A very nasty surprise - be ready if it happens to you

What a frightening experience for you, Apple. Thank you for warning us. It's for reasons like this that I leave my answerphone switched on almost all the time now.

Calls like this seem to be happening all over the country.
It's usually some one that just dials a random number and you were unlucky that it was you.
Buy a phone that has a call blocker in built (I think Argos still sell them). The person calling then has to announce who they are before the call is put through to you. You then decide to accept the call or not.
Also stops all the spam calls and fraud calls that are happening as the callers can't be bothered to wait for anyone to answer.

When I was in my early 20s my parents& sis went on hols & I was on my own in the house. I started getting phone calls and he knew everything I was doing, even when I went to the local shop with cornflakes! As soon as I came in from work they started. I had to phone the police in the end as he said he would get in the house to me, would beat up my boyfriend, etc. They told me to blow a whistle down the phone, didn't stop him. My sister came home early from her hols with her friends and she gave him a real mouthful down the phone and that stopped him. Its was very frightening and I felt helpless cos in the those days there was no caller call back, nothing to trace him.

I had a call from a private number a few nights ago but my phone blocks anonymous calls and withheld numbers so if I had the same pervert as you Applegran, luckily I didn't have to listen to him.

Truly frightening apple.
When I was a child I answered the house telephone. I was home alone, my parents were at the shop. There was a heavy breather, it scared me and I hung up.
Turned out to be my grandfather ??

I once had a funny phone call in the day time. He asked me if I was ever lonely.
As I was sitting in my living room at the time, with the cleaner hoovering around me, and keeping an eye on two small girls, the cleaner's daughter and my daughter, who were playing a noisy game, I answered with conviction: "No, never!"
If he could hear me through the racket, I'd be surprised, but he never bothered me again!

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

How horrid! Poor you; especially frightening if you are alone in the house.
Many years ago I received a pervert call, my response when he rang the second time was to whistle piercingly down the phone he rung off and was never heard from again

I had silent phone calls for weeks and weeks. Up to 50 a day some days. We moved for OHs job and gave out the number one at a time to family and friends. It turned out to be my MIL as BT put an interception on the line and traced the calls. They didn't tell me who it was but when we told her it had been traced and police were monitoring it all calls stopped for good.

Oh, dear, they are very upsetting. I had calls, heavy breath8ng to start, the culminated in threats. I had a whistle, from a Christmas cracker, I was so cross, I blew it down the phone.
They never called again, apparently this can cause severe earache. I hope it blew his eardrum. But it worked. Try it.

I have caller display, and don't answer the phone unless I recognise the number. All my friends' numbers are keyed in to the phone, and so it comes up with their names.

Call centres used to make multiple calls to lots of numbers simultaneously. If one was answered and an operative was free to speak they'd speak to that phone. Therefore all the other numbers dialled at the same time just hung up hence the apparently silent calls.

I had a call during the night asking me to stop sleeping with this woman's husband. I told her the only man in my bed was my husband but she didn't believe me. Rang again about a week later - same scenario - heard nothing since, this was about 5 years ago.

Applegran, these calls are terrible, over 30 years ago we received one on the night before my MIL's funeral, it was before caller ID was available, but I answered it, thinking it was a relative wanting to speak about details for the funeral, I just sat there "stock still" as a male voice started going on about underware, clothes I was wearing etc. As you say a random call, just really upsetting, after the week we had had making arrangments for the following day. My husband took the phone off me and started shouting down the phone, before slamming the phone down. I was just pleased that I had answered the phone and not one of my teenage daughters. Peculiar people will still be around in years to come. If I get a call now from a number I don't know, I answer but don't speak, the other end immediately put the phone down, I think I saw somewhere that the best thing to do is not speak, it seems to work for us.

There was a nun on my BA course, Sister Pat. She told us that a man had called her convent and asked the nun who answered the phone if she wanted a twelve inch cock. The young nun turned round to the others and said ‘It’s a man trying to sell us poultry’. Sister Pat soon put her right, but had us all in stretches telling the tale.

I had the very same thing happen to me just last week Applegran.
I put the phone in the kitchen and went to have a shower,he was gone when i picked the phone up and he hasn`t called back.
It would have cost him that`s for sure.

When I was a young woman, phone calls of this kind were usually obscene. At the time I knew an old lady, who was hard of hearing.

She received a phone call of this sort one evening and calmly said, "I can't hear you, I don't hear well. You will really need to speak up!"

She repeated this for about five minutes, then put the phone down.

She never had another obscene phone call.

Might be worth a try!

@Callistemon and welbeck; I have something similar called TrueCall.

Jane10
I started using a whistle several years ago as the cold callers weren't taking the hint? I only told them to go away ?
Word soon got round. I haven't been bothered for a long time.

I had a couple of calls similar to this some years ago. One was anonymous and very rude and suggestive. I told him he was a pathetic excuse for a man and he only made such calls because no woman would ever be interested in him. Then I put the phone down. He didn't call back.

The second caller was someone I knew (the 20 year old son of a friend), he said he was watching everything I did and where I went and he would be waiting for me when I least expected it. He tried to disguise his voice but I recognised it and told him (by name) to grow up and stop behaving like a silly schoolboy. He threatened to 'get me' if I told his mother. He never called again but some months later he was arrested for stealing ladies underwear off washing lines and confessed to making obscene and threatening phone calls to women.

These sorts of calls are upsetting but very rarely dangerous. The best solution is probably to say nothing, block the number and put the phone down. With me anger takes over and I give them a piece of my mind before cutting them off. We have always kept a police whistle by the phone as well, it does work and deters cold callers too!

We have Call Guardian- any callers who we have not logged into the phone have to announce who they are. We can then choose to accept, send to answerphone or reject. Our cold calls have reduced dramatically- well worth having

I had endless nuisance calls (twice a week for months) from a company investigating PPI nonsense. I told them to stop. They didn’t. I tried to block they phoned from another number. So I got one of those attack/alarm whistles , waited until they were talking , and pulled the string . They never called again.
Another thing I did years ago was say ‘hold the line’ then said in a funny voice ‘ it’s ok Mrs Smith we’ve got it you can put the phone down’ but you have to be a bit of an actor.

I can see a few people had success with a whistle - nice to know its worked elsewhere

Whistles blow down a telephone has a high risk of doing severe, long-term damage to the caller. However, bad they are and however nasty the phone call, nobody should stoop to doing this. There are plenty, far less violent ways of stopping and dealing with these callers.

Many years ago, long before answerphones, etc. my neighbour took a call from a nice sounding man who said he was conducting a survey to see of M&S should open a store in the town in which we lived. She was very excited and happily replied to all his questions regarding the type, size and colour of underwear she liked and was currently wearing.
The call came to an end, and that evening over supper she told her husband about it expecting him to share her excitement about M&S coming there.
He just stared at her, at told her what a complete and utter idiot she was!!!!!