British Telecom - Their failure to deal with Nuisance Calls, Silent Calls, etc in a satisfactory manner. I am harassed on the phone daily by ONE specific company, several times per day.

[NotQuintAtAllOhNo]

I am sick to the back of my teeth with BT.

I have registered with the Telephone Preference service. Twice. It makes no difference. I have spoken to BT customer service many times.

Why can they not do anything? The calls are mostly from withheld numbers or from abroad.

If I block calls from all withheld numbers, this will also cause problems. Not only nuisance callers use withheld numbers these days.

My GPs surgery do their outgoing calls from a withheld number. This means, if I have spoken to the triage nurse in the morning, the surgery cant call me back.

The only other thing they can suggest is blocking ALL international calls. I cant do that. I am from overseas. This means my family cant get hold of me. Or worse, my fathers nurse! Or from my mums carehome!

And that is all the BT can suggest. Neither solution will work.

Every day I get between 2-4 calls asking for a Mrs McXYZ. Mostly the calls are from First Call in South Africa. I have asked BT to block calls from them. They cant. I have even given them the number they are calling from, yet, they cant block it. I can block it, if I pay an extra fee. So I upgraded my service, and I pay the extra monthly fee. The calls keep coming still, as this First Call, which is a South African based call center who is persistently doing nuisance calls on contract from UK clients, clearly ring from many different numbers, but now, instead of saying the number on my display so I can block it, it just says "International".

Mostly. they want me to do my PPI claims.

1. I am not Mrs McXYZ.
2. I dont have any business doing any PPI Claims.

I have tried reason with them. I have tried telling them that Mrs McXYZ has died/moved/never lived here, can they please update the record to reflect this.

I have tried to put the phone down next to my tv so they can listen to the news.

I have tried ranting and screaming telling them I will sue them for breaking international telephone regulations for harassing me, because numerous calls every day IS harassment.

I have tried talking goobledigook and sound like an utter loon, in the hope that they will just strike me off the list as a time waster.

I have tried politely telling them that I have already done my PPI claims, so they are wasting their time calling me.

I honestly dont know what to do.

We are spending a fortune on telephone bills, calling our family overseas. We have a high end BT broadband package. But I think we have no other option than ending our relationship with BT, getting A virgin or other broad band account, do skype calls and use our mobile phones. Because this is getting beyond ridiculous, and BT is less than helpful.

Any one else with similar experiences, and advice what to do?

Oh, and today I had a new one. Some bloke from the Iranian Community of London, calling every number in the phone book to inform about Iranian breaches of human rights.

A worthy cause I am sure, but our number is listed with the Telephone Preference Service, and should not receive such calls at all?? He was also asking for Mrs Mc XYZ.

Personally, I am ex directory, because I dont want anybody to find me!

It seems like I might have to change my number then.

I hate to have any dealings with the BT. They are pretty horrible.

We have not had internet for a week. When we called to complain we were told an engineer would call us within 2 days. He called Sunday morning, so after 4 days but within 2 working days. To tell us he would be here on WEDNESDAY! I have my internet through a dongle, and pay a fortune, on top of my broadband charges.

I would bar withheld numbers. Surely if someone like the dr rings you they get a message saying this number doesn't accept withheld numbers and then they can redial, it must be a common situation.

I wouldn't change numbers. My dad gave up his landline recently and moved to mobile use only, partly because of this problem. I called it recently out of habit and someone answered, so that number and all it's associated nusicance calls are with someone else now......

Personally I hang up if someone doesn't speak within half a second, those auto diallers always have a delay. My friends and family know to speak promptly!

NOTQUINTATALL....a lot of us are bothereD by calls from abroad. a chap sued one of the companies recently> but it aint easy.

fizzybeerandsausages

Ive heard that 'press 9' bit but haven't because ive been worried about it connecting me to a high rate number or something!

OP changing your number may or may not help, I have done that for other reasons and makes no difference, I am also ex directory and always have been!

I don't understand how you can be called up by the Iranian bloke from the phone book but be ex directory? He sounds like a random nutter rather than a call center though.

We're ex directory, on TPS and are religious about ticking the box on forms. We still get the odd nuisance call, but not very many.

Is it possible that Mrs McXYZ is signing up to things and deliberately using a fake telephone number so she doesn't get nuisance calls?

