Dodgy phone calls

[david and julie]

Over the last fortnight I have had 2 phone calls, on both occasions the caller as said please hold the line I have a call for you. After a few seconds they hang off.

The same thing as also happened at my mothers house on 3 occasions over the last month.

I am on NTL she is with BT.

I presume others must get the same, anyone any ideas? is it a scam of some sort or am I being paranoid. I can't see what they get out of it.

 

[breezer]

funny you should say its happened to your mum, its happened to mine too

 

[AdamW]

Two possibilities on this one:

1) They expect you will 1471, then ring back. This will put you through to a premium rate number where they will leave you on hold again

2) A weird one which my great uncle was done by recently, the guy on the phone claimed they had won a prize or something. He kept them on the phone for ages and was very keen to keep them talking. When they got the phone bill, there was a £10 call. Turned out to be this guy ringing. I don't know how they did it, I thought to reverse charges the operator has to ask you.

I had number 1, on my mobile. Number rings up, as soon as I pick up it goes dead. I tried ringing back (at work, not my phonebill ) and immediately got put on hold. Thought "Hmmm, suspicious or what" and hung up immediately.

What was wrong with when 0898 and 0891 numbers were the only premium rates? Why do we now have so many codes? These scams rely on the fact that most people do not know they are ringing a premium rate number. And don't get me started on ringtone adverts on TV... Who would have thought that oneday people would be paying £1.50 for a midi file?!

 

[securespark]

There are several things you can do when faced with malicious or unwanted calls of any type.

1. When you answer the phone, say absolutely nothing. Wait. A genuine caller will speak first. If you hear nothing gently replace the receiver.

2. BT have an excellent service I subscribe to: it costs a few pounds a quarter but is worth its weight in gold: it is called "Choose to refuse". If you never want to receive a call from a particular number again, you can ask the system to permanently bar calls to you from that number. You can review the list and remove numbers from the barred list if you so wish. The barred caller gets a pre-recorded message like "The person you are calling does not wish to receive calls from this number".

3. Call the malicious calls bureau and tell them the details. Keep a log of call frequency, time of day, what is said etc, along with any CLID (caller line identitification) you get. If you are elderley or very distressed (these calls can make anyone very upset) let them know this, too.They can issue you a new number FOC, although I appreciate this can be very inconvenient.

4. Ask you phone provider how you can permanently bar your number from CLID, so that people only know your number if you tell them.

5. Sign up to the TPS (telephone preference service). They will put your number on firms' databases as a number NOT to be rung.
If you do get unwanted calls, tell the caller that you a registered with the TPS and they are breaking the law by contacting you this way. Advise them you will report them to the TPS. If firms are persistant, they can be prosecuted.

PLEASE REMEMBER - There is no need to suffer in silence. Your telephone company is there to help you, and if they won't, move to one that will.

 

[AdamW]

PLEASE REMEMBER - There is no need to suffer in silence.

1. When you answer the phone, say absolutely nothing.

You can't have it both ways, surely!

I got so annoyed with "Hey, do you want a free mobile upgrade?" that I developed a new tactic. You tell them "Oh, I am on pay-as-you-go" and they seem to stop ringing before long. No point in them upgrading you then as there is no contract to extend.

Also, I have found that the way to get rid of cold callers on the doorstep is to be nice, honest, and say "Thanks, but I don't want that". No point in getting stressed. And I can even get rid of religous cold callers by simply explaining my beliefs, saying it works well for me but "Thankyou anyway".

Alternatively, you could say something like "Well, I was in the middle of pounding Dave's a** but we could do with a third man, good thing you don't have a sitting-down job!" That would get rid of them.

 

[breezer]

its happened again to my mum, this time they asked for her by surname

 

[AdamW]

Sounds like Simon's suggestion of TPS is a good one then...

I hate it that companies sell on your information.

 

[securespark]

It's a huge business, selling lists of customers. HUGE!!

Companies can build up profiles of what householders are like, ie he's into gardening or whatever lets send him garden catalogues.

My best tactics to get rid of people are (for the d g salesman in the supermarket, or indeed any home improvement product ) "Sorry, I'm a tenant!"

To CC touters "Sorry I'm an undischarged bankrupt! Come and see me in 2 years time!"

To telesales " I'm sorry, the court has made me promise not to take on more debt until I've paid off the existing....."

