Ways to stop overseas sales calls discussion

Dave_C_2

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

It is a total and utter disgrace that BT Wholesale is still allowed to charge extra for caller display on landlines

Caller display from BT is a free service, part of the privacy at home package. You have to make 2 calls per month or similar to qualify.

Even if you pay for Caller Display on your BT landline it is in an inferior service as it does not give you any caller display for an overseas call

Not a problem for me I know no-one abroad and as such an be safely ignored. If it's important they will call back - they never do

I agree with the rest of this post!

As far as I can see, BT are putting themselves out of the residential business by not addressing these marketing and scam calls. Especially as basic mobile packages are coming down in price. Luckily for them (not for us) land lines are still required for broadband.

Dave

rayday2

I agree Dave I would go without a landline if it wasn't for the broadband. But I still think its a privacy invasion you shouldn't have to ignore your phone or have to glance at it. Literally I had a baby in my arms about to go down for a nap and it rang. I know they don't know but when they are so regular the odds are not good for them to pick convenient times. BT truely need to start helping customers.

vikingaero

rayday2 wrote: »

I agree Dave I would go without a landline if it wasn't for the broadband.

If you have cable in your area then you can certainly have a broadband only service.

The sales calls problem will never go away because it's a double edged sword. BT are paid a variety of connection, carrier and termination fees from each call whether it is wanted or not. They would lose a shedload of revenue and would put up call and line rental charges to compensate.

Dave_C_2

vikingaero wrote: »

If you have cable in your area then you can certainly have a broadband only service.

If only ... Guess who can't get cable broadband.

Dave

rayday2

Bloomin cable companies went bankrupt at Chesterfield lol we are about 10 miles from there so only BT and to make it even worse we won't get the superfast stuff either as our village has been done but our modern estate with its 200 houses runs off a different green box - completely off topic but background lol

pjaj

The problem with answer machines, voice mail, call blocking gadgets etc is that the call is answered by something, so the caller knows it's a live line with a possibility of someone answering it. Consequently they are likely to try again ... and again ... and again. It's rather like the unsubscribe button on spam emails.
We went ex-directory about a year ago when the rate of international calls soared to several a day, but it did little good. We've been registered with TPS since 2004, but this doesn't stop the international, out of area, withheld and some more brazen UK firms with identifiable numbers.

We cannot use a call blocking option because it's an all or nothing deal and there are two people, a relative and an elderly friend, who are also ex-directory and come up withheld. The only solution we have found is to ignore all international and out of area calls, just let them ring. Over time the number of nuisance calls has dropped off, but not completely - 1 or 2 a week.

With the installation of FTTP in our village (nothing to do with BT) I now have a VoIP line to which I will be switching everyone to whom I want to talk over the next 2 months, and then I can cancel my BT contract completely. Hopefully this will severely hinder the phone spammers for a bit.

John_Pierpoint

BBC Radio 4 Moneybox championed the efforts of a cold called listener; who played along the Indian call centre to find out the chain of two English companies who were trading by buying leads from the Indian boiler room operation:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nk14f

One man's victory against nuisance cold callers. We hear from a Money Box listener who told a PPI claims company that if they didn't stop calling him, he'd invoice them for his time. When the company called him again two days later, he sent them an invoice for £195. When that got no response he filled a case against the company at the small claims court. A couple of months of wrangling later, they paid up. Find out how he did it - and whether you could try the same tactics to get salespeople to stop calling you. We talk to the the Telephone Preference Service and the Information Commissioners Office.

The Information Commissioners Office
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Commissioner%27s_Office
What has it achieved:
19 firms have been sent cease and desist orders and there is one who might be fined in court fairly soon (but don't hold your breath).
I wonder how many staff, man hours and money has been invested for this sparkling performance?

However one interesting fact emerged: You specifically have to name
the firms from which you are prepared to accept cold calls. Ie answering a "survey" or accidentally ticking the box about "giving your details to similar trustworthy groups" does not get them off the hook of making calls in transgression of the telephone preference service privacy undertaking.!!

pjaj

Another way of putting off these pests a friend of mine used with some success was to let them rabbit on for some time and when it came to the sales pitch ask, in all innocence, "Can I get that on the social?"

NonGeographicalMan

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

One man's victory against nuisance cold callers. We hear from a Money Box listener who told a PPI claims company that if they didn't stop calling him, he'd invoice them for his time. When the company called him again two days later, he sent them an invoice for £195. When that got no response he filled a case against the company at the small claims court. A couple of months of wrangling later, they paid up. Find out how he did it - and whether you could try the same tactics to get salespeople to stop calling you. We talk to the the Telephone Preference Service and the Information Commissioners Office.

I used to play along with the Indians in order to find out who they really were and reported the underlying company to the ICO as a PECR complaint several times but no action was ever taken. Also the strategy would sometimes backfire as the scammers would resell my data to other UK calling pests in revenge.

The worst offender of all who called me four times in two years despite their UK location and my TPS registration was Enterprise Cleaning Services of Portsmouth. The ICO and local Trading Standards proved completely useless dealing with these pests by sending them only polite letters despite tens of thousands of illegal calls to TPS registered homes every month trying to sell scam carpet cleans that they then increased the price on ten fold if they got in to anyone's home.

I made a big song and dance after the fourth call from these people to the ICO himself only only for the ICO to turn around and say the company was now being put in to administration so they and trading standards could take no action having had three previous years to do so. No doubt the same scammers will just set up as a new limited company with a different name next month.:eek::mad:

I admire this guy's tenacity in taking the scammers to the Small Claims Court. However I am not sure I would be so brave as if they hired a good lawyer and entered a defence claiming the offending call centre was not UK based so outside UK jurisdiction and named its head office in India things could get tricky. Beware in particular that what you think will be a small claim can easily be forced on to the expensive Multi Track county court process where costs can be awarded as a result of a defence entered by the other side. If that happens be prepared to pull your claim and lose your court fee for entering the claim at that stage.

John_Pierpoint

Yes I tried to complain once to the precursor of the current Information Commissioners Office
[It was a slightly complicated situation where someone stole my wife's credit card details and used them to remotely steal a top of the range mobile phone. (they then tried to steal a cinema sized flat screen TV but Tesco double checked the delivery address with us). Having stolen the phone from Company A they promptly changed the SIM card to company B. Company A couldn't or wouldn't accept that we had no relationship with it, what so ever.]

I discovered that the procedures for complaining about the misuse of private data were designed to make complaining as difficult as possible and the whole charade had been created because the UK was in danger of being ostracised for not having effective data privacy procedures and laws.