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AIBU?

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Original poster

to think I will never be free from this person

79 replies

Mrscherrycake · 03/03/2015 18:49

NC for this as it will totally out me.

For the last eight years we have been getting calls for a Mr , these calls have been made by women, men, english and foreign but they never disclose which company they are calling from or show a number. Despite telling these people that Mr has never lived in our house and being promised to have this name removed from their records, the calls continued.

Now we have moved 300 hundred miles away and have a completely different area code and number we breathed a sigh of relief that we would no longer be bothered by these calls.

Imagine my horror when two days after our phone line going live I received a call for Mr *** followed by another one the next day.

How the feck can this be happening?

OP posts:
BalloonSlayer · 03/03/2015 19:16

Incidentally I read an article a while back about a woman who had had dodgy phone calls. She became extremely frightened by them and it basically ruined her life. Eventually the police did get involved and it turned out it was her best friend's husband. He had been really supportive of the trauma she had suffered and was totally unable to explain why he had done this to her - he just had. She said he was the last person she'd have thought would do something like that.

So to say "we have only told a couple of people" just means it'll be one of those couple of people.

BalloonSlayer · 03/03/2015 19:19

Yeah I think that's the point taxi, it sounds like a couple anyone would know and so frustrating that you can't quite remember who they are . . .

Sorry I don't mean to sound so judgemental upthread, I do think the Janet and Roy thing is quite funny so long as you know someone would not be freaked out.

ChickyEgg · 03/03/2015 19:21

We used to get cold calls all the time but we changed our phone to one that has call guardian on it. It's a BT one and we haven't had any since. It filters out calls by asking who is calling, if it's an automated call then it hangs up on them, if a human is calling they have to announce who they are and a message is then played to us so that we can decide to accept, block or send to answer machine.

ALittleFaith · 03/03/2015 19:23

We get this for 'George Taylor'. 'International' number, foreign people who just insist it's about his account. If you even ask who it is, they hang up. I just don't answer the calls now. Tempted to do Berryl's Crematorium though!

finnbarrcar · 03/03/2015 19:23

What number are they calling from when you do 1471? If they're with-holding their number all you have to do is contact your phone company and ask them to bar with-held numbers. They get a message saying "this number will not accept with-held calls".

We did this a few years back (we are with Virgin) I think there's a small charge for it but it's well worth it. We get practically zero nuisance calls now.

And yes, it can (sinisterly) sometimes be a person you know and trust mucking about like this.

oldgrandmama · 03/03/2015 19:25

Was just going to suggest the 1471 thing, then saw finnbarrcar, above, has done so.

FruChristerOla · 03/03/2015 19:29

If you're with BT, speak to their Malicious Calls Unit (or whatever it's called now). They take this kind of stuff very seriously. It happened to me many years ago now, but BT was brilliant - I had to go the Police to report it as a crime before BT were allowed to put a trace on my line.

But, as PPs have said, and the BT people I spoke to at their MCU told me that whoever is doing it, you can be 95% sure it's connected to, or will be, someone you know.

CupidStuntSurvivor · 03/03/2015 19:29

I second barring withheld numbers. After my parents split, DM started to receive nuisance calls. We all knew it was my dad being a shit but had no proof. Got them barred and he switched to being a knob in other ways.

GiddyOnZackHunt · 03/03/2015 19:30

We had similar in our old house for a name that wasn't common locally. I did get one call where I managed to get them to tell me the address that they had for him which broke the DPA :) Turned out to be well out of our STD code area but still the calls continued.
Until we moved house. We had to do something complicated to take our number with us but this has made me realise we haven't had any calls at all for him since.
Not that it's any help to you though.

HappyRacer · 03/03/2015 19:31

Why not say 'Yes of course!' and hand the phone over to DH next time? That way you'd find out who they are and what they want!

