Strange calls

tagz

I've had three calls so far, one yesterday and two today. At first it's silent and then an american voice says 'please hold the line whilst we try to connect you' and then a click. I've put the phone down without waiting. I got worried yesterday as my son is away with his school and after I put the phone down I thought he might have been trying to contact me. Does anyone know if this is a scam or a company cold calling me - I've registered with the TPS. 1471 says the caller withheld their number.

elona

It sounds like an automatic dialler and a computer probably in America dialling you.

It happened to me too am I am on TPS as well.

April2

I keep getting a human from 'The Operations Centre' - who gives a smug, "We're not selling anything so you being TPS registered doesn't apply to us" reply.

He gets the, "There's someone at the door, please hang on a minute" (I hit the mute button) treatment - but he hasn't learned the error of his ways yet.

It transpires 'The Operations Centre' is a pseudonym for The British Market Research Bureau - who's e-mail address (web@bmrb.co.uk) and freephone number (0800 015 1037) now receive regular fowarded spam e-mails and spurious enquiry calls from me.

They'll learn.

One day.

April2

Their response to my e-mail of complaint is verbose, if nothing else:

Dear

Thank you for your email of 5th October sent to The British Market Research Bureau (BMRB), regarding repeated calls made to your home, which has been forwarded to me. I am the Telephone Research Quality Manager for The Operations Centre – we are a sister company to BMRB and both companies belong to Kantar, the research and consultancy arm of WPP. The Operations Centre specialize in the interviewing and data processing elements of research projects on behalf of our partners BMRB, who are responsible for the survey design.

Firstly, my apologies for not responding sooner – unfortunately I was out of the office last week and it has taken a while to investigate this complaint fully. Secondly, I am very sorry that your attempts to check on the legitimacy and legality of our operation seem not to have been handled according to the correct protocol. I hope that I can now respond to the concerns raised in your note and to offer appropriate reassurances about the consequent actions we have taken.

A computerised system dials the telephone numbers on each survey and many different surveys are running at any one time. The specific reason for withholding our ‘caller number ID ’ is because, for those numbers dialed that become No reply, if the householder subsequently dials 1471 and phones us to find out ‘why did you call me’, we would be unable instantly, to identify the project involved and we may be unable to offer an interview at that time.

The source of telephone numbers used for market research surveys varies, depending on the nature of the research project. The numbers may be provided by our clients from their customer lists, or may come from databases and published lists, or the numbers originated via a computer process, which generates telephone numbers at random. In order to confirm precisely the source of your number and the research involved, I would need you to provide me with the telephone number we called you on, which was not mentioned in your email.

It is probable that your telephone number originated via the random generation process. Random numbers, when dialed, will be a mixture of unobtainable, business and residential numbers. The purpose of this is to ensure that we contact a random sample of households, where we have not deliberately excluded individuals or whole groups, (for example, ex-directory households or TPS registered households) where, potentially, opinions and behaviours could differ from those of the rest of the population. For research findings to have accuracy and statistical reliability, everyone in the population being studied must have an equal chance of being selected for interview. (Similarly, when we conduct research face-to-face, by interviewers knocking on doors, we do not deliberately exclude any residential address).

Our practice not to screen our computer-generated samples against TPS does not contravene the Data Protection and Privacy regulations. When a householder registers with TPS, a letter is sent to them explaining that TPS will prevent unsolicited sales and marketing calls but that market and social research (which has no direct connection with sales) falls outside their remit. Although this may be a source of surprise to some householders, the Government regulatory body does support the market research industry in its argument that it should remain outside TPS jurisdiction. Research projects are widely commissioned by government departments, media organisations, manufacturers and service industries, with the intention of ensuring that the goods and services provided are those which businesses and the general public need and want. The impetus to make improvements often comes as a result of research findings.

In line with all their training and working practices, the interviewer to whom you spoke should have explained to you politely how it was possible for us to dial a TPS household. I am very sorry that, upon your subsequent call to our supervisor, and through a genuine misunderstanding and error on her part, (which she now knows was wrong) she gave you what she thought was our Internet address, based on our email address format. The Operations Centre does not, in fact, have an Internet site, although one is currently under development; The supervisor offered the postal address of the Call Center you had rung, which is 53 The Mall, Ealing. Until last year, this site was operated by our sister company BMRB, but this call centre is now one of several throughout the UK operated by The Operations Centre, and our head office address is in Warwick. We are now taking steps to ensure that this situation does not re-occur by reminding all our supervisory and interviewing staff to always give out our Head Office address, to avoid potential confusion.

You may wish not to receive any further calls from us in the future. Although the chance of your number coming up again in the future is slim, I would be very happy to add your number to our in-house ‘exclusion list’. All our computer generated telephone samples are initially screened against this exclusion list, and any ‘matching’ numbers are removed. If you wish me to proceed with this action, could you please email me with your telephone number.

Once again, I apologise for any annoyance caused by our calls and for the breach of protocol that occurred. If you wish to verify our credentials, as a registered Market Research organisation, you may contact the Market Research Society on free phone number 0500 396999.

Yours sincerely

Liz Taylor Quality Manager

Telephone Division

The Operations Centre, on behalf of BMRB

Direct Tel: 020 8338 1232

Fax: 020 8840 7283

coolsteel

Some telesales who ring you that and are silent are recording when you are in, and the best time to ring you from a real person, apparently if you press the hash key# seven times it totally ruins the recording of your number on their system.
Coolsteel :cool:

jap200

tagz wrote:

I've had three calls so far, one yesterday and two today. At first it's silent and then an american voice says 'please hold the line whilst we try to connect you' and then a click. I've put the phone down without waiting. I got worried yesterday as my son is away with his school and after I put the phone down I thought he might have been trying to contact me. Does anyone know if this is a scam or a company cold calling me - I've registered with the TPS. 1471 says the caller withheld their number.

I frequently have exactly the same thing happen. It is really anoying. I can't see any solution to it in the answers below - but would welcome some help to identify and get rid of this nuisance.