I keep getting calls from a company called UK Today doing a survey. I normally do surveys as I feel sorry for the staff, it's not a nice job etc. However one of the questions this company always ask is would you be prepared to sponsor a puppy for Guide dogs for the blind.
I always say no as I don't want more calls and several times the caller has said 'That's a bit mean, the blind people will be very cross with you' at which point I put the phone down but today I snapped.
I've complained to the charity and they were appalled and are looking into whether they have commissioned this or if it's just a company using their name to make them seem legit. They do ask other questions like who are your energy suppliers etc.
Has anyone else heard of this company UK today?

thecat, obviously he was not calling for ME, but for Mrs McXYZ, like the rest of them!

I am ex directory, but whomever she is/was, clearly isnt/wasnt.

I never do surveys. I don't think asking for information makes cold calling any better, and since they're likely to sell on your details, it probably makes it worse.

I use one of these and it's very effective. It has various ways of screening unwanted calls automatically but letting wanted calls - even anonymous ones - through.
www.truecall.co.uk

They are absolutely shite. My phone number is apparently similar to the number that Sky boxes dial automatically when they have a fault. Some of them have a fault that means they don't dial the fault number correctly and instead dial me.

BT say they can't do anything about this.

Sometimes people ring me to say that my number is appearing on their bill, and want to know who I am (the box is persistent and rings 10 - 12 times before giving up).

I don't do surveys. Because either it's a fake survey, where they lure you in and then try the hard sell, or they collect that info and send it off for others to try the hard sell. It's my personal info so no, I'm not dishing it to all and sundry, thank you.

Apparently the 'surveys' thing is because companies doing surveys and market research are exempt from the TPS rules and can therefore call you. If you go through a survey and at the end they start the hard sell, you can complain to TPS and the company gets it's knuckles rapped. But I can't be bothered to go through it all and just hang up.

Now I cant even get an outside line at ALL!

It is infuriating isn't it? I am registered with TPS but am gradually getting more and more of these. I suspect they are from abroad as some of them are barely understandable english.

If I am in the mood to toy with them I will keep them talking (just because I assume it increases their costs), if not I just say "Sorry not interested" but I did get some angry jabbering from one last week before he slammed the phone down

GP surgeries often have a withheld number because there is another line to the one patients call for appointments, etc. If it is not withheld people start ringing it to try and bypass the other line when it's busy. Our surgery has a "dummy" number that shows up but cannot be called back.

If I change my number, how do I know that the NEW number wont be riddled with similar problems??

Try it and see...it won't cost you anything.

For the record, I was plagued with about 4 or 5 recorded message calls every single day.

I changed my number 8 months ago and I've not even had one.

You need 'Choose to refuse'... BT may give it you for free for a while if you say they are nuisance calls

I have reached a point where I just don't answer my landline. I am sure they will stop calling me eventually. When I move I might not bother with a landline at all.

I have signed up for chose to refuse, it is not making a difference.

I've got one of the Panasonic phones which can block numbers, the automatic PPI ones seem to keep changing to new numbers but I keep blocking them and it has cut them down considerably. It also reads out the number as it rings so you don't need to get out of your chair to answer them. It hasn't solved it but it has made it a lot more bearable,

I bought one of these babies last year and it is absolute bliss having it. We used to get pestered by overseas calls but you can block all sorts of calls using this and now I never get any withheld calls - including overseas calls - and any calls that I don't want that have a number can be blocked individually as well. I am a complete evangelist about this device although I have absolutely no connection to the people who make it. It was a lot more expensive when I bought it too so I think it's a bargain at this price.

I get this all the time too, it sucks but after five years it doesn't bother me anymore, I have fun with them now like putting cheesy music on and leaving it for ages. In my case they claim to be a debt recovery company looking for someone who is not us.

When they ask for Mrs xyz Say you will go and get her and just leave them hanging. I get a lot less calls now than I used to......

I think the biggest problem is that I am actually working from home. It means I have to pick up the phone when it rings. My working day is therefore disrupted 4-5 times by calls which are not for me. I dont have the energy for cheesy music or annoying them. Sometimes I do, but most of the time, I just feel my blood starting to boil. And to calm my self down, and waste more time, as I come to mn. It works. But I lose time, and waste time.

If I was office based, I would avoid those calls, purely by not being home!

I have a lot of sympathy, OP. I work from home, am registered with TPS, and get loads of cold calls from abroad (two a day on average, so sometimes more, sometimes less). It's often "we are doing a survey" or "we are from the Windows technical department" or "have you been mis-sold PPI" - all the usual stuff. I've tried stringing them along, shouting at them, being polite to them etc - usually these days I just put the phone down. You could try blowing a whistle down the phone at them, though there is an argument that this could damage someone's hearing, but then again, if you're at the end of your tether...

By the way, I'm with Virgin, so I don't think it matters what provider you're with particularly. I've never complained to them because I have found them useless and unhelpful in other ways.