Cold Callers

chris73

A few nights ago, I had my sleep broken, not by the heat but by a ringing phone, the time was 12.45AM. Dreading the worst, I answered, fearing a family member had been in an accident, taken ill or worse.

I was met by the pidgeon english drone of a brainwashed call centre moron selling me some telecommunications offer. I launched into rant mode, telling him which sensitive orrifice he could shove his offers up, I mentioned the TPS and asked him for the name of the company, and there was a short pause, whilst he took all of this in and then continued to babble on and try and sell me the product!. I slammed the phone down and around 5 mins later it began to ring again, this time I ripped the bloody thing out of the wall.

It's not unusual for me to get at least 3 of these calls a day, maybe more, sometimes as late as 10 or 11PM and selling either timeshare, kitchens, Property or Telecommunications and I am sure that I am not the only one who suffers with these idiots.

Now, I am a member of the TPS, and have been registered with them for over a year but let's face it, to those high pressure companies who openly flout the laws from the relative safety of overseas the TPS is not effective and of little deterant and whilst it may have stopped the bulk of UK based calls it hasn't even dented the ones from overseas, or maybe the call centre jobs have just moved overseas anyway :rolleyes: . I have also noticed that these individuals are getting sly and DO NOT actively give away the name of their company even when asked outright, so how can you report them to the TPS in any case??.

I also subscribe to BT's block on with-held numbers, which costs about £12 a quarter (Talk about profiting from misery) however it doesn't seem to stop International calls, which is where around 90% of my current cold calls come from.

However BT chose to defend allowing their network to be abused in this manner, it all comes down to the fact that these unsolicited calls intrude into your privacy and are nothing more than harrassment - which is illegal under telecommunications laws. If I was to continually call my next door neighbour late at night or 1AM I would quite rightly be prosecuted for causing nuisance or harrassment so how can the behaviour of these call centres ever be justified?

BT have recently taken a step in the right direction by allowing caller display to be offered for free, however it is simply not enough. Having caller display still means that the phone rings, maybe late at night, during a meal or first thing in the morning and causing a disturbance or nuisance. When it happens several times daily it's almost as bad as being stalked.

We shouldn't have to pay BT £12 a quarter to block with-held numbers from the people who are abusing THEIR network to cause their customers harrassment, like caller display this service should be offered free to every subscriber, as should the ability to block all but selected overseas numbers, I am sure that the technology does exist to indentify overseas telephone numbers and block all calls from those numbers which do not belong to family or friends living overseas, after all, this is 2005 and not 1905 :rolleyes: .

I would guess that the vast majority of those actively paying BT to block calls from withheld number are like me, suffering the constant ring of call centre zombies, so why should BT profit from it, or perhaps it should just stop all commercial customers from withholding their numbers from the start?.

As I type this, the phone begins to ring and it's yet another 'International Call' already the 2nd today. Since this issue is perhaps a wide spread problem for the bulk of people with a telephone don't you think it's about time we stopped sitting back like stuffed animals and did something to persuade BT and other Service Providers to pull their finger out and address the issue?.

I must admit that i'm getting to the point where I feel like ripping out all of the phones and just using the line for ADSL, and using the same medium to make calls.

Becles

Take care with blocking the witheld numbers. A lot of legitimate sources withold their number.

My son was poorly at my parents house so I contacted NHS Direct who said a doctor would ring me back within 30 minutes. After 45 minutes I hadn't heard from them, so called them back. I was advised that they'd been trying to ring, but because my parents had blocked all witheld numbers, they hadn't been able to get through

Xbigman

Change your phone number and don't give it out except for personal use. If you buy from the internet you can put in any old number and the software doesn't care. If you buy in a shop you can refuse to give your number (or even an address if you are taking it with you right then).
Regards



X

Browntoa

the international telesales don't use the directory...it just calls numbers incrementally

eg

0123 123456

0123 123457

0123 123458

etc

the software senses when it gets an answer and passes it through to an operator...

I just leave them on speaker...and if it's the "you have won a hoilday" I press 9 ...and keep pressing it !!!!! they soon hang up !!

(an before anyone drags up that urban myth about it costing you £20 a minute ....it does'nt!)

BoltonMinx

Unfortunately, that wont work for companies that just dial numbers serially

Turning_into_scrooge

chris73 wrote:

I must admit that i'm getting to the point where I feel like ripping out all of the phones and just using the line for ADSL, and using the same medium to make calls.

This is exactley what i am in the process of doing with skype. Paying a small fee for a number and topping up to make land line calls through my broadband internet. I have also configured it so only certain people can contact me, not just anyone. A call on BT to a Thai mobile costs approx 75p per min wheras the same on skype is less than 10p

Turning_into_scrooge

Becles wrote:

Take care with blocking the witheld numbers. A lot of legitimate sources withold their number.

My son was poorly at my parents house so I contacted NHS Direct who said a doctor would ring me back within 30 minutes. After 45 minutes I hadn't heard from them, so called them back. I was advised that they'd been trying to ring, but because my parents had blocked all witheld numbers, they hadn't been able to get through

The doctor could of called you back had he pre dialled 1470, the number would still of shown up as witheld but would of got through the block.

Xbigman

BoltonMinx wrote:

Unfortunately, that wont work for companies that just dial numbers serially

True. But I've cut my annoying calls count from 2 a day three years ago to only one this year. You can't stop them completely but you can slow them down a lot.
Regards



X

trisontana

Turning_into_scrooge wrote:

The doctor could of called you back had he pre dialled 1470, the number would still of shown up as witheld but would of got through the block.

The doctor may not have had a choice about this if he had been calling via a switchboard. Many company switchboards automatically block the identity of an outgoing number and I don't think there is anything that can be done about this.So dialling 1471 would have had no effect.

[Deleted User]

This problem is currently driving me bonkers too. I have registered with the TPS 3 times as i was unsure if it was working or not. I get many many calls of these a day. In fact i just don't bother answering my phone now and let the machine take it, 98% of the calls hang up, 1% speak and ask for me, despite me saing sorry i am not here at the moment and the remaining 1% play a recorded message, usually the holiday one.

It is driving me bonkers, luckily friends and family know I don't answer the phone and have to speak to the machine to get me to pick up.

I regularly work 24 hr shifts and when I come home my machine states full (it holds 20 plus calls). When playing it through its just one long bleep, hangup, bleep hangup after the other!!!!!

On the rare occassions I have answered the phone, I have been asked for my name and how much a certain bill is. How rude!!! What business are my bills to the? How dare they ring me and ask how much I pay for my mobile/landline/etc etc, barely after they have said hello. If I want to change any servicecs I curretly buy/pay for, then I will go out there and research for it, not take the first offer that lands on my door - or should I say answerphone.

Yes I am ***** off by it all.

I've not long had to listen to the machine play its thing for the caller to just hang up, 4 in the last hour and that's normal!!!

Bloomin overseas callers, something needss to be done.

Chuckman

Sometimes when the telemarketers call, I use the Counterscript and have some fun with them!