To be sick to the back teeth with those fecking phone calls from insurance companies/financial companies/ppi companies every day!

[crosscupcake]

I am on leave this week and so far i have had at least 4 phone calls a day from these companies!
Where the heck do they get my number from?
I dont give it out, i dont have any connection with them, why are they bugging me?

I now just put the phone down when they drone on and tell me who they are and ask how i am today....unreasonable, but i want them to leave me alone.

Thinking of getting home phone disconnected.

How can i stop these calls?

YANBU - I signed up to the TPS, but still get the odd call always at bloody 11.30 the fuckers when I'm on night shift.

I even had one caller argue that because they had bought my number, that gave them the right to ring me...

I don't answer phones in the daytime. If it's important people will leave a message.

90% of phone calls are cold callers
The other 10% are either my DH or my mum

So I've started letting 2 year old DS1 answer the phone. If its daddy or nanny, he gives me the phone, if not he chats to them til they hang up :)

(Anyone else rings my mobile, and I dont answer unknown numbers)

I have daily calls from the accident helpline. They can't even say my name and apparently i had a car crash the other day - i don't even drive! The telephone preference service is useless as they are using foreign call centres.

Oh don't get me started I hate them.

It's funny when they get ds1, he tells them things like 'wait I have to go put on my batman suit before I answer' and other random things. Or that he's building a sky rocket and rambles on to them about space travel Or suchlike. He's almost 15, just enjoys the wind up. I could almost feel sorry for them?

I get these blardy calls at work (I work in a NHS clinic).
So phone rings, I take my gloves off, use the handgel, answer the phone. Bloody recorded message.
Wash hands and dry thoroughly(otherwise gloves don't go on) get a new pair of gloves.

Once the phone rang 4 times in the same treatment session for a patient.
I can't ignore the phone in case it's the Head Office.
I've asked at main Reception but the calls are by-passing there and going straight to the clinic phone .

i am sick of them aswell

we even came back off our holiday and all the messages on the answerphone were off them!"

If they're the automated message there's usually the option to 'unsubscribe' at the end of the message... Most say press 4 to speak to operator or 9 to not receive further calls.

Seems to work. We used to have several a day but now they've pretty much all stopped.

i have pressed the number to discontinue but it just goes dead and they ring again

I don't get them.

but I never give my real number to any website or store card or discount card, comparison site etc. I never enter competitions etc. they are all blatant attempts at getting people's details, and these details then get sold on to other companies.

It is vile.

You shouldn't reply in any way, that is how they know it is a human at the end of the line.
You can ban withheld numbers with your supplier for a low cost. It does help

Oops, just re-read OP and you were talking about calls from real, live people not those pesky auto things!

TPS is quite effective as a pp mentioned. If you clearly and specifically ask them not to call again companies are supposed to adhere to that and can get into trouble if they ignore.

Get a phone with caller id, if you don't recognise the number don't answer. If its important they'll leave a message.

I don't think there is any way to be rid of these nuisance calls - except not having a phone. Have to admit that I don't get any of the calls on my PAYG mobile - just the text about PPI, accident claim etc. Easy to delete them.

The landline is a different matter altogether. Had one today telling me he was going to refund my £3000 PPI. As I have never bought PPI, I didn't even let him get as far as the next question before telling him to go away & hanging up. No doubt his next question would have been "what is the account no & sort code of the account you would like the money paid into".

I am sick to death of Consumer Survey (or whatever they call themselves). They ring at least 5 times a week, in spite of me telling them each time that I asked their 'colleague' to remove my phone number from their computer system as I do not wish to answer their questions.

I monitored the caller ID for a while as most of the calls come up as 'Unavailable' or 111111111, but I have answered calls showing as 'unavailable' and one of them was a call from the hospital. We did once have a real nuisance caller and were told by BT that for a fee we could block all calls were the number is witheld. Unfortunately all calls from schools, the doctors and many of the professionals I deal with come through on 'withheld' numbers, so that wouldn't work for us.