TendonQueen · 03/03/2015 19:31

I once had a spell of getting calls asking for a particular person, and got quite cross after repeated rounds of 'Is Bill there?' 'Can I speak to Bill?' and people seeming not to believe me when I said there was no Bill at that number. Eventually I asked more about who they were after and Googled. Turned out to be a psychologist who had given clients his number, which turned out to be one digit different to mine. He'd got his own number wrong. Once I spoke to his office they corrected it. So I would start by asking more about what they want with Mr X - the suggestion for your DP to pretend to be him is good. I can't account for it following you across numbers but maybe somewhere callers have been told that your old number has changed to this one

Sadly you can't rule out though the situation BalloonSlayer describes. If asking more gets you nowhere I would think about changing the number again and then gradually giving it to one person at a time so you can see at what point you start to get more calls. ??You could tell people the phone is out of order for a few weeks and then test people out in stages.

FruChristerOla · 03/03/2015 19:33

But the sinister thing for the OP is that she's moved house 300 miles away - and it's still happening.

ImperialBlether · 03/03/2015 19:37

I get these phone calls asking for "John" but it's a company (can't remember who) who get you talking and then try to get you to buy their products.

Have you googled "Phone calls from Mr *?"

Original poster
Mrscherrycake · 03/03/2015 19:38

The problem is that my DH works from home and gets a lot of calls from his office and these calls are number withheld so we cant have a phone that doesn't allow these calls.

My DH has answered before and pretended to be Mr *** but they then ask him a security question which of course he cant answer so they put the phone down and then call another time.

OP posts:
ALittleFaith · 03/03/2015 19:39

I can't Barr withheld numbers, I work at the hospital and they wouldn't be able to ring me maybe that's not such a bad thing

MadeInChorley · 03/03/2015 19:42

Can you buy a new phone and get caller display? That way you only pick up if and when you recognise the number on display or else you let it go on to voicemail. Let it be a simple and anonymous voicemail message, like "you have reached 0208 555 3214 please leave a message" not a personal one like "Hi, this is The MadeInChorley family. We're sorry but we're not in right now...." People will leave a message if it's really for you.

If it's a malicious caller and they never get to speak to you or annoy you, then they'll give up when they never speak to you. If they do leave messages each time for Mr.... Then speak to BT's malicious caller service.

With caller display, you will be able to see what numbers these Mr.... Hunters are calling from and bar them, or else see that they are always barring their number and again report it to BT and even the police.

TendonQueen · 03/03/2015 19:49

What happens if they ask for Mr X and say 'Who's calling?' If they won't tell you, you could try saying 'I'm sure you understand why I'm not passing on your call when you won't say who you are'. If they do tell you, then try 'What's it in connection with?' Or how about 'There's more than one Mr X, what's the first name of the person you're after?' If they give it that then gives you a whole name to Google.

bruffin · 03/03/2015 19:49

We used to get calls for a d....... It was on a line we didnt use and never gave number out although it was notex directoru. This went on for a week and caller sounded quite menacing. It suddenly clicked that d was a certain actress with a drug problem who shared our surname. Reported to police, bt, ntl etc and calls stopped. It wasn't until years later i found out how close she lived to us

fizzycolagurlie · 03/03/2015 19:52

We had this and it was people chasing debt. We had it twice actually - in the UK and here in the USA.

Both times the only thing that fixed it and made it go away was I phoned the telephone company and requested a number change. No more calls from the debt chasers after the unknown person / previous tenant or previous owner of that number.

Elizabeth22 · 03/03/2015 19:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

GemmaTeller · 03/03/2015 19:57

We had this for three years - they always asked for Mr Phoenix.

In the end we got rid of our landline and now only have mobile numbers.

ourglass · 03/03/2015 20:04

How strange!

ihatethecold · 03/03/2015 20:08

Well who the hell was it bruffin!
Spill the beans.

Oldraver · 03/03/2015 20:08

Are you with BT ? if so get their Choose to Refuse and you can bar this number if it has been withheld