Nuisance calls regarding internet

anniecave

I get these every few months at our office at work (they have no idea it's a business number). I just press the option to speak to them then wait for someone to come on the line then tell them politely that I am not falling for their scam and they need to stop calling. They stop for a while.

At home I have a phone with an answerphone and most of the time they call weekday daytime so they would never get through to me anyway. I only answer the landline phone at home if I recognise the number on caller id.

Chapter24

They're getting quite sneaky now, I notice. You look at the caller display and it gives a local number, so you pick it up thinking maybe it's a friend or colleague of OH's and it's one of these scam calls.

Not sure a call blocker would work that well, - what if you need to receive a phonecall (from the GP, for example) where the number is withheld?

Barney_Rubble_0403

The BT truecall phones work a treat and will block 100% of the robot calls and call centre calls. It needs a human on the other end prepared to announce their call before your phone rings

It works so well I switch it off at the weekends so I can have a bit of fun with the scammers. ��

GDB2222

I make a point of answering these calls and keeping the caller on the phone as long as possible- eventually you do get to speak to a real person. This has the effect of pushing the costs up for the scammers, and if everyone did that these calls would stop entirely.

If I am busy, I ask the caller to hang on a moment. I can usually keep them hanging for ten minutes without myself having to spend more than a few seconds.

If I am not busy, I try to keep them talking for at least half an hour. When they ask me to type stuff on my computer, I invariably mis-hear what they tell me or take what they say entirely literally. (You want me to type in the box, well I'll just go and get one.)

Since I have adopted these tactics the number of nuisance calls has reduced drastically.