The latest telephone cold call!

[busyglen]

We've recently had quite a nice spell of quietness on the telephone nuisances front, until yesterday.

I answered the 'phone to be greeted by a sort of throbbing noise, and after saying `hallo' a couple of times, I then had a loud blast from a ship's horn sounding in my ear, with a cheery man's voice declaring that he was the ships captain, and that I had won two tickets for a cruise! It was obviously a recording so I slammed the 'phone down!

Today, my husband answered the 'phone twice and nobody was there, the third time someone spoke with a French accent saying they wanted him to go to a display. He said that he was on holiday on that date, and put the phone down. Don't they ever give up? |rant|

One thing's for sure....you wouldn't get me doing that job even if I was broke and it was the only job left. Luckily, I'm retired, so that situation won't apply! ;)

Glenys, Ok rant over!

[Mutley]

Glenys, you should practise your Dutch language.

I find that if I rabbit on in a foreign language they put the phone down on me. :D

[busyglen]

Well, if I had taken the call that my husband answered, I possibly could have done, but I'm damned if I'm going to talk Dutch to a machine! ;)

Actually that's a very good idea of yours...I must try it next time. :)

Glenys

[pipsqueak]

My husband speaks in Dutch to those people - he doesn't speak it very well but it helps. He just keeps saying "I don't understand" or "I don't speak English"!

I have had that ship thing over here in the US too - on the church office phone!

In the US we have a national "do not call" register. If we list our phone number on it, no-one is allowed to call cold.... however after its initial success, people are trying to trick us into the loophole whereby if one time we agree to a communication, they have us for life!

[v.wells]

And when they ask "How are you today" Tell them. "My spouse just divorced me, I found out one of my children has a dreaded disease and it is genetic and I may have passed it down, and my dog died and my best friend I found out was having an affair with my best friend ect ect. Tell them dreadful stories. So don't ask me how my day is."

I had a friend do that and they never called back.:D

We have call display and don't answer unknown numbers and these people don't leave messages either!

[Jan1954]

Our telephone number is ex-directory and I have the ansaphone on all the time to filter out cold calls, random dialled calls and the mother-in-law.

It works for me! :D

[MarkJ]

There is a similar scheme here Pipsqueak. It is called the Telephone Preference Service and works fairly well.
I am ex-directory, which cuts out the usual double glazing calls etc, but some of these irritating companies use a random dialler to simply ring all the number combinations within a specific dialling area code.

Most irritating of the month? Some "outsourcing company" working on behalf of my ISP who were trying to get me to sign up to their telephone and internet package for less than I am paying now... OK, so maybe I would have been interested - but NOT if you cold call me in the middle of the day, then, when I say I am not interested, ask to speak to my wife! Bad mistake there - she really really hates cold callers and grills them for ages about how they got our ex directory number, under what law can our ISP pass on our details to an outsourcing company etc etc.... :D

Mark

[pipsqueak]

My latest bugbear is a pre-recorded computer-generated "the warranty on your vehicle is about to expire, press 1 for more information" and "we want to talk to you about your high-interest credit card, press 1 for a better rate". I get these calls several times a week on my CELLPHONE! In the US, incoming calls use up our mobile minutes as well as outgoing ones.

T-Mobile swears they didn't give out the numbers and can't block the calls, so I've listed all our cellphone numbers with the Do Not Call register, but they are still coming. I am training myself to reject calls on the mobile if they are not in my phone book, but having three young children who occasionally use other people's phones to call me, it's a bit tricky.

A couple of times I pressed 1 to "talk to a representative" who promptly hung up as soon as I complained. Next time, I think I'll give the representative the run around then ask to speak to a superior and then threaten legal action!

[susan-y]

Like Vanessa... we have call display so if it says "private number", "unknown caller" or some such message I do not answer. If you can't be upfront with your name and/or phone number I'm not speaking to you and you can't want to speak to me all that much|moon|
If its important they will leave a message.

Sue

[v.wells]

Actually I said more than|moon| when I finally answered a call yesterday. :D

[ET in the USA]

We have had "Caller ID" [Call Display] for several years & never answer calls we don't know. Now we have "talking caller ID", so we don't even have to get up to find out it is "unknown caller", "unavailable" or "March of Dimes".

Talking caller ID also gives you a good laugh by trying to pronounce words & making them sound really strange. Our new joke word for anything unknown is " un - avail - ah - bull " with the accent on the final syllable, just like our caller ID says it. We have 4 phones around the house all chanting "un - avail - ah - bull" for almost every call. It's really pretty annoying, but then, so is answering !|laugh1|

[keith9351]

I use the Telephone Preference Service which seems to cut out nearly all of these type of calls.
Before that if I had a call I would tell them the person who dealt with what ever they were selling would love to speak to them but it takes a while for them to get to the phone, if they waited a minute I would get them, then just leave the phone off the hook.
Its amazing how long some of them hang on.

