with the calls as most scams to UK nos will be English Speaking. Wait for person at the other end to speak first, if you don't recognise the voice reply back in French, Spanish or whatever language you can speak, it confuses the hell out of them!!!

dl4230

I'm very mindful that the callers are often kids trying to scratch a living by making these unsolicited calls. The ones I get most of are those which ask for me by name and freely announce in very heavily accented English that their name is Andrew, Martin, Percival, Harold etc.

Bear with me, this is detailed.
If I can get in first, I just say "Speak" and a couple of seconds later, "Speak" and so on. This tends to unsettle the caller and throw them off their smooth line of patter.
In response to their "May I speak to Mr xxxxx?" I always reply "Who is calling, please?" and to every attempt to start a conversation on their part, I repeat "Who is calling, please?"
Eventually, they give a name and a company. I always have them repeat the company name or even spell it until I am sure of it (notepad always ready). Finally, either they ask if they are speaking to Mr xxxxx or they fire off on a sales pitch, I interrupt any flow by saying "STOP" very firmly and tell them one of several things.
1. They can't speak to Mr xxxxx as he no longer lives here. This has worked 100% in closing the conversation with an apology from their end.
2. I tell them he lives a few doors away and I know him, but they have the wrong number and then I refuse, apologetically, to give them the correct one. Again, 100% success at closing the conversation with profuse apologies from their end..
3. If the devil's in me that day, I advise them that Mr xxxxx has died and I'm the undertaker and can I take a message?
!00% success together with profuse sympathies.

This gets the number flagged as a bad one that they can't call the owner by name and so far, I've never had a cold call from overseas from the same Company.

Yes, I have a bit of fun out of it, but it's not fair on the people trying to scratch a living in hard times to whistle, set off smoke alarms or subject them to verbal abuse.

Can anyone tell me how the heck I can get rid of the "You're entitled to a government grant for loft/cavity wall insulation", government sponsored callers? My loft is insulated beyond their standards and I paid for wall insulation years ago.

I see comments about the TPS and would add that it's a worthless, toothless quango. My number is not excluded on the lists these callers work from, but if I try to register it, I'm told it's already registered.

Dave

Martyn1981

dl4230 wrote: »

I'm very mindful that the callers are often kids trying to scratch a living by making these unsolicited calls. The ones I get most of are those which ask for me by name and freely announce in very heavily accented English that their name is Andrew, Martin, Percival, Harold etc.

Yes, I have a bit of fun out of it, but it's not fair on the people trying to scratch a living in hard times to whistle, set off smoke alarms or subject them to verbal abuse.

Can anyone tell me how the heck I can get rid of the "You're entitled to a government grant for loft/cavity wall insulation", government sponsored callers? My loft is insulated beyond their standards and I paid for wall insulation years ago.

I see comments about the TPS and would add that it's a worthless, toothless quango. My number is not excluded on the lists these callers work from, but if I try to register it, I'm told it's already registered.

Dave

I've got to agree with you on all those issues. My sister used to work hard at tele-sales about 20 years ago. Soul destroying job.

But I've noticed now that these callers are getting less and less polite. Many of the 'computer virus' guys, all with heavy accents and very UK(ish) names will quickly resort to shouting abuse at me, if I politely say that I get loads of these scam calls. I used to find that the Asian calls would end politely, but the last year or so, I've lost all patience with them.

TPS may get rid of many UK calls, but completely useless now given the vast number of dodgy foreign calls.

Also get loads of the 'insulation' calls, used to get approx 2 per week, easily 200 calls over the last 2 to 4 years. They went quiet recently for about 3 months, but last couple of weeks they are back again.

My best tip - say hello quickly the moment you pick up the phone (I actually mean say it fast and the instant you pick up or press the answer button) then stay quiet. A human caller will after a short pause say hello again, but a computer searching for humans will almost always hang up after a few seconds.

One ray of good hope, I no longer get calls from America telling me I've won a holiday for using my Visa card. "Just need to tell them my card number to verify they are speaking to the right person." Maybe they've decided to leave me alone, maybe the US has tightened up on such things. One such caller tried my patience too far, and I calmly and politely told him that 'we both know that this is a scam, so why don't you save your time and effort and move on to the next victim?'. He apologised to me, and said that he would ring me every hour on the hour from then on to apologise again. I calmly asked him if his mother was proud of him. He never rang back.

Mart.

inmypocketnottheirs

When I get a call from an Asian call centre I generally say "I'm so glad you called, I was intending to call later. I would like 4 popadums, chutneys, chicken pakora, lamb rogan josh......". When they interrupt I just repeat myself, inevitably they give up!!

dead_parrot

I find that if a call is from an overseas call centre, after you answer, the line remains quiet for a second or two before their voice cuts in, whereas for normal calls, people speak immediately. So when the phone rings, I say 'Hello?' just once. If there's a silence, rather than saying 'Hello?' again I just put the phone down. I've been doing this for a year and I think only once have put the phone down on a real person :embarasse They just called straight back and I explained what had happened.

I really, really don't like the idea of blowing a whistle down the phone or being verbally abusive to the callers themselves - most workers at these call centres are doing a soul-destroying job for peanuts and would much rather be doing something else if there were more options open to them. It's a real irritation for us, but I think we have to find ways to solve the problem without getting personal.

2spicy

I have been recieving between 4 and 10 calls a day between my private and my company mobile phones. Neither of which are advertised. both are registered with the TPS and I have a "SPAM" list on my phone with more than 300 numbers in it.. most these days appear to be pay as you go mobiles on Tesco (T Mobile). Ive complained to OFCOM and the telecoms companies but no one is interested in doing anything.

Interesting enough for strange numbers like +00000000 and one I have had +0123456789 ( Salem USA ) .. its a spoof number created when peple use Voice over IP gateways, and is virtually untraceable unless you work with the telecoms operators

macliam

For me, the foreign calls are a problem as I do get valid international calls, but just from a few European countries. I could immediately ignore any others, if BT presented the full international code, rather than just indicating that it's a foreign call......

stugnu

A couple of years ago, I purchased a device called True Call

(see the Truecall website (truecall.co.uk)
This has completely cut out all spam calls, including international ones. Recorded ones are cut out as it asks unknown callers to key in a certain digit and human spam callers are dealt with as they are asked to say who they are which is passed through to you and if you don't want to speak to them, they are sent a message telling them their call is not wanted and asking them not to call again.

Friends & family callers will notice no difference once the system has been set up.

This has been a 'godsend' as before, I was getting anywhere up to a dozen spam calls a day.:j:j