International Nuisance Calls

Scarpetta

Hi all,

I am hoping that someone might be able to help me. My 80 year old father in law is getting a considerable number of International sales calls each day - in some cases as many as 9! We have listed his number with the TPS and blocked all numbers that are withheld, but international call centre calls are still coming through in their droves.

We have now resorted to transferring the calls to our own phone but that is not ideal as none of his friends can call him direct. Everytime I get one of these calls (2 so far today) I ask them to remove the number from their list but this seems to have little effect.

We are now all tearing our hair out, can anyone suggest anything that might help, except changing his number which he won't do.

Thanks in advance.

Heinz

Changing his number is unlikely to have a long-term effect anyway (the calls come from computer-controlled diallers which call numbers sequentially or randomly).

I'm afraid he is suffering the same problem as many others these days and the only way is to answer and hang up or use a Caller Display unit/phone to identify which calls NOT to answer. With a gentleman of that age, I appreciate the difficulty of 'educating' him in such a procedure.

Scarpetta

I was so hoping that you weren't going to say that!!

We have tried showing him how caller id works and how the answerphone can help, but no joy yet.....

macman

TPS will not have any affect on international calls, as it only applies to calls originating in the UK.

Scarpetta

Hi Macman,

I know but it does seem to have stopped the UK based calls, I just wondered if anyone had any ideas how to stop International calls.

But thank you anyway.

JustPassingBy

Scarpetta wrote: »

I know but it does seem to have stopped the UK based calls, I just wondered if anyone had any ideas how to stop International calls.

A trifle expensive, but for peace of mind . . . . .

http://www.truecall.co.uk/acatalog/Advanced_ICM_International.html

Scarpetta

Brian,

Thank you! Yes it is a bit expensive, but if it means that he will start answering the phone again without being scared I would pay double!

GustyGardenGalaxy

I've been getting an increased number of International calls of late too - I don't answer them, but they are still damn annoying. The phone usually only rings, on average, about three times then stops.

I'm on TPS and BT's Choose to Refuse and that helps a lot, but not completely.

I wish that BT would get their act together and sort out nuisance sales calls once and for all, but I guess it's not in their interest to do that as they themselves are bound to be making money off the back of them ............

JustPassingBy

GustyGardenGalaxy wrote: »

I wish that BT would get their act together and sort out nuisance sales calls once and for all, but I guess it's not in their interest to do that as they themselves are bound to be making money off the back of them ............

How do BT know an incoming, international call (the subject of this thread) is a sales call or unwanted?

GustyGardenGalaxy

JustPassingBy wrote: »

How do BT know an incoming, international call (the subject of this thread) is a sales call or unwanted?

Well, for starters they could display the actual phone number of the incoming call via Caller ID - or are these often spoofed (or perhaps even from VOIP lines)?

They could also offer customers a FREE (or extremely cheap) service to allow users to block all incoming international calls OR require some kind of challenge to the caller to get around automated calls - for example, callers could be challenged with a simply numerical question such as "what is two plus two". This of course assumes that the caller can add up.

Just a couple of ideas, but i'm sure that SOMETHING substatial could be done by BT if there was the will (or the incentive, such as fining BT for every nuisance sales call received by their customers!).

JustPassingBy

GustyGardenGalaxy wrote: »

Well, for starters they could display the actual phone number of the incoming call via Caller ID - or are these often spoofed (or perhaps even from VOIP lines)?

I've heard BT don't pass international caller id because it is untrusted.

. . . . . .OR require some kind of challenge to the caller to get around automated calls - for example, callers could be challenged with a simply numerical question such as "what is two plus two". This of course assumes that the caller can add up.

Not a good idea for the hot line between Washington and London!

Just a couple of ideas, but i'm sure that SOMETHING substatial could be done by BT if there was the will (or the incentive, such as fining BT for every nuisance sales call received by their customers!).

How do they identify these nuisance calls to avoid a fine?