Getting nuisance callers cross!

My OH often answers the phone in a loud shouty voice pretending to be a Chinese takeaway "wha you wan? " "special fry ri?"? "Noodle?", "swee sour pok? ", Very non pc but he can keep it up for a while. Nuisance callers hang up pretty quickly. If it's anyone that really wants to talk to us, they ring our mobiles.

I had a call from a kitchen company who wouldn't take no for an answer. I explained it was a rented house and they would need to speak to the landlady. When they asked for her details I said The Queen, Buckingham Palace, London. We were in a RAF married quarter. They hung up, can't think why.

If it's one of those " something wrong with your computer" ones, I have started asking them if their mother knows what they do for a living. If they enter into a conversation I tell them she needs to know they are a criminal. Sometimes the phone goes straight down, sometimes they actually listen !

I've never had this one, but some years ago we had "Are you interested in computer training"? DH immediately answered "Absolutely, dear, what training can I offer you? I can recommend my "Building your computer", a whole lot of programming language courses and we can arrange "How to ensure your programme is bug-free Software Testing". We never heard again.

My daughter had a brilliant idea. When her son was about 3 he loved chatting on the phone but his speech wasn't good.shed put him on,and he'd chat away until THEY put the phone down! Oh how we laughed!

The best thing to do is buy one of those devices which "intercepts" calls. We bought a Truecall unit about 4 years ago now and you programme the numbers you want to be able to get through, anything else gets a recorded message basically asking them if they wish to proceed. Most don't bother. That way we lnow when the house phone rings, it's usually someone we actually want to speak to. You can also look up online the numbers who have called you and check that you haven't barred someone accidentally! Ceertainly these devices are worth their weight in gold nowadays!

The best call before we installed this device was when we were getting several calls a week from someone saying that there was a problem with your computer. My husband answered the next call and politely told the caller not to bother him, there was no issue and we had no desire to talk to him. Seconds later my mobile ran - from the man who was building a pc for us wanting to know why my hisband wouldn't talk to him! OOPS!

Granby, I tried the totally silent version for a while, especially when I received a second call in a day but stopped after sending family members into panic when they called and got the treatment. I don't have caller dosplay.
missedeke, talking in Welsh has had callers nonplussed, too!

I've strung the "Microsoft" guy along a few times. Generally until they want me to visit a website in Russia or somewhere else I don't trust. One quick brush off I've used is "If you want sex I'll need your credit card number". One I intend to use sometime is "Which computer? There are several in the cyber crime unit".

I have various tactics for answering these calls, sometimes I just don't say anything, they eventually hangup, sometimes I answer in Turkish (not many will speak Turkish), sometimes I ask them to make an appointment and my consultancy fees are £500 per hour, I've tried the 'I'm DCI Smith and you've called a serious crime scene' etc and once I told the guy not to tell lies and told him he was breaking my heart as he was destroying his chances of getting to heaven, then I started singing 'You'll never get to heaven if you break my heart'. As you may be able to tell I have a lot of time on my hands......

I've had several of these calls. I get amusement from remaining totally silent, but not putting the phone down!

I had two calls on Wednesday morning from foreign sounding gentlemen who said they were from Talk Talk and had detected a problem with my router. They wanted me to press Ctrl and R and enter some program name so they could show me the problem. The first caller told me his name was Charles and the second was Brian. I played dim and said I had no keyboard on my tablet. That sent Charles into a frenzy of exasperation. I asked Brian why he couldn't just send me a new router and eventually he put the phone down. Both callers followed the exact same script. I checked the number of the second call (001148600052) on Google and found lots of complaints about it. One suggested the number was Australian. There was a third call during the morning but I didn't reach it in time and didn't check the number.

sunseeker excellent. Thank you

Great thread this one - can't decide if I'm being too polite when I thank them for calling but tell them that I don't accept cold calls and then put the phone down. Generally we check caller ident and don't answer but sometimes they use a number that could just be valid.

