Silent Calls.

[Steve Coppolo]

If there's ever anyone actually there when I pick the phone up, I do enjoy giving them plenty of abuse. But most of the time it's these auto dialers and there's no one there. I'm getting up to 4 calls per day or night from these wasters. Not answering if I don't recognise the number is one option, but it's the bloody inconvenience of being interupted by the call.

 

It's about time that BT got their act together and did something to stop these leaches.

[Guest Jan V]

Not that it helps anyone, but this article shows how the DNC registry violations are being handled:

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/13/...tr=U.S._1122893

[Leon Roskilly]

Since registering with the Telephone Preference Society, we get very few such calls.

 

'Silent calls' happen when a huge number of calls are dialled automatically and any that are answered are passed through to an operator who is free to take it. Often more calls are answered than they have operators to deal, so you end up rushing down from the bathroom covered by a towel, breaking your neck scrambling down a ladder, or in tears when expecting a very important call that might be life changing.

 

Apparently there is an acceptable proportion of calls that can be silent!

 

 

Then there are the automatic 'You have won a holiday' recordings.

 

I just leave the phone off the hook as the recording is played several times, tieing up there line and svaing someone else the bother of being dialled on that line whilst it's 'busy'.

 

 

Then there are the cold calling salespersons. These are usually youngsters on very poor pay, being paid on some kind of commission basis.

 

Now you can mess them around, get angry, try to p**s them off etc, on the basis that 'it serves them right for taking such a job', whilst the moneymaking bosses sit insulated from such bother.

 

or politely say 'No Thank You' and hang up so that they can go bother some other individual who might just make an appointement, and they make enough bonus to pay their student digs rent, buy their little sister an xmas pressie etc.

 

And remember, you only get bothered this way because some people do respond, and end up buying something, and the companies behind it are making some money. Incredible!

 

 

TL - leon

[Lid]

Since I registered with TPS, the number of calls has gone right down.

 

As to blocking withheld numbers, it's a bit pointless in my view as you will miss calls you want. For instance all our phone numbers are automatically blocked from being sent and I don't even remember how to send my caller id if I wanted to. This means that on several occasions I've had my calls to friends or people advertising things for sale blocked simply because we do not to wish to send our phone numbers out automatically. Their loss not mine I suppose!

Edited December 13, 2005 by Lid

[MJB]

Get an ansaphone and screen your calls through it. If people can't be arsed to leave a message then they obviously don't want to talk to you. Works for me.

[les middy]

got a silent call today from 05557801

 

any body know the number

 

 

les

[Alan Fawcett]

There's a new one for mobiles now as well, you get a call from an 0800 (free phone) number but when you answer it hangs up, if you call back it records your number as replying and lets you know its a telemarketing company and thank you for registering with them for further sales calls!!!

 

We've had an automated one ringing us for about a week the robot on the other end gives you 3 options if you are X person please press 1, if you are fetching x person pleae press 2 if x person is not available and want us to call back later please press 3...........it doesn't give you an option to speak to a human so you can abuse the hell out of them.

 

Oh and the person they ask for doesn't even live at your address.

[chris parker]

BT can do something. We were getting calls daily and when I answered there was nobody there. My wife is on 24 hour call to the local hospital for emergency surgery, when they call her it is to tell her an ambulance, police car or helecopter, depending on the time of day, is on it's way to collect her. Obviously when the phone rings and there is no one there she phones the hospital to check if they called. There is usually only 15 min between the call and transport arriving.

 

When this was explained to BT the calls suddenly stopped, don't know what they did but we havn't had one for well over 12 months now.

 

She had the same with her mobile and again the nuisance calls have stopped after a call to her service provider.

 

We are registered with all the preference services and have been for years but that did not stop the garbage. I wonder how effective they really are.

[snotty]

You could try changing your number if you are really bugged by it all, though its only a matter of time before it will all start again.

 

I think its about time the industry did something positive to remove this unsolicited nuisance.

 

Along similar lines we were getting 'junk' mail addressed to an unknown person who has never lived at our address. I returned the mail usually suitably marked and even contacted some of the companies. It appears the name somehow got linked with our house and appeared on a mailing list, which was then sold on, and on,

the usual postal preference service stuff will only stop ALL 'junk-type' mail to an address, not solely that addressed to an individual.

 

Thankfully after a couple of years it has all but stopped, but it is food for thought if you want to annoy the hell out of someone and you know their address... register a false name with all and sundry and request information from everyone. Childish but immensely satisfying.

[Steve Coppolo]

BT were pretty useless and I do wonder whether the girls I spoke to actually knew much about the problem. The first one gave me a number to call where someone would be able to help with marketing calls from abroad. When I phoned the number, they didn't have a clue what I was talking about!

 

When I phoned BT back I got to speak to another girl who said the number I'd been given was for dealing with premium rate phone line problems! She also told me that BT were unable to do anything to stop the calls and asked if I wanted to change my phone number. As these calls are auto dialled at random, I couldn't see the point as there is just as much chance of the computer throwing up any new number as my old one.

 

I think the next Indian salesman who actually gets through might escape the verbal abuse for long enough for him to tell me what company he works for. Then at least I can report the company.