Anyone experienced this?

Any delay of 3 seconds is a call via satellite, when the person asks to speak to x,y or z simply put the phone down without saying anything, you arn,t being rude, just saving yourself hassle and feeling guilty by not accepting their call. A call made with no answer and going dead when you say hullo isn,t your spouses lover, its a uk call center whose computers are making random calls which are passed to an available operative, if they are all busy the line goes dead. If you do answer and realize its a con don't get angry and give them a hard time, they will simply press a few buttons that ensures you will get serial calls, usually at night. Sad to say ambulance chaser solicitors pay heavy duty commission for serious accident referrals. Those referrals come mainly L,m sad to say from NHS staff. Last year my wife suffered a severe, bone through the flesh broken wrist.having tripped on a badly aligned flagstone. that required lengthy operations and external metal ware that clearly pointed to a severe injury. on one treatment visit l was very puzzled as to why the nurse doing the dressing pushed very hard throught the redressing for her to " confess " she had been careless, tripped over a shoe lace etc etc., it went on and on to the point l politely asked the nurse just to finish the dressing because my wife was clearly in great pain, becoming confused by her constant questioning and not fit to be " interrogated. i sincerely hope l,m wrong but evidence on the hospital file that it was entirely her fault and that she was making a false claim would clearly have been a double disaster. Clearly there will be NHS staff on this forum both at coalface and higher management level. I,m not under any circumstances declaring all, or even a tiny minority do not obey the rules, but questions have been asked and answered by investigative journalist that, like the police sadly show no organization is immune from corrupt practices. This last point to reinforce previous advise. If you want a service or product you presumably shop around for the best deal. If the ambulance chaser, debt management, double glazing, million pound lottery win were true, why are they paying a Asian or Cardiff Call Center to drum up trade.? Why leave yourself open to opportunists who scour the small ads to declare their sympathy at your sad loss but remind you of a non existent debt. Either do as previously advised, invest in call recognision , an answer phone and remember above all, respectable firms never " cold call "
If a cold call particularly upsets, re details of a deceased relative or friend inform the police at once. All UK forces have specialists to assist, if contacted immediately.
Hope this helps
Peter

Problem is DH is still working part time as a consultant engineer so foreign calls from clients in Europe are not uncommon. We have to answer to make sure we are not ignoring an important call.

I di have a bright idea last week. When I pocked up the phone and they asked for Mr Flickety. I simply said. 'He is dead'. Stunned silence and the phone was put down. I have suggested to DH that next time he gets a call he simply says 'I am dead' and see what happens.

I have caller display on my phone.
I know if it is an incomplete number or from abroad with the exception of Germany I know it is likely to be a junk call so I do not answer it.

Frank

I suspect that it was an ambulance chasing claims company. DD was badly injured in an accident 18 months ago. Her first name is the same as mine but she is always known by a dimunitive.

A couple of months ago someone rang me up about the road accident I had had last year. I told them, quite correctly, that I had not been involved in an accident. They were quite persistent, keeping asking whether I was sure I had not been in any accident and I assured them that I hadn't, the chap on the phone was clearly very puzzled by this. I assume they were actually trying to contact DD, who lives elsewhere, but I did not say anything.

They said they were solicitors, and we have reported the calls to the necessary people. Just please to get them of our backs.

You should not have had to tell anyone your private business, Printmiss. The only people you should have been discussing any accident with were your own insurers (and possibly the police )
Who did these callers turn out to be? Now that you have their details is there anyone you can report them to for harrassment, to stop it happening to others?

Well we finally cracked this! I answered he 'phone and refused to let the caller speak to my husband until he told me his name, (I didn't understand it) telephone number and where he was from, not sure if the number was right, didn't check. My husband then took over, he was told he was being put on to a supervisor who said he was doing a road traffic accident survey and checking claims. It took three different versions of 'although there was an accident we were not injured the car not damaged and no claim made by us'. before the message got through. Were we sure? surprisingly enough Yes! and the phone went dead. It will be interesting now to see if the phone rings instantly after we make or receive a call, this was the worrying part. Incidently we had already told this particular caller we had no accident claims.PHEW!