I get several of these calls in a week despite apparently being signed up to Telephone Preference Service which is, I understand, unable to deal with these overseas generated ones. Microsoft, Bank charges and energy based ones seem most common - I, too, was bemused on the hottest day of the year to receive one starting Now that winter is here... - but this week I had a new one. We understand the service agreement on your appliances is about to expire. Strange as I have no such agreements. I asked the caller to wait whilst I recorded that, meaning to write it down as I keep a list and check numbers later by Googling them. The phone was slammed down and I realised they thought I meant I was recoding the actual call. Is this the new way to deal with cold calls?

My immediate reaction is to ask to speak to their line manager. The phone goes dead. On one rare occasion they did put someone else on the line. I told him I was reporting him to the TPS, and he must remove my number from his list. Phone went dead. We get very few calls now.

If I get a call from I number I don't know, I pick up the phone and say nothing. Most times the line cuts off. On the rare occasion someone says 'Hello?' it is a friend or family member ringing from their office!

I've started to sing "The wheels on the bus" very loudly and for as long as it takes for them to hang up - and I know an awful lot of verses!!!

*BBbevan - I posted this a little while ago.

I received a phone call this morning which showed on my caller ID as an international number. All my family live abroad, including my 90 year old mother and my brother who is currently being treated for cancer so I answered it to be greeted by someone claiming to being doing an energy survey for the government. As I had some free time I decided to have some fun so put on my little old lady voice. Call went like this:

Nuisance caller: You are entitled to a free energy survey

Me: Oh at my age I'm afraid I don't have the energy I used to.

NC: No that's not what I mean, for instance do you have double glazed windows.

Me: I'm not sure - my nephew deals with all that for me but I think he did say that he has recently put in Windows 10.

NC: No I mean the windows of your house, are they double glazed

Me: What does that mean

NC: Well if they are double glazed you won't lose any heat out of the windows.

Me: Oh I don't lose any heat out of them, when I have the heating on the windows are closed.

NC: Hangs up

I've had the PPI calls and the Indian gentleman ringing to tell me that my Windows computer is faulty and others telling me that I have won a cruise(!), but this week there was a different one ,telling me that the insurance on my SKY system had nearly run out and needed to be renewed. I was so pleased to be able to tell him, quite truthfully, that I don't have SKY so please get off my phone.

My favourite for nuisance callers is to say that they need to speak to my partner and I'll go and get him. I then just leave the phone off the hook (well you gransnetters will know what I mean!) --I usually find if I return about half an hour later that they've gone away. Can't think why.

As many of these calls come from call-centres on the Indian sub-continent, I have an approach which works extremely well. I politely respond to their requests, making sure I divulge no personal information, then, when they're hooked, quietly ask them if they believe in "Karma". When they inevitably reply in the affirmative, I remind them that what they're doing is illegal, brings shame on them and on their family, and will be paid for by punishment in the next life. On every occasion so far, that's when they hang up..and no call-backs...

My new smartphone sometimes says 'telemarketer' when I get a call so I know to ignore it and then block it. They don't catch everything but it is quite good.

I would google the phone number and see what comes up. There are many sites that record these nuisance calls and warn people against them so you can add the number that called you. There is also advice as to where to report them so that they can be blocked or stopped. It doesn't help after you have taken the call but I tend to let anything that I don't recognise go to voicemail and check any unrecognised numbers.

god my typin!g works for the police (if they then stay on the line) computer fraud department. I suspect that will get passed for manual deletion from the list as they won't want to risk it.

I wonder why the phone companies can't block these if enough peopl report them.

If they keep calling make a note of the number & if you ave caller display don't answer it after a while the calls stop. ther was someone on our local radio a few months back that said that these "companies" have a caller list & numbers that are regularly unanswered go to the bottom of the list whilst those that have longer call times are put towards the top - it doesn't matter how you deal with them, a computer doesn't know what the content of a call, how long it is.

If you really must feel polite just quickly say Oh I'll ger my son onto it he wors for the police (if they ston the line long enough) computer fraud department

I don't usually engage with the cold caller, but as this particular one went into her spiel, she yawned loudly! I pointed out that the least she could do would be to sound interested, to which she answered " I'm sorry, I'm so tired trying to fool all the people" ! She went on to say that she desperately wants another job, but is unable to find one. As I wasn't sure whether this was another part of the scam, (I'm always a bit cynical) I wished her well and hung up. It was certainly a new twist on the normal cold call!