new phone no + cold? caller

Just got our landline hooked up and within 20 mins had a call about getting our windows done and 5 mins later a "wrong" number. how could that happen - do telewest sell a database of their number?

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  • elona
    elona Posts: 11,806
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    Could be automated dialling - get yourself on to the telephone preference service - it is free.
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  • Poppycat
    Poppycat Posts: 19,913
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    Its quiet possibly an old number that's been used again after a certain period of inactivity.

    Best thing I did was go ex directory, no cold callers in years.
  • 03022242
    03022242 Posts: 350
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    yea i know that vodafone recycle their numbers after a couple of years of inactivity
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  • Wig
    Wig Posts: 14,139 Forumite
    it could be what ntl did to me two weeks ago. My line went dead, and someone else had my line/number on a new installation around the same time.

    I got my line back now, but lots of calls for the other people keep coming, even though we told them not to give out the number because it was ours and ntl will be sorting it all out soon. Some people just don't listen.
  • Trix
    Trix Posts: 10,266
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    When we first moved into our house 9 years ago, the people we bought it off 'took' their number to their new house. BT gave us a new number and for at least a year we kept getting people phoning asking for the same guy. Each time we had to explain that it wasn't his number and explained how we got it. People still asked 'do you know where he's moved to?' or 'do you know his new number?'. Couldn't get through to them that he NEVER lived at our house!
    We could've changed it, but who knows whose old number we could have ended up with, plus we had already given the number out to family, friends, doctors, schools etc and it seemed too much hassle to change it again.
    I'm a little angel o:)BUT A WHOLE LOTTA DEVIL
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  • SnowyOwl_2
    SnowyOwl_2 Posts: 5,257
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    When I moved into my new house BT gave me a lovely easy to remember telephone number. Unfortunately it used to belong to a taxi firm, and from time to time I get drunks phoning looking for a cab (I just hang up). Or in one instance a snotty American woman who didn't believe it was a private number and argued with me when I tried to explain...then phoned back and attempted to continue the argument, silly cow.
  • Swan_2
    Swan_2 Posts: 7,060 Forumite
    the last flat I was in I was given someone else's old number & constantly had callers both real & cold looking for them. I'd explain to them both, but asked the cold callers to remove the number from their database as I'm ex-directory. eventually they stopped

    in this flat I was given the same BT number as the previous occupant & have had a few genuine calls for them, no cold calls though
  • IvanOpinion
    IvanOpinion Posts: 22,155
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    SnowyOwl wrote:
    When I moved into my new house BT gave me a lovely easy to remember telephone number. Unfortunately it used to belong to a taxi firm, and from time to time I get drunks phoning looking for a cab (I just hang up).
    Snowy
    That is a missed opportunity. You should take their details and tell them a cab will be with them in 20 minutes. Then take the phone of the hook


    With the way that directory and local dialing codes used to work I used to get masses of calls for directory enquiries (our number used to end in 192 and the first two digits were a local dialing code). At first I hung up then I started giving them all sorts of abuse down the phone while sort of not mentioning that ther were NOT talking to BT (e.g. 'certainly, I will look that up for you, however if you weren't such a lazy git you could look it up yourself .. there if you go to page 1167 of the directory and look down the left hanbd column it is there .. now get up off you r lazy !!!!!! and look it up yourself !!!!!!'). I always wondered if BT got any complaints?

    Ivan

    ivan
    Past caring about first world problems.
  • sooz
    sooz Posts: 4,560 Forumite
    you meanie. once upon i time a flat i lived in had been rented out to a pyschic...and she advertised in lots of mags. two whole years later i moved in, and would still get phone calls for her in the middle of the night...i would ask what issue of the particular magazine they had found my number in....think for a while, and tell them that the spirits were telling them to buy a new copy of the bl88dy magazine.

    a friend used to have a number very similar to train enquiries.....got so fed up he would tell people that the platform number, and the departure time for their train had changed......
  • Ha, nice 1 Ivan.......can't say I haven't done the same :o
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