But just lately I've perfected the "no excuses" approach. You can tell when someone is ringing to sell something, especially if you are in business, because the call starts "Can I speak with the manager/supervisor/ MD/ person in charge of stationery purchases etc"
I say "Concerning?" This throws them a bit, then they regain composure and say "Mobile tarrifs/electricity/gas/etc...." My reply "No thank you."

And I put the phone down/hit the red key while they are still trying to get through. It sounds rude, but I am perfectly polite, just very short with them.

And they do get p*ssed off because one call I had from the US, I heard "FU" when I took the phone away from my ear and was about to hit the red key. It's a demoralising job, but then so is sitting in an office trying to sell to people who do not want to buy!!

I used to be the "never say boo to a goose" type, but now I'm wise. Never rude, but nevertheless very firm.

You have to be otherwise your working day or day off or whatever is continually shattered with lengthy phonecalls.

All you want to say is:



GO AWAY!!!

 

[masona]

My best tactics to get rid of people

This seems to work for me.

Ring ring, (the phone normally ring )

Me: Hello,

Them: We are doing a re.... blah,blah,blah,

Me: Can you speeeak uuup I cannaeee heear you,

Them: WE ARE DOING A RE, blah, blah ,blah

Me: What did you saayyy ?

Them: WE ARE DOING A RE.......

Then put the phone on the side quitely and listern to them shouting on the phone talking to no one, stick the kettle on and enjoy your cuppa.

They will never pester you again as they put your phone number to be avoided on the database

 

[david and julie]

Spoke to NTL yesterday about nuisance calls. They operate an anonymous call barring service.

To activate, star 227 hash

To deactivate hash 227 hash

If the caller witholds their number they can't get through to you.

They do not charge for this service either (unusual these days eh!)
I've had no problems upto now.

 

[masona]

Would this work with BT or is it just for NTL ?

 

[david and julie]

Doubt it, as securespark said BT have a chargeable system in place so I can't see them doing it for nothing too. As I am with NTL I can't say for sure though. I'm sure someone will try and let us know.

 

[xxxxxxrich]

BT will do annonomus caller rejection as well. It's a pain sometimes though when people are genuine and have a hard time releasing there CLI because it's blocked by the PABX.
I have got the facility where you can block individual numbers from calling again (Not sure what they called it) it works well but if they called withholding CLI you never know which ones to unblock if one of them was genuine. We had silly calls from kids having a go at my daughter so I just hit the code and pin, that's the end of that! Try it from another phone, bosh blocked again! they give up after a while.
In answer to the original question about being told please hold we are you connecting you... It's probably a call center setting up a call to be connected to one of there reps. They anticipate that an agent will be available and make the call in the hope that they can connect it as it's answered. I think that if it fails it just goes back in the list and will be called until they get a response. Annoying!
You can always check the owner of a number at: http://www.ukphoneinfo.com/section/home/introduction.shtml This will tell you the operator that owns a number and the cost of a call to that number, if you want to complain you can call that operator direct...

 

[Dragonrider]

That's neat xxxxxrich, thanks for that one, added to my favourites.

Some years ago, my mother answered the phone, and pretty well burst into tears, thrust the phone at me and went into another room.

I, wondering what the #### was going on, spoke into the phone and could not believe my ears. The girl on the other end repeated what she had said to my mother: "You and your husband have won a holiday, all you need to do to claim it is.... " buy double glazing I think

I interupted her, basically saying that she had caused my mother some extreme distress, and myself likewise, as we had just returned from my father's funeral service and would she please GO AWAY!

"Oh, well, you and your wife have won a holiday..."

SLAM!


Nowadays, on the thankfully rare occasions I get a cold sales call, I interupt them to ask them to clarify their name and their firms name first of all. I refuse to let them get into their spiel, requiring that they then answer the following question. "Where did you get this number from?" No matter how much they waffle around the question, I firmly insist that they tell me where they got my number from.

If it was "auto dialed by the computer" then they must immediately remove my number from their computer dialer and under no circumstances do they have permission to pass it on to any third party under Section 11 of the Data Protection Act......

If they are still on the line after that......

 

[masona]

Beware of this phone number......

Last night this phone number 07780 647655 kept ringing us every half hour then the caller cut you off. I've been told the idea of this is, you use 1471 to find out what going on, then they put you on hold and bill you for £60 a minutes.

Cannot sort this out yet as BT helpline not available at weekend.............