Panorama has been investigating companies that ignore rules on cold calling. I have signed up to the Telephone Preference Service and, like some of the cases mentioned, still get cold called. Not often to be fair, but it does happen.
It’s worth pointing out here that any organisation calling for the purposes of a survey is exempt from the TPS requirement – despite it being as irritating as a sales call. We do get them from time to time and they all get short shrift. Of late, most of the calls have been to try and sell us some sort of energy grant arrangement – despite it not being applicable to us – or to make a claim for mis-sold PPI that we never bought.
My approach is always the same, to proffer a firm refusal and to hang up. If the caller has left a number on the system, then my phone has a blocking facility and I use it. The company in Swansea trying to get me to take out a government grant for insulation that I don’t need still tries every so often and they still get an engaged tone. Indeed, upon checking my phone to look up the number, I see that they tried calling just five minutes ago and I heard not a thing…
One solution to cold calling is to use a more sophisticated blocking device. And, should the calls become enough of a nuisance, then I will certainly consider buying a Truecall. At present, however, it isn’t enough of an irritant, so I’ll muddle along blocking these people retrospectively – providing they are not international callers or withholding their number.
All of that said, I do despair at some people:
Pamela Warner, a retired lecturer, was cold-called by a firm in India that claimed to be approved by software giant Microsoft. The man said he had spotted a problem on her computer which he would fix, for a fee.
“He just kept on and on intimating that he knew there was something wrong with the computer and he got quite bullying actually and sort of saying that he was trying to help me all the time,” she said. The experience left her £120 out of pocket – plus an extra fee to a legitimate firm to make sure her computer was safe to use.
For crying out loud! All you have to do is hang up. There’s nothing they can do about it. I mean just how much thought does it take to ask oneself just how this person could see her computer? Sometimes, people are their own worst enemies.
Much as I detest the cold callers, they are relatively easily managed even if you end up having to invest in a bit of technology to do so.
I’m on the TPS lists. Despite that I still get a number of calls every day. Two or 3 a week from India pretending to be Microsoft offering to remove my computer problem, so there must be plenty of mugs around as this scam has been running at that level for at least a year now. There has also been plenty of time to close them down but the authorities obviously can’t be arsed.
It’s annoying, but even more annoying is the trend towards unwanted text adverts on the mobile, if abroad these get charged to the recipient so they cost money as well as annoy.
I get those text adverts regularly, usually mis-sold PPI but they just get deleted, the other one is the amount of money I can claim for my accident FFS!
DaveE.
I don’t get either of those.
If you are feeling neglected I could probably pass on your number next time they contact me
I think I’ll manage, if it’s all the same to you.
Well I binned the landline phone, still need the line for for ‘line rental broadband’ purposes and bought four £10 PAYG mobiles for the family to use. We all have each others numbers and other than the wife’s quack (had her thyroids out so needs a regular thyroxin fix) no-one else has any of the numbers.
Works a treat.
1. TPS does not cover “marketing” calls
2. TPS does not cover foreign callers
Bill – keep an eye on the Thyroxin; we have a friend who with a thyroid problem who has been horribly over prescribed it, leaving him feeling really sick.
Thanks for the warning but my wife and I do not trust the current GP any further than we could throw her, or indeed many of the current crop of GP’s.
The excellent British surgeon, now in Australia as he could see where NHS trust status was going, who removed my wifes thyroids after discovering two pinhead size cancers in the vital gland explained everything we need to be aware of in plain English, thank god.
Old GP was most excellent, sadly retired, current GP is a doctor in name only…
I have all numbers except a list in the phone blocked. No one calls. Well, they might call but get a zero sound in response. Simply couldn’t be bothered … plus some enemies. Anyone wants me – they can email and even there there is a filter. If it’s an approved person, we Skype.
I just put the phone down. Truecall sounds useful though.
It does, doesn’t it? At the moment, I can’t justify the best part of £100 for a relatively minor nuisance.
This seems to be a cheaper alternative and I’ve seen it @ £49.90 on Amazon.
I really must remember how to do that linky thing off by heart & do something about my dyslexia.
DaveE.
It’s half the price because it has half the options.
All you really need is there as far as I can see.
DaveE.
Depends on what you need, really. Personally, I’d go for the Truecall.
