Silent call at 4.45 am. Grrrrrr......

I have had calls that can't be blocked because the dialled number shown was my own, how they manage to work that I do not know, they were scam callers

I was going to mention that I was getting regular silent night time calls a few years ago. I seem to remember that oddly, there was not even any record of them on the phone's memory.
I discovered that BT do (or did) computerised test calls during the night, and I was probably getting those. I did phone BT, and the calls stopped soon afterwards.

I agree with everyone that it is quite frightening to get night time calls. At that time both my sons were away at university, so I imagined some disaster every time it happened. Even when a night time call turns out to be innocent, it often takes me hours to calm down and get back to sleep afterwards.

Yes, these scams are still around and some of the callers can be most unpleasant. There is now one that implies you have been in an accident. I suppose they will eventually talk about making an insurance claim but we have not bothered to find out. My husband answered one such call and just put the phone down - must admit I would have been interested to find out where and when this alleged accident took place!

The trouble is that for every level headed person who recognises cold call scams for what they are, there are less sophisticated and trusting folks who have been brought up to be polite and defer to those in authority, who will still get caught out. The sad thing is that once their computer has been held to ransom (there are phone and online scams that will download a virus) or payments taken from a bank account it dawns on them what has happened and they feel ashamed or silly and tend not to report it.

I had a cold caller a couple of years ago who was working for a prostate cancer charity. He was hoping to sell me some advertising space on, if I remember correctly, some medical centre's appointment cards. He had got my number out of a small local business/tradespeople's booklet that I advertised in at that time. At that moment, I really didn't want or need to fork out any more advertising, and politely told him so. Rather than accepting what he said, he wanted me to explain why not, which of course I wasn't prepared to do. In the end, when he ended the call, he said quite rudely, "well thank you - for nothing!"

Two days later DH took a call and I knew before he handed it over to me that it was the same person. He was now going through all the numbers in a neighbouring area's edition of the same booklet in which I had the same advert.
It felt really good to let him go through all his prepared speech then give him a piece of my mind!

I must admit I am amazed this scam (something wrong with your windows computer) is still going. It has been for years! I guess it still pays them to try. I usually say I have eight computers and can they give me the computer's IP address. They can't.

Meant, politely trying to earn a living!

Mine was a computer scam call. I genuinely could not understand her but to then ask if I was stupid because it took me a while to get her accent. She deserved what I replied!

I am aware of other cold callers who are just doing their job and I reply no thank you. Wouldn't dream of humiliating someone who is trying to earn a living!

When the computer scams first started I rang BT (my provider) and asked them about the call I had received (the caller had said my computer was downloading an illegal file!). The person I spoke to at BT assured me that there was no way anyone could tell what my computer was downloading without having access to it. He strongly urged me never to let anyone have remote access to my computer unless I was 100% sure of who they were (I have only once let anyone have remote access to my computer and that was BT and I rang them.)

I am surprised this sort of scam is still happening as I thought everyone knew about them by now.

I had the same thing happen HildaW. They said they were BT and there was something wrong with my computer when I used it. I do not use BT and how could they possibly know when I use it and we also have three computers and it was obviously a scam and as you said a well documented one. I am usually polite to anyone who phones, but sometimes they get quite rude and for such as the PPI ones, when they tell me I am owed money, I ask how they could possibly know or had they accessed my account and if so I would be contacting my solicitor, they don't know what to say.

My number is close to the local pizza shop's number so I get a few calls a week wanting to order. It depends on their attitude as to how I reply.

What gets rid of them with an apology is when I say this is * police station, how may I help you? One of these times I will be caught out and it will be the police ordering pizzas.

These are not call centres that I speak off....these are well recognised scams that phone you up to try to trick you into parting with money and/or allowing access to your computer and then perpetrate a crime. These are well documented scams - not bona fide call centres.

I think it's very mean to deliberately goad and humiliate a call-centre worker - they're trying to earn a living. I'm sure it's not their first choice for a career.

Why not just say no thank you, or if that's too much simply put the phone down.

