Grrr!! Grrr!! bloomin unwanted phone calls......WARNING RANTY!!!

[phantomnamechanger]

what's your most recent/most annoying one and how do we deal with them?

Just now, making pastry (homemade meat pie), just about finished the rubbing in phase. phone rings. I HAVE to pick up because its the time that DDs would ring if their school bus had not turned up. Also DS is at a sports club and may have got hurt.
But no, its someone offering me a free service on my dyson I DON'T HAVE A BLOODY DYSON & NEVER HAVE! I have lived here 14 years, there is no dyson registerd at this number in my name, she expressed surprise that their data as wrong and said "so what brand do you have instead then?" and I said "NOT INTERESTED, GOOD BYE"

cheeky sods, they are chancers and trying to sell me one. LEAVE ME ALONE.

Ah that's better!

[steam coming out of ears emoticon]

I had one today. He said the government were still doing grants for solar panels and basically they pay for fitting, recoup the profits for two years and then after that any profit is yours.

There's no way you'd recoup the thousands of pounds it costs to fit solar panels in two years. My electric doesn't cost that much, let alone have that much left over in profit.

And then he asked if someone could come and see us and would my husband be present.

I said he was in Dubai. I am perfectly capable of listening to a sales spiel on my own. He said it was due to government regulations. Really?

I can't get rid of my land line as I have no mobile reception, on any network, at home.

My friend once told a young man who was trying to sell her a conservatory to come on round and give her a quote, he got all excited as she said she had always dreamt of having a conservatory but couldn't see how it could ever happen,
The caller was almost hyperventilating with the prospect of a sale until my friend said she was impressed that in this day and age they could build conservatories on the 6th floor of a high rise
He wasn't impressed

I work in Telesales. If you aren't interested in what they are selling, just tell them so and ask to be removed from the database. Don't hang up, that'll just get dispositioned as a hang up and you'll get put back in the dialler. Don't swear or get angry at the people just trying to do their jobs and earn a living.

RE: The Solar Panels, they could be part of the ECO scheme which is what we are doing currently. It's a government backed scheme being paid for by the big six energy companies.

RE the TPS. That only prevents cold calling. If your name and address turn up on the data packages that call centres but, it generally indicates you have agreed at some point to have your details used for marketing purposes.

And the obvious thing to point out is, call centres are effective way of reaching customers. Otherwise they wouldn't exist. And the government wouldn't use them to distribute such things as their energy efficiency schemes.

but Tucson the reality is that most companies don't remove you from their database if you ask them, no matter how polite you are. I always tick the opt out box on websites etc.

And also, it still doesn't solve the problem for people like my parents who might actually come to harm as the result of struggling up to answer the phone (or more specifically to get to the phone only to see on caller ID that they don't want to answer it). If a frail elderly person ends up in hospital with a fractured hip or something because they've been trying to get to the phone and have fallen, that's fine because the person calling was only trying to earn a living?

I used to get really annoyed with these calls and make sarky comments but now I just feel sorry for the poor people on the end of the phone. What a horrible, soul destroying job being hung up on the majority of the time. I don't have a landline so don't get many calls anyway but just politely tell them that I'm not interested when they call on my mobile. There's no need to be rude.

I used to get loads and loads of calls offering my compensation for a very minor car accident where I was stationary and another car went into the back of me at about 3mph. It was up to 3 or 4 calls a day - all with Liverpool accidents so I can only assume it was the same company.

Then they got 17 year old DS and his friends one day. One of them broke down in tears on the phone because he was so distraught about the terrible injuries I'd suffered and how the call had brought it all back to him. He was so upset he couldn't carry on talking and so had to pass the phone to another boy, who told the caller at length how insensitive they were and how much they had upset his friend.

Funnily enough, the calls stopped after that...

I always know it's a cold caller when I get asked if I'm Mrs

We're not married, despite being together 27 years, and even if we do someday marry I've no intention of changing my name.

So it's a huge giveaway for me that it's not a call I'm interested in.

But I've had a few using my name so have ended up listening longer to find out where they got the name from. As I've made sure to tick (or NOT tick, some of them are getting devious) the boxes that state I don't want to be contacted for many years now, it's clear they're getting my info from a very old list that's still being sold on.

I wonder what it will take to stop these recorded message ones or if I just have to tolerate them until they decide to stop. I answer them when I am in as various people I know have withheld work numbers and they don't seem to register anyway as when I am out they record the second half of it onto the answer machine!

The recorded messages are a different kettle of fish to what we do. I think a lot of the people we speak to are happy that it's actually a real person on the phone and someone from the same country as them that they can talk to, be easily understood and have a rapport with. I can't see how outbound call centres from countries like India to Britain can possibly be effective. Inbound is another story as generally customers don't have any choice in the matter.

Regarding old people who are struggling to get to the phone, the problem really isn't the people ringing them, they could just as likely come to harm going to answer a phone call from a relative as they could a sales call. They should have the phone (a landline, preferably) close to where they spend most of the time.

And if you ask an agent to take you off their database, they have to do so. If you keep getting calls from the same company (and make sure it is the same company, in the case of things like the Green scheme or ECO scheme there are tens if not hundreds of companies doing the scheme) despite doing this, report them. The industry is VERY tightly regulated these days.

I wasn't sure about the solar panel thing, it just pissed me off when he did the 'will your husband be home?' line. Do they ask married men if their wife will be home?

We get a lot asking for either the previous owner or the previous owners tennent. I say they've got the wrong number and they then ask who I am. I say ha, sorry, you didn't ask for me.

Tucson elderly people are often forgetful, they might forget to keep the phone nearby.

