Telemarketing calls increasing.

Caroline_a

The best marketing phonecall I've ever had was about 3 weeks ago when someone rang up asking to speak to 'Mr Oakley [my surname]'. That's my dog....

Unfortunately I only received it on a voicemail, so no opportunity to have fun with it, but I was giggling for ages.

Paul_Varjak

I must be doing something right as I get virtually no cold calls whatsoever. These are my tips if you are plagued with cold calls...

1. Get a new phone number and go ex-directory

2. Register you land-line and mobile phone numbers with TPS: http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/number_type.html. If you registered with TPS some years ago your registration may have expired but new registrations now last until your phone company informs TPS thet you no longer have the registered number.

3. Check that you are not included on the edited version of the electoral roll by contacting your local Council. If you are so registered tell your Council to remove you from the edited version. Ensure other occupants in your house do the same. Always check the tick box on the Electoral Roll form to say you do not wish to be included in the edited version of the electoral roll.

4. Look on 192.com for your any entry there. If you find any entries (including previous addresses) ask 192.com to remove them: http://statics.192.com/rel-4b123/downloads/C01.pdf

5. Go through the list of websites you use and remove phone number details unless they are really needed. If a website requires you to enter a phone number trying using a fake number, such as 020 0000 0000. Alternatively, you can get a 'virtual number' from https://www.flextel.com for as little as £2 for a geographical number or free for 070xxx 0845 etc. Divert the calls to voicemail and set email notification of voice messages. This is all free.

6. Get a call screening system, such as Truecall, which attaches between your phone and phone socket. It has many options to whitelist or blacklist numbers and for handling anonymous and international calls. Alternatively, get Gigaset handsets which have call filtering built in and is a Which best buy.

7. Other ways to handle cold calls are just to use an answer machine or the 1571 service for numbers you don't recognise. or simply do not answer the phone at all.

8. If you do get a cold call, found out who the caller is and ask them how you can remove yourself from their calling list. If you are registered with TPS tell them they should not be calling you.

9. It is my personal opinion that many of the overseas calls from India, ofering to remove viruses from your PC are as a result of direct contact with customer services of phone companies who have customer service centres based there. Even if you call BT and withhold your number, BT can still see your number so consider using a VOIP service that can display some random number. One such service is https://www.dialnow.com

10. If you are with Talktalk, they now offer call filtering for free on some of their packages.


I probably get around half a dozen cold calls per year now, so I must be doing something right!