I’ve mentioned this before but one day my li’l bro was a bit bored when he got a call from a conservatory company.
He strung them along with what size he’d like, costs etc. until he got bored again, at which point he asked the sales(wo)man how they would go about suspending it outside his 3rd floor flat.
A development on that theme, if you’ve got some time to kiil, is to take them all the way then, at the very end, ask them about what credit facilities they offer. That usually gets them even more excited – more profit dangled in front of them.
When they’ve calmed down, at the very end of their credit-spiel, just ask them if they’ll have a problem with you being an undischarged bankrupt. That usually finishes it, but not before you’ve had half an hour of fun at their considerable expense.
I must try that one after my bankruptcy.
DaveE.
If you have time, open any book at random and respond with two or three words chosen entirely at random from the page. It drives ‘em nuts because you sound interested and they recognise the words as English but they can’t quite work out what you are saying
I have a simple policy – I let all of my friends and family know that they can get me on my mobile or, if it is an emergency, leave a message on the answering service. Aside from that, I never pick up the landline. And slowly but surely, the number of random calls from numbers that I don’t know or from with-held numbers has diminished in the 18 months plus we have been in this house.
And yeah, the retired lecturer who fell for the Microsoft scam just needs to try thinking for herself rather than just being totally gullible.
I have the self same policy. Still get loads of calls after about 3 years.
Ditto on the lecturer.
After a lot of annoying calls from the same Indian call centre I found a loud blast down the phone with my wife’s school whistle soon stopped them
I rarely get landline cold calls and was online almost a decade before I got my first ever viagra and cock-enhancement surgery emails…I felt quite insulted to have been left out for so long…but today got my first ever bogus compensation claim text. Apparently there’s 2 and a bit grand owed to me for “that accident I had”.
Where the hell they got my mobile number I honestly don’t know. What to do about those…besides delete ‘em ?
We get those over here in France, the only problem is I forget all my French and just answer in English – at least they say they are sorry for calling.
As for the lecturer, did she leave her brain behind when she retired? I’ve had one of those calls – I kept the guy on the line for over half an hour trying to explain to me how he knew my computer had a problem and how he was going to fix it. He tried to talk me through starting something called ‘remote assistance’. In the end I told him I couldn’t do that because I use OS/2 on all my computers – he hung up for some reason.
I think assuming she had a brain just because she used to be a lecturer is a stretch. She may have lectured on PPE or some other social science
I have actually used various remote control programs to fix other peoples computers. Mainly stuff like setting up routers but very occasionally helping with a virus they’ve managed to obtain, at least one of which I identified before it was caught by the AV suppliers. I even went to the extreme of infecting my own PC to help them remove it. (Do not try this at home!)
DaveE.
EDIT: Yes I did inform the AV companies. Whether I was the first or not, I don’t know.
XX If the caller has left a number on the system, then my phone has a blocking facility and I use it. XX
What a waste!
You got a number, you got a trace, you got a trace, you got an address. They soon get the message after the third or fourth broken leg/Knee cap/ arm/ etc.
Works here.
Reverse directory is illegal in the UK as far as I am aware.
DaveE.
You can find out fairly easily without a reverse directory. if it is a business, they tend to advertise their number. A quick search on the interwebs does the rest. That isn’t illegal.
And, yeah, I just block them in exactly the same way as I block spammers and trolls on my blog.
I regularly get a call from a Washington, Tyne & Wear number, If you try to call the number, it doesn’t exist. Neat trick.
DaveE.
Seems a lot of trouble to go to, when they could just block their sender number, or whatever it is called there. (Where their number is hidden from you), and who sells them this sort of number/contract? They need as much a good doing over as the advertisers.
Does doesn’t it?
I checked though and it is a real number and it is a company but I couldn’t find out who.
A lot of people have block anonymous callers though. I used to but gave up on it when it didn’t block international calls where the number wasn’t available rather than just withheld.
DaveE.
I have been told, and am no expert, that the ‘fault in your PC’ that the cold callers can point you to is in fact a perfectly normal (for a PC, anyway) string of information that just looks like it is a problem.
If your machine works, it works.
But I love it when the ‘we fix your PC’ calls come in. I let them go on for a moment before telling them I have a Mac. Seems to stop them short.