Yes, they could fall just as easily trying to get to the phone if a relative calls but if you get ten sales calls a day that makes it ten more opportunities for them to come to harm. The problem is with the callers, not with the recipients because if they just didn't call in the first place (as they have been asked not to, through TPS and through asking nicely) then they wouldn't be struggling to get to the phone. Still, it's all their own fault for being old and vulnerable

Also, the industry might theoretically be regulated but I have personally reported one particular double glazing company to TPS at least six times and still they ring. I've got an email from the Chief Executive of the company promising that I've been taken off their database and still they ring. Regulation doesn't seem to mean anything.

Dp is very brazen when dealing with cold callers, mostly he just wastes as much of their time as possible. 2 calls stick out in my memory.

With one for double glazing he started getting an elaborate quote for a fictional palatial house with 20 Windows. They eventually hung up.

On another occasion at his parents he answered a call for a 'Mr Mouse'. When they couldn't tell him which specific Mr Mouse they wanted he put the then 18 month old on. Who babbled to 'santa' for 10 minutes.

Tucson - it may be heavily regulated but that presupposes that people will report those that infract the regulations (the unscrupulous operators take the risk that they won't). It also presupposes that companies don't illegally withhold their number.

Which? certainly doesn't think that the problem is as minimal as you make out. I do recognise that the recorded/overseas calls are currently outwith the regulations' control

It is the number that is registered with the TPS, so the ONLY calls we should legitimately be getting would be from current suppliers (eg telco, energy company, bank). Dh and I always tick the "don't want to be contacted" box.

The fact that I get so many calls asking for "Mrs Dh's name" and have never EVER been known as that just proves how many companies are still breaking the law and BREEEEAAAATTHHE

And yes, I do take the time to report the call every time I actually have a number but why should I have to? . It is because of cold callers that I now have to pay for CLI.

Tucson polite UK based callers are one thing, rude UK callers are another thing (and they can be quite aggressive) but there is no way I am going to be nice to the lying scammers calling from India trying to sucker people into parting with large sums of cash.

It is a shame that, as always, there are people who know the regulations and work within them like Tucson yet everybody is tainted by those who don't/won't.

I don't mind the occasional call from a person but it is overwhelming at the moment and a lot of them show up as Private Number or even just a 0 on caller display

A couple of years after we bought our house I kept getting calls from a double glazing company. I told them we were with tps and they apologised and told me they got our details off their own database as windows had been purchased a few years ago by the previous owners.

I asked about guarantees etc and then asked them to make an appointment to come and repair broken catches and poorly fitted windows.

Never heard from them again.

My dm phone will ring and then cut off. She answered it once and heard "shit" before it cut off. She doesnt get many calls now. She is a bit nuts though and will keep them talking for ages.

Sorry - but as far as I am concerned, even "polite" UK based callers who contact me even though our number is TPS registered are rude

They consider that their time is more valuable than mine.

I've gone to the effort of registering with the TPS. They should have the courtesy of properly filtering their database.

littledrummergirl OT but double glazing guarantees don't transfer with owners so they wouldn't have been liable to come and sort out the issues anyway.

I had a cold caller who insisted he HAD to have my postcode before he could remove me from his database - I wasn't prepared to hand over any more details to him, but he carried on arguing his point until I put the phone down on the table next to me - and he carried on talking to fresh air for an impressive length of time before hanging up.

5 minutes later the phone rang again, and I just had a feeling that it was him again, so I answered the phone in french, and carried on talking in french, insisting that I spoke no English and couldn't understand a word he was saying, until he gave up and hung up on me.

I am usually much nicer to cold callers - I do see that they are just trying to earn a living, and if they are polite to me, I will be polite to them, and often have a bit of a laugh with them - as I did with the dyson service package salesman - but this chap was arrogant and unpleasant, so I felt no compunction about wasting his time.

Interestingly I have never had another call from that firm, so clearly he didn't need my postcode to remove me from their system!

I think treaclesoda's point about the effects, and the potential risks, of these calls to the elderly and vulnerable is the most important that has been made on this thread. I think that the telecoms regulator needs to do much, much more to prevent cold callers from calling elderly or vulnerable customers. It shouldn't be up to the customer to procure a phone that will block callers who don't record their number - there should be some system whereby your phone provider can prevent any cold calls from going through to such customers.

Like another poster, I can't get rid of my landline, as I have dire mobile reception here - we've tried Virgin, 3, Vodafone and T-mobile, and none of them are any good, down our road. If I want to send a text, I have to go and stand on the patio wall in the back garden, or on the front doorstep, and wave my phone in the air. Texts can get into the house though - which baffles me. How is it that I can receive a text, and yet when I try to reply from the exact same place, I can't get a text out of the house??

I had two calls on my mobile yesterday. One was for PPI and another about a accident I never had in 2009.

I was polite and said they were not revelent to me and both times they hung up on me without saying anything else.

Don't see why I should be polite when they don't bother.

get rid of your landlines!

We usually unplug ours at the wall. The amount of GRIEF we get for doing such a thing is unbelievable, though.
"Your phone's off again!" No shit, Sherlock.
"I could have fallen and died and been eaten by a pack of rabid dogs and you'd be none the wiser." or something like that
"I can never contact you. You're never contactable."
YES. WE ARE. We've got mobiles. So have you. Which you do know how to use competently.
I always answer my mobile. So not exactly uncontactable.
GAH.
(Sorry, that felt good )

I knew that, I dont think the caller did though.

If any of you have Samsung phones the S4 (and 5 I suspect) as well as the mini's and S3's can add a number to a reject list.

Phone > Logs > Click on number > Bottom left button to bring up menu > Add to reject lisr