You don't have much defence against the foreign call centres (Some of ours seem to have come from China!) but since we got an answer phone we don't have to listen to them. All our family and friends know to leave a message and we'll pick up the phone if we hear them. So far it seems pretty effective.
I try never to give out my mobile number (not being able to remember helps) so I get very little trouble from it.

Strangely enough I have had 3 phone over the last 4 or 5 weeks asking for my father.
I replied he died 18 months ago and they have put the phone down without an apology.
Even more strange about 6 months ago I had somebody asking for my mother.
She died in 2003.

Frank

My phone rings if I put it down before the person who has called me cuts the line. It's a technical thing so that may be what is happening if noone is on the line when it rings.

We were plagued endlessly by so called Sky equipment insurance salesmen/women. The calls were so regular we got to know their accents etc. . I tried all the usual tactics, to no avail. A different tack worked. The Sky equipment was in my wife's name. When they asked to speak her directly said sure and put the phone near the tv, so they were reassured they hadn't been cut off. Every few minutes I reassured them she wouldn't long, she was on her way etc. Eventually the man asked how long she would be as their bill was mounting up and he had others to call. I told him simply, and honestly, about 15 minutes as she was on the 311 bus on her way back from Liverpool, result , no more calls. Worth a try?
cheers
Peter

Thanks for all that. We are protected from unwanted callers and I have now registered a complaint with our service providers, it was just that it seemed eerie every time we made a call and put the phone down it would instantly ring again, and no one would leave a message. We shall now wait to see.

Report him to the police.

I had tapped another cars bumper in a car park, no mark on either vehicle. I reported it to my insurance company and went on my way. When I was away the following weekend I had an unpleasant answerphone message from the OP threatening to sue me, because the OP didn't like the way my insurance company were dealing with it.

I spoke to a man at Direct Line who told me that the OP had not followed the advice Direct Line had given him and had not even contacted his own insurance company to look at the (non-existent) damage.

The guy I spoke to said not to make any contact with him. (I did not intend to) and to forward any letters etc to them.
He also said if I had any threatening calls from the OP to discuss them with the police. (Thanks to Rashid at Direct Line for being so helpful. )

I have a feeling the OP wanted to scare me into paying money directly to him.

It amounts to harassment and possibly an attempt at blackmail or other crime based on intimidation. Report it to the police. Even if they do nothing at present it is an official marker so that if any other problems ensue there is an official report of the day you felt imtimidated enough to make a police report.

You could also tell the caller next time he rings that the matter has been reported to the police as his constant calls amount to harassment (say this to the caller even if you do not speak to the police.)

I think this particular experience is quite unusual, Printmiss, in that you are getting calls from the same person. I'm sure we all get calls about accidents because someone in the process of reporting the accident and getting the insurance and the damage sorted passes the information on to one of these other organisations. But I agree with the posters who have advised you to contact BT. It sounds like a peculiar kind of harassment. Good luck.

I do the same as Bags, calls from companies whose computers have randomly pick your number, even if like me you are ex-directory, have a pause before the caller speaks - and the same goes from calls abroad. Once this happens I just lay the phone to one side for a few minutes and they soon hang up. Also you should contact BT for any advice they can offer.

Yes, talk to BT, or whoever provides your phone line, and tell them you are being harassed. Might help if you could give them times of the calls.

The other thing you can do (I do this) is pick up the phone and say nothing until the caller identifies themselves. If it's a machine call, it will cut out if it hears no human voice. This works best if you have a phone which shows you the caller's number, but you could tell your friends and family what you're doing, then they'll know to speak first if they call.

Is this person trying to sell you something? The silent calls can be reported to Information Commissioners Office (ico.gov.uk).

When I was getting constant calls from a company I told them that if they rang again I would report them to the police for harrassment, which stopped the calls.

If you are worried he has somehow hacked into your phone you could contact your supplier and have a word with them.

Hope you get it sorted out.

Printmiss I would certainly take this up with your service provider they can stop calls coming through even if the number is not registering with your 1471 option by their own methods (not sure how) but it can be done tell your service provider how worried you are about these calls and that you feel vunerable,don't be put off by them saying they cannot check the incoming calls they can.

You could talk to your phone company, it sounds like harassment to me. I'm presuming this chap isn't directly involved in the February accident but trying to make money out of it in some way?