If people knocked on the front door this many times a week and pestered me, I think I would be getting the police involved. So why are we expected to put up with it on the phone?

I love it when the energy provider people knock on my door to try and get me to switch.

One young chap opened with 'How would you like to save money each month on your gas bill?'

To which I replied with a mad smile ' I wouldn't. I love wasting money. I have loads and loads of it so I dont care how much my bills are'

Cue the poor sod backing out of my driveway with look of horror on his face.

I felt a bit afterwards but hey ho.

I never answer the phone at home. I might listen in when the call goes to the answerphone, and most of the time the call is disconnected once the answerphone message kicks in.

If DH is in, he'll answer it, and delights in being arsey with any spammy callers. But, we're both retired, so it's a kind of hobby for him. But that's no solution for people who are being harrassed by daily unwanted phone calls.

I used to do secretarial work at my local hospital. Firstly as an agency temp, then as a hospital bank temp, then on a short-term contract. It was only when I signed up for the short-term contract, after several years of working in the place, was I required to attend an induction session which included just about everything I already knew.

Except for one thing, and that I only learned many months later and just by accident. I had tried phoning back a patient who had left a message on my then-consultant's answerphone, having been put through via the switchboard, but I couldn't get through to him as I got an automatic voice response that the patient's phone wouldn't accept a "withheld" number, which apparently was how my call from my desk was presented to his phone. It was only when I happened to mention that to a colleague, while making a cup of coffee in the kitchen, that I learned I could ask the switchboard to dial the patient's number with a specific prefix to present my number rather than a "withheld". By then, I'd worked there for more than five years and no-one had told me that, nor was it mentioned in the induction session. I wonder how many hospital calls, or maybe GP calls, still can't get through, because people have had to use the technology to protect themselves, yet the people desparately trying to contact them don't know how to get past that "withheld" situation because no-one has told them how to do that.

doinmummy, exactly what I do. I tell them I am filthy rich and don't want their extra dough. They don't know what to do with that one. Suggest we all become Richy Rich bastards when they call.

It pisses me right off I'm rude to them and I don't care. we still get calls for the lady who use to live in our house, she died 4 years ago! They are all knobbers! I have tried been nice, pretended to be the dead lady and even taken them to the loo with me and peed with the phone close to the loo so that's all they could hear , they are persistent feckers who don't get the message!

my dad (76) just told me that if he picks up the phone and it's PPI,he screams down the phone, just not so loud as to worry the neighbours

As we were being pestered to death after we had a new telephone line installed (thanks for selling my details on Talk Talk telephone company) I bought one of these babies. It is fantastic as you can program it to block international calls, withheld calls and any kind of auto-dialling calls en masse. Or you can block individual numbers by programming it to do it or just pressing a button on the front of the gizmo when you answer the call. It works like a dream and my mother-in-law was so impressed that she got one too.

It's the endless bloody recorded fecking arsing messages that PISS ME RIGHT OFF. All FECKING BOLLOXING DAY. Yet never in the evening - praying on people "they" deem to be less likely to be financially aware therefore easier to rip off? Why in the daytime and not evenings and weekends??

I don't get real people phoning - TPS maybe?

Caller: Hello MrBubblemoon, I'd like to help you save money on your phone bill
MrBubblemoon: Fuck off
Caller: Fuck you and fuck your wife
Mr Bubblemoon: Die [hangs up]

Caller: Hello, Mrs Bodbrade [or similar mangling of my name], how are you today?
BadBride: Lost in a valley of darkness, until I accepted the light of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into my heart. Have you repented of your sins and been born again?
Caller: Er, I was wondering if you'd like to save some money...
BadBride: Money?! Are you testing me, Satan??? REPENT! Before Mammon and the Princes of HELL devour your SOUL in eternal conflagration! Your no-claims discount will not save you.
Caller : [Click]....
BadBride: pours self a gin and tonic

Works for me, at any rate :)

Badbride or is that Bodbread? Think we should all memorise your conversation and churn it out for every caller. The cold call business would be on it's arse in an hour.