Unwanted Phone Calls

When Thank you. I dare say many of us will watch this.

The TPS is good but seems to run out and you start to get lots more calls so need to register again.

The ones that annoy me are the ones from companies we already have contact with as that lets them off the TPS hook. I answered one recently which asked to speak to DH, I asked who was calling and he said the AA so I told him we didn't have anything with them and it was a sales call which we wouldn't take. He insisted DH had a 'policy' with them so I went and asked DH who confirmed he hadn't. I realised I had taken out an ISA for DH with the AA so told the guy there was no 'policy' and that he had misrepresented himself.

I do admit to winding them up when I am in the mood. A good one is "Oh I would love to talk to you but am really busy right now so give me your home phone number and I'll call you back when I'm free" They put the phone down.

One called and asked to speak to Mr H and I asked which Mr H and he gave me DH's name. He asked if he was in and I said 'no', did I know when he would be back, I said 'yes', would I tell him when that would be 'no' and so it went on with me answering in monosylables. Eventually he said 'don't be sarcastic' and I said 'I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being patronising'. Well, it was his own fault, he should have stopped when he knew he was on a loser.

Sometimes they just don't seem to listen and on one occassion I ended up saying 'is English not your first language' which appalled DH as I am not racist and he had assumed I was talking to an Indian. When I told him she was American he said I should have been really rude! He has always worked for American companies.

After trying all of the above I simply put the phone down without comment as soon as it is obvious who is calling.

Ive just had a call from 01252670222 - a recorded voice telling me that "It has come to the government's attention" that my energy supplier is not giving me the best prices, and to "Dial 2 now to hear what the best deal is on the market..."

I am sure this is the same number who have been telling me repeatedly that the government are concerned that I have not taken up their offer of an insulation grant - even though a young man who rang the doorbell on the same search for business assured me that there was no central list of those who had applied for a grant and those who had not. (This when I told him off for bothering me yet again )

I have found the Telephone Preference doesn't work after a while and to complain to TPS you have to have the telephone number when, of course, a lot of the callers withhold their number.

I now use the Information Commissioners Office (www.ico.gov.uk). You can still make a complaint even if you don't have a number. Since I have been registering complaints with them the calls do seem to have decreased.

my landline phone is presently resting in the microwave! after the usual round of automated calls, at least this blocks their automated call system as i dont disconnect, just put the phone away for awhile. if anyone of my family need me they will phone my mobile. its the small victories that keep us happy.

TPS has to be renewed every 2 or 3 years to be fairly effective Barrow

I agree with all those who find these calls infuriating. We have registered with the TPS (twice) and have caller display. A friend recommended Googling numbers when there is one available, and if you do that you get several websites where people post if they've found out who some of these firms are. It doesn't necessarily help, although one person gave a head office number so that we can persecute them!