Agus.....well done you....Must admit I had fun with one recently when the woman said someting along the lines of there being a problem with my computer...so I asked 'which one, we have three?' . It totally flustered her as she could not state which one.....just saying 'the one you use most' it all got rather silly but I was a tad bored that morning. Any way, as I kept asking her which one - it was her who should know, we got nowhere fast much to her frustration, in the end she rang off. Bizarre that I thought I had somehow beat the system...strewth its hardly important but hey ho....one small victory in a dull day is still a result.

Or is it just me?????

I am slightly deaf and have problems understanding someone with a strong accent. If I get a call from one of these call centres from India I just say "sorry I can't understand what you are saying" and hang up - they rarely ring again. I report all cold calls to the Information Commissioners Office (you don't need to know the number of the caller) and I now rarely get any calls. If I got a cold call from a UK call centre I would tell them they were breaking the law by calling me without my permission. (I think I must now be on some black list somewhere of people to avoid!!)

I have been with the TPS for years and it never seemed to stop the calls and to report a cold call to them you need to know the number of the person calling, so they are pretty well useless.

I answered an international call last week expecting it to be DD2 who is in OZ. Too late, I realised it was a cold call from India. Normally I say, sorry? As in I don't understand you and keep repeating sorry? The female who called then asked if I was stupid!!! Big mistake. When she explained she could help me with my computer problems I replied there was in fact something she could do,for me, oh yes anything at all she said, my reply was, good, f... off and hung up. Not my normal behaviour but I was so angry.

Yesterday, I had a phone call at an ungodly hour from my sister who had ring the wrong number... from New Zealand!

Have you signed-up to the Telephone Preference Service Icy?

Since doing so I get very few nuisance calls, just a persistent overseas silent one a few times a week.

I don't know if the silent ones or the 'Am I speaking to...' ones are worse. The middle of the night ones are so scary, rockgran, you always think it is a family disaster.
Which has a campaign on the go to do something about them - sign up cold call campaign here even if you are not a member.

This is on the Ofcom site consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2012/10/abandoned-and-silent-calls/

We get several a day of the bloody things and have to answer because we've got family abroad and my mother's phone is Withheld.

Going straight to the answerphone seems to put most of them off ringing again.
I had a call last week from what I thought was the usual incomprehensible asian. I could only pick out one word in three of what he was saying, but after getting him to repeat it several times I finally realised it was an obscene phone call! I thought the idea of making obscene calls to people who can't understand your accent was straight out of Monty Python but I suppose he must have enjoyed it.

harrigran that reminds me; a house we used to live in must have had a similar number to a local pub/restaurant because people were forever calling to ask to book a table, it got quite annoying as we never seemed to be believed by them at first.Sometimes callers would get quite aggrieved, saying 'this is the number I was given'.

We have calls (about once a day) where we just get a beeping noise. Number withheld obviously, so hard to know who or what this is. Reluctant to discuss with BT because our experience of their "service" leaves something to be desired!
I'll have a look at he callblocker idea - thanks for the suggestion.

The only calls I sometimes get now in the middle of the night are from my daughter's mobile, which are called 'pocket calls'; what happens is she sleeps with her mobile right next to her [can hardly bear to part with it] and as she is a deep sleeper, turns over in bed, knocks the phone and it rings my number. She has done this a couple of times in the last year.Of course, we can't always assume it's this, so worry, as she lives alone.
Years ago, when our son was at uni, he rang at 2 am [drunk naturally] to say he was chasing a badger down the High St in Southampton!That went down well with us, as you can imagine.

When I am in my study I can see the front door on the CCTV monitor, if I do not want to speak to doorstep salesmen I just ignore the bell.
Some people will not take no for an answer rockgran my number is very similar to a takeaway, one night the phone rang four times and I told the man I was not the takeaway and he had dialled the wrong number but he could not grasp the fact, when he rang for the fifth time I took his order

On my old mobile phone I kept getting texts from someone's boyfriend who just wouldn't believe he had a wrong number. He seemed to think I was his girlfriend toying with him - even when I pointed out I was a granny! I just gave up in the end and left him to it. I wonder what happened to them both?

I suffer with insomnia and on Saturday was having a particularly bad night, around 3.00 a.m. I was just about to finally go to sleep when my mobile rang - a withheld number. I tried to settle down to sleep when it rang again - this time with a voicemail - when I listened it was just someone squealing and giggling. I still have no idea who it was and that night I got no sleep at all. I now switch off my mobile before I go to bed.