To think that automated calls are dangerous and should be made illegal?

[AKMD]

This might not be so relevant in south-east England but here goes...

Long experience of automated calls with an 'important public announcement' turning out to be about how to write off my non-existent debt by taking out another loan or some other rubbish advertising something or other mean that I now hang up every time I hear a robot voice on the phone. If there was an actual emergency message, I would completely miss the warning. Examples I can think of include an explosion at a power station or chemical processing plant necessitating everyone staying indoors (happened around here a few years ago), madman with machine gun roaming the streets (ok, unlikely), civil unrest (very likely where I live when there's a football game on!) etc. Thinking back to the bushfires in Australia last year, isn't there an automated telephone warning system if your community is under threat and residents need to leave? What would happen if people got used to automated calls and so just hung up?

So, AIBU to think that such automated calls should be made illegal so that should a real emergency ever occur, warnings don't get ignored?

I stopped getting these and a lot of other shite when i signed up for TPS - if anyone's doing it then the one for junk mail worked for me as well.

I also think it unlikely that there would be automated phone messages in the event of a national emergency Maybe they happen more in less densely populated countries?

That reminds me I have been getting junk calls on my mobile - there was a big thing about them releasing all the numbers wasn't there - I need to work out how to take myself off that list too...

One of these nearly killed me yesterday. I kid you not. Leaning over to help dress DD who was sitting on stairs. Phone rang, I spun around and smashed my left temple on the large bannister post. Felt like my head exploded. And it was a bloody automated call. Now worrying that feeling a bit foggy in the head is a Sx of something more serious. Lock them up.

Imso: TPS can be used for mobiles too

I've never heard of automated emergency calls but agree with you about the recorded messages. However I think they are illegal. They are certainly obliged to tell you their head office details which they refuse to do. I used to take loads of these at work and when I wasn't too busy I would press the button for further information and interrogate them until they hung up on me without ever giving me any information about who they ware. So I have no idea how you can stop them.

I hate these. We get them where I live (in the south), too. They're really bad with elderly people whose memories are going a bit - the lady downstairs from me came is always getting excited because she thinks she's getting money, and my granny used to get very upset because she couldn't understand what they were on about and didn't realize it wasn't a real person on the other end. I really don't like that these calls are allowed.

We're on the Telephone Preference Service and still get them. I get them every day at work, too. My "favourites" are the ones in a bright and bouncy American accent. "Hi!"
Or there's the good old chestnut, in a more serious voice: "Please note; the content of this call may be important to you", which is my cue to hang up.

The TPS doesn't cover calls from abroad - maybe they get round it with the good old Indian call centre or something like that.

Never heard of automated emergency calls. Had never heard of any kind of automated pre-recorded call until the last year or so, when they've suddenly been coming thick and fast.

i get the occasional one, but generally i listen through the message, then get the name of the company and tell them to remove my name from the database, and that if i receive any further calls i will make an offical complaint. The same company has never called twice! (so far)

but no, i don't think a nationalk emergency would be communicated like that.

PorphyrophillicPixie thank you

np first thing I did when I found out about it was sign up my mobile, I get one call every few weeks rather than one every few hours now!

DEFRA sent out information about Foot and mouth using automated calls - in this instance it was fine, I don't see how they could efficiently give out the info otherwise.