Nuisance phone callshad

I to are registered with the TPO but it makes no differnece to these interenational calls, makes you wonder whether they listen in ewach time you make or get a call.
I transferred from AOL/TalkTalk back to BT as now I am not getting as many despite all the competition between them, with AOL/talktalk they are asian based.
Also as to other things such as electrol role on registration , maybe to option to sell your details to 3rd partys when doing the form is not tosay yuou want your details passed onto 3rd partys.
Mick

Pick the 'phone up, when you know it is this type of call , lay it down until they realise they are talking to themselves. Or, have caller display and don't answer if you don't recognise the number.

There is a BT phone which sounds as though it does a good job in screening these calls - we're thinking of getting one (or two, actually).

I hate the ones which stop as soon as you lift the receiver, probably because they are multiple-dial ones from a call centre. I had one of these from "Private Caller" yesterday, and for once I picked it up before it stopped. I could hear loud music in the background, and a foreign voice asked for me by name. He got quite annoyed when I did not answer at once and put down the phone. Serves him right, that is how I feel when I am interrupted but no-one is on the line.

He put the phone down, not me.

I know that it's unladylike of me but I shout F** O**!! [even though most messages end before I can utter a syllable.

soop I am shocked!! but I am sure you use the most ladylike tones!

gracesmum Nah! I sound like the proverbial fish wife...

I had a really horrible one yesterday.
The voice said they were calling from the Road Traffic Accident Department and someone living at my address had had an accident.
For a few moments I imagined one of my nearest and dearest lying close to death in A&E somewhere (the way you do).
Then reason took over and I realised the only other inhabitant of Ainsworth Mansions(DH) was sitting opposite me at the kitchen table.
The voice went on to insist that someone had had an accident in the last 3 years. We haven't, I realised it was some ambulance-chasing firm of lawyers, and put the phone down.
I wonder why the Law Society doesn't do something about the solicitors who are involved in these scams.

My in-laws had a call like this a few weeks ago.. It was about an hour after we had left them to drive home. Luckily they realised what sort of call it was but they still had to call us to check we were ok. It really is a nasty way to try to get business.

janeainsworth

The police called at my friend's address and said his son had been arrested for violence at a football match.
He was rather astonished:

1) His son did not like football and never went to football matches.
2) His son was at the back of the house mowing the lawn.

Obviously somebody had given his son's details.

Frank

I wasn't going to put this on GN but as the subject has come up on the same day it arrived in my inbox it seems like a good idea:

Subject: : Junk Mail & Unwanted telephone calls

REVENGE ON THE TELEMARKETER

Three Little Words That Work!!

(1) The three little words: 'Hold On, Please...'
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear BT's 'beep-beep-beep' tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset....you have efficiently completed your task.
These three little words could help eliminate telephone soliciting.

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?
This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and record’s the time of day when a person answers the phone.

This technique is then used to determine the best time of day for a 'real' salesperson to call back and get someone at home.
What you can do after answering: If you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialled the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer!!!

(3) When you get those 'pre-approved' letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-prepaid return envelopes, right?
It costs them more than the regular postage 'IF' and when they are returned. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-prepaid return envelopes.

Send an advert for your local chimney sweeper to American Express... They might need one!
Send a pizza coupon to HSBC... In case their canteen packs up. You get the idea.
If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them back their blank application form.... After all, it is their form!

If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you return.

You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them, and it is their envelope after all… you are just returning it!!!!

The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the post, but folks....we need to OVERWHELM them, in order to stop them.

Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it..Twice!

Let's help keep Royal Mail busy. Since the Royal Mail is saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, let's help them so they will not need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea!

If enough people follow these tips, it will work ---- maybe you'll get very little junk mail anymore.

THIS JUST MIGHT BE ONE E-MAIL THAT YOU WILL WANT TO FORWARD TO YOUR FRIENDS!!!!!!!

Moved I love the idea of packing up my junk mail and sending it to one of them in a pre-paid envelope. Some great ideas there

when I've been doing that for years but cannot decide whether to include my name and address or not. If I do they might stop sending me the rubbish. If I don't, will it be more annoying to them? So sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

My elderly mother had a phone call a couple of months ago saying she had won £75,000 in a competition. She does enter some magazine competitions so wasn't very surprised. Just excited. She never told me as they had told her not to speak to anyone about it but to send them £2000 to receive the £75,000.

Luckily we were there when the person rang again. Apparently, she later told me, they had be harassing her daily for the money, checking whether she had posted it yet. I asked her what the call was about and she told me. I said to her that it was a scam and she said 'Well someone else can have the money then' I explained that there was no money and that they just wanted the £2000 off her. It took some explaining to get her to realise that she had been scammed. I said it was not her fault and that these people prey on people living on their own. She had, in fact, already put a cheque in an envelope ready to send. I took the address and phoned the local police who re-directed me to the Fraud people (can't remember the title now) they took many details and will forward to police all over the country who will then cross-reference. I hope she has learned her lesson, she is very fit and able but gullible.

A few years ago she bought a vacuum cleaner from a doorstep 'pressure' saleswoman who sold her this monstrosity for £500 taking her one year old Dyson 'off her hands'

Great, I've copied this!

Since she has had her number changed and withheld numbers banned from her phone. She feels a lot safer now re telephone calls.

Just remembered another scam from a builder who was working on her neighbours house. He poked a pen in her damp coursing causing sand to fall out of the bricks and told her that all the houses in her road were going to collapse due to subsidence, she panicked and rang us. My SiL - who knows a lot about building etc, check it and the guy had deliberately poked out sand to worry her and get the job.

We are with TPS but calls are coming in from Indian call centres. We are also getting three calls a day from an insurance company who will argue that we have had dealings with so are legitimate.
We leave our answer machine permanently and only pick up if we recognise the number or hear a familiar voice.
I have not had a computer scam phone call since I told the caller " hold the line caller, I am transferring you to the fraud department.
DH has resorted to rather ripe language especially when called on his mobile during dinner.

Some brilliant moves there moved.

Can't wait now for the next junk mail to arrive.

Thanks.

Much better to let the whole thing amuse than to get cross about it.

A friend of mine copied something she had seen on an American crime programme (NCIS I think). Anyway when the caller started to ask her questions she immediately interrupted and said that they had called a crime scene and that the call had been traced and they were to remain where they were as police would shortly arrive to question them!

I like that one!

If you get a nuisance sales call and they give a number on caller display or 1471 you can put the number into Google and get a range of sites where people report these calls. Quite often they can tell you who made them, which is useful if you want to complain. It's also reassuring to realise that other people are just as annoyed as you are, particularly if you are in the house alone and are feeling paranoid about strangers phoning you. We'd never had a call from the Cumbernauld kitchen design firm which was fined recently, but were delighted to hear about it!