Nuisance calls in the middle of the night

[southutsire]

Once every few months on a Saturday night we get a phone call on our home phone from a pissed bloke wanting to know 'Is that Maggie?' and failing to understand when we tell him Maggie doesn't live here and to please STOP CALLING US at 2am.

We rang BT and they have blocked calls from his mobile for a month, but after that we have to pay to keep blocking it! As it is a nuisance rather than a threat (I am 99.9% sure he is to be pitied rather than being malicious) we've been told it's not really a police matter. It only happens once every few months and we don't want to unplug the phone as I want my elderly parents to be able to contact me 24/7.

Is there anything else we can do or are we going to have to cough up just to get some peace?

We used to get phone calls day and night from people thinking we were the contact for something called 'voluntary services overseas'. We had to change our number in the end.

keep a whistle and blow it at him next time....it may help him remember that it is a bad number to ring!!!

or, take his number (if poss and he isn't withholding/ringing from a payphone) and start ringing him back in the middle of the night....he may get annoying enough to block your number saving you the payment yourself!

you could try calling him during the day so he is less likely to be drunk and try to explain whats been going on?

Thanks for the responses. I sort of like the idea of ringing him (I took a note of his number last time), but am reluctant to establish proper contact in case he is a bit unhinged during the day as well... might make things worse. But maybe we should.