[Rove]

Yes, I get plenty of these too.

What I do is I keep say ' Hello - Hello - Hello on and on

It really drives them mad. They say " Can you hear me "

And I keep saying " Hello -- till they drop out.

[v.wells]

I use the Telephone Preference Service which seems to cut out nearly all of these type of calls.
Before that if I had a call I would tell them the person who dealt with what ever they were selling would love to speak to them but it takes a while for them to get to the phone, if they waited a minute I would get them, then just leave the phone off the hook.
Its amazing how long some of them hang on.

My son has told them he has another call and puts them on hold! They hang up now after a few minutes!:D

[Lincoln Lad]

A late collegue of mine used to get bothered by conservatory sales cold calls, after getting fed up with hangin up, the next he listened to, although said he was not interested. Finally he agreed to have a rep call on him and quote.

He lived on the second floor of the building!!!!

[susan-y]

My husband often calls the number back and gets a machine then he turns the radio up FULL BLAST and lets it play in to their message machine forever... !!|nopity||nopity||nopity||nopity||nopity|
The number 000-000-0000 likes to call us at dinner time..........try calling that one back!!!!!!!!!!!
Sue

[beachbaby]

We have had "Caller ID" [Call Display] for several years & never answer calls we don't know. Now we have "talking caller ID", so we don't even have to get up to find out it is "unknown caller", "unavailable" or "March of Dimes".

Talking caller ID also gives you a good laugh by trying to pronounce words & making them sound really strange. Our new joke word for anything unknown is " un - avail - ah - bull " with the accent on the final syllable, just like our caller ID says it. We have 4 phones around the house all chanting "un - avail - ah - bull" for almost every call. It's really pretty annoying, but then, so is answering !|laugh1|

We also don't answer anything that comes thru unknown or restricted, and we're also on the do not call list but we still get stuff, especially from computers. Being in New England with some really odd place names, I have to get a big laugh at people from out of the region or even out of country (like India - please don't get me started on outsourcing, we recently cancelled a credit card because we couldn't communicate) trying to pronounce things like Worcester or Gloucester or Penniquasset (even Dracut gives some people a hard time). I agree that if they don't want to identify themselves to heck with them! They can peddle their papers elsewhere (as my dad used to say!)

Teri |jedi|

[Feen]

Oh wow, my favourite rant |biggrin||soapbox|

I found out about the Telephone Preference System and signed up to it after I bit the head off some poor person who was probably just working in a call centre to supplement her student loan. I was expecting a much anticipated call and when this polite voice said "Good evening Miss Feen, how are you?" I just snapped that she didn't care a monkeys how I was and only wanted to get my money, and I slammed the phone down.

That's the only time I've been rude and I did feel bad about it - but if any calls get through now I tell them PDQ about the TPS list, it's unlawful to cold-call me and I'll be reporting them to the Information Commissioner - oh they must tremble in their boots |laugh1| .

But it makes me absolutely |banghead| furious when I hear stories of people (and there are many, often of a slightly older generation than my own) who get stressed and pressured by these calls... at worst into signing up for things they don't want or need, because they can't bear not to be polite (and are manipulated into feeling that if they say they want to end the conversation, that's not polite). And about people living on their own who get these awful threatening sounding silent calls made by mass dialers. How DARE these commercial organisations think it's acceptable for them to behave like that when your old heavy breathing Joe nuisance caller would surely get the book thrown at him?

Oh dear, I was feeling all nice and relaxed after a busy day and a nice soak in the bath, I'd better get off that soapbox right now ;) .

[Junekw]

|soapbox|
Thought I would add my two penneth.
We are also signed up to the telephone preference system but it doesn't seem to do any good. When we moved house 3 years ago we got a new phone number, the previous owners took their number to their new address and yet we get cold calls for the previous owners!!!!! How does that work?
My pet hate at the moment is these recorded calls; I'm busy family researching, phone rings, I rush through to the living room to answer it and hear "Did you know......" or "This is a public information call......." I can get as many as 5 of these calls in one day, they drive me mad.
Unfortunately the service provider we use does not offer the caller display feature but it wouldn't help as I have family who withhold their number because they make business calls from home.
I just tell anyone who's trying to sell something, kitchens, windows, etc that I have just purchased the product they are trying to sell and so the call ends.
I hate this "Good evening Madam, how are you today?" It's so false and they are obviously trying to sell something.
Right now I've ranted back to family research.

June

[Feen]

Hi Junekw,

That sounds maddening... all I can suggest is you get the names of the companies that are making recorded calls and make a complete pest of yourself to your MP, the Information Commissioner etc. It's a tiresomely long process, but the IC does from time to time name, shame and fine these wretched organisations. I'll definitely be making a fuss next time anything gets through on my phone...

Feen