Cold calling ideas needed

Pollycat

Why not just get a phone with caller display (if you're talking about calls to your landline) and if you don't recognise the number (or it is withheld) don't answer.

Our phone has an answerphone and if someone really wants to get in touch with us, they'll leave a message.

Do you really have time to bother speaking German or singing to them?

Georgiegirl256

Wol2 wrote: »

These were a slightly different type of cold callers- but this could maybe provide a "few" ideas....:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

.....and it still remains one of the MSE classic threads of all time

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/741653

WARNING:
Do NOT read whilst drinking a beverage in the proximity of your computer keyboard :cool:

xxx

OMG that is hilarious! :rotfl: I'm working my way through the thread, it's very entertaining! I especially love post #40, it's just had me laughing do much....how did he come up with these ideas?!

Gra76

We signed up with TPS a few years back. Things calmed down for a while but they didn't take long to get back to normal. I suppose it was good for a few months at least.

These days I just look at the caller display and if it says 'withheld' or 'international call' or it's from an 0845 number or similar I just don't bother answering it.

Before we had a phone with caller display I'd just hang up on anyone who was trying to do a '2 minute market research' questionnaire on me (which always takes 15 mins of course). Anyone trying to sell me anything usually got a gobful and hung-up on.

Mrs_Imp

Person_one wrote: »

Every two weeks, that's all?

Yes, its annoying, I do understand that, but I thought it would be two or three times a night from how annoyed you are!

But that's 18 times that I've said to the same company 'That person doesn't live here and never has, you've got the wrong number. Please stop calling' and 18 times that they've refused to remove my number from their list. I think that's reason enough to be annoyed. I don't even have to ask my rebellious toddler 18 times to do/not do something.

lostinrates

Gra76 wrote: »

We signed up with TPS a few years back. Things calmed down for a while but they didn't take long to get back to normal. I suppose it was good for a few months at least.

These days I just look at the caller display and if it says 'withheld' or 'international call' or it's from an 0845 number or similar I just don't bother answering it.

Before we had a phone with caller display I'd just hang up on anyone who was trying to do a '2 minute market research' questionnaire on me (which always takes 15 mins of course). Anyone trying to sell me anything usually got a gobful and hung-up on.

Again, caller display suggestions are no good for people who work at home, or have family / work calls from over seas regularly.

The problem is just as the world is smaller enabling sales calls from remote global positions to be worthwhile so is it from a social and domestic pov.

aileth

Say, "I'm glad you called. Can you ring me back on my other line? My son needs to use this one", and then give them the phone number for their own office if you've identified who it is over the course of repeat calls

securityguy

Mrs_Imp wrote: »

But that's 18 times that I've said to the same company 'That person doesn't live here and never has, you've got the wrong number. Please stop calling' and 18 times that they've refused to remove my number from their list.

Are they a UK company? Do you know who they are? The IC are pretty toothless, but they will take action over that as it's much easier to do.

alleycat`

TPS works well but has no impact at all on the "foreign" call centres.
Buy a phone that lets you see who's calling, let it go to voice mail. Job done.

Tropez

alleycat` wrote: »

Buy a phone that lets you see who's calling, let it go to voice mail. Job done.

Unfortunately there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with them.

securityguy

alleycat` wrote: »

TPS works well but has no impact at all on the "foreign" call centres.
Buy a phone that lets you see who's calling, let it go to voice mail. Job done.

Hindsight's a wonderful thing, but I reckon that the very, very low level of junk calls we get (perhaps one a year, with no special precautions beyond the TPS) is down to having been ex-directory on the same number since forever. The very few we get are down to random calling, and easily distinguished because they never know our name. Our phone number hasn't appeared in a phone book or been available from directory enquiries for approaching forty years, because we bought the house that originally had that number from people who had been XD since the 1970s, remained XD, and then we carried the number with us when we moved.

Perhaps I'm lucky with the companies I do business with, but I've never had any sense that they're passing on details, or if they are, only to other TPS-compliant companies. I've never had a call from a foreign call centre, nor any traces (missed calls on the display, odd things on the answering machine) that says it's happening; I've been working mostly from home for the last three years, too.

So I suspect that "get in a time machine and go back to the Callaghan years, go XD" is one possible, but sadly impossible, way to reduce junk calls.