International Calls

[Pat Blunsden]

Anyone got a way of dealing with these calls which come through day and night? The calls come up as 'international' on my phone. Mostly silent, often a recorded message beginning 'Hi there', and also fax calls during the night. Yes, I can put the phone down and I always do, but it's very annoying when you have to stop doing whatever it is your doing, especially if your hands need washing before you touch the phone! The fax calls come through starting at around one o'clock in the morning. I can't take the phone off the hook in case I have an emergency call regarding my mother. I'm on the TPS which is pretty useless for national calls, let alone international, and I don't have a fax machine!

Pat

[DonnieC]

Yup, I think most people everywhere get these call.

Now, we don't answer calls which display 'Witheld,' 'International,' 'Out of Area,' etc and it's got so bad we no longer answer calls the number of which we do not know! We now reckon if it's a genuine the caller will leave a message and if we know who it is, from the part message left, we will pick up!

But, both my wife and I's employers are local authority who come up 'witheld.' Also we have friends and relations who are genuinely international. We have told the various agencies that need to know this.

We are also registered with the T.P.S. but it still doesn't matter. We still get the calls!

If responding to companies who ask to let the person you speak to on a phone or on the web and they ask you to opt in or out of receiving 'information' - select NO, and, or, tell them.

This also applies to the recent Register of Electors posted out. Not opting out the 'Edited Register' could also land you with unsolicited calls, mail, emails etc you don't really want!

Anybody with an answer to this problem please post here - don't phone, or text, or email!!!!

Hi Pat, I posted this some time ago and have every sympathy with you. We still apply the 'non answer technique' to these calls. Also, if asked by companies, with or without trading partners, can your details be passed on to other 'interested parties' you should answer 'No!' Also ticking or unticking boxes to indicate the same on online forms - easy to miss!

Sorry, I've got no solution to your problem but I have to say that the problem does SEEM to be getting better. Good Luck!

[Pat Blunsden]

Thanks for that Donnie. I sometimes let the phone ring but I find it rings again when I don't answer! These bl**dy fax calls are the most annoying. I never know if it's about my Mum, and I also don't want it to wake the whole house. I had one today which must have been from the UK as the number looked to have been withheld. I think I'm still in business directories so that probably complicates things even further.

[DonnieC]

Just a wee warning re spoof email received this morning from a 'David Hill'

He claims to be my last hope in extracating himself from Ukraine having been robbed at gun point.

I don't know of any 'David Hill' - if you do be aware that this maybe not the one you know - it's a spoof - you've been warned!!

[jimcee]

Here's a little story -
About 20 years ago we had a home exchange with a couple from Hong Kong.
They lived in one of those high rise apartments, and had a lot of fancy gadgets, if which we were unfamiliar.
Anyway, at about 3am one morning the phone rang. Not surprisingly we were in bed asleep, but with the time difference between Uk and Hong Kong, there was the possibility that it was someone from home phoning us.
I struggled awake through from the bedroom to a little room they used as an office to discover a FAX machine (which I was unaware they posessed) chuntering away.
Obviously not for us, so I retired back to bed. In the morning I found the FAX had spewed out a couple of pages of unintelligble Chinese.
This has been my only experience in life (of a fairly long span) of FAX, and I would suggest that it probably serves very little useful purpose to the ordinary punter, and is unlikely to be worth the cost of the service.
Not a lot of help, I agree, with unsolicited phone calls from the Indian Sub-continent.
It will not stop them, but I have found some satisfaction in playing them at their own game.
They have a prepared script and if you take the initiative, they get flummoxed.
"Oh Hello, what's the weather like where you are - has the Monsoon arrived yet?"
"Well, what are you going to try and sell me today?"
"Just a minute while I get my 5 year old daughter, to speak, I cannot make out what you are saying"
" My house is on fire at the moment, so unless you are the Fire Brigade, I'm not interested"
But, of course, these callers (who are just paid a pittance for their time) are not the real culprits - it is the companies who employ them, that should be drummed out of business, and it might be useful to have a published list of companies who employ these tactics so that we could be aware who the real villains are.
That said, the counter argument is that they are providing employment of a sort, to the local population, and feeding mouths which might otherwise go hungry.
A dilemma.