Dodgy numbers

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Tinkers
Posts: 7240
Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 2:05 pm
Location: Reading

Re: Dodgy numbers

Post by Tinkers »

Kingfisher wrote:Register your number with the Telephone Preference Service. I hope this is not advertising. TPS is the official central opt-out register so that you do not get cold calls. They are not allowed to contact you if your number is on the list. I won't give out the website but you can look it up.
Great for UK based call centres, and it certainly cut down the numbers of calls we got, but unfortunately doesn't stop the foreign call centres. All my cold calls are from foreign centres. There seems to be not a lot anyone can do about them either.
Sally-Anne
Posts: 9235
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:10 pm
Location: Buckinghamshire

Re: Dodgy numbers

Post by Sally-Anne »

I find door to door callers more annoying. Jay cloths, painting / aerial photography of my house , a tray of 50 cod or fine dining to name a few. They make me feel the same as when I walk into a tiny shop with no customers and feel obliged to buy an incense stick or the like.
There is an official sticker that you can obtain from your local PCSO/Police station that seems to deter doorstep cold callers very effectively. We have had one in our window for 6 months now, and we haven't had a single one since then.

Before that we were plagued with energy company salesmen almost weekly, not to mention the veg man, fish man, tree surgeon, reformed teenage delinquent selling tea towels and the guy in the high viz jacket who just happens to have a few tons of gravel left over from a job he is doing "down the road". :roll:

Image

That one is Surrey Police, but we are Thames Valley. A quick Google Image search should find one that is relevant for your area, or generic. There are also plenty of alternative versions if you search "Cold Caller Sticker".

The only thing I worry about is whether it will put off the very lovely and elderly lady who has been collecting for the RNLI on our road for donkeys' years. :( I do hope that she knows we like her enough not to mind her calling on us.
Tinkers
Posts: 7240
Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 2:05 pm
Location: Reading

Re: Dodgy numbers

Post by Tinkers »

The woman across the road collects christian aid. She was a bit worried about knocking the first year we had the sign, but we reassured her it was ok.
ToadMum
Posts: 11945
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:41 pm
Location: Essex

Re: Dodgy numbers

Post by ToadMum »

I only pick up the phone for numbers I recognise, or landline numbers with a local area code. We did register with TPS once upon a time - seems fairly academic to me, but I have sometimes managed to scare inexperienced cold-callers off with the response that they are breaking the law by even thinking about ringing our number :lol:

And again, most of the calls show up as "International". I have plenty of friends abroad but most would use email / Facebook (well, some try...) / my mobile no. to contact me, or would have enough nous to leave a message. To my shame, I have been caught out by "Microsoft" , but eventually twigged when the caller got her "supervisor" to try to extract money out of me :lol:
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx
scarlett
Posts: 3664
Joined: Fri Jul 16, 2010 10:22 am

Re: Dodgy numbers

Post by scarlett »

Marylou wrote: Have to admit to being a sucker for aerial pictures, though. We've got two. :oops:
My parents have quite a nice one, but only bought it because you can just about make out my dad was.hing the car in the drive.

The worse door caller was a bunch of rough looking blokes who wanted to jetwash my drive with a special cleaner for 150 pounds :shock: they kept on and on about how dirty it was ( we had just had a hose pipe ban lifted ) so I said I like it dirty....after a bit of sniggering they kept on so then I said that's what I have a husband for....more sniggering and then they announced its only one - fifty and having just got up from a night shift, I was a bit blanky and said what? One pound fifty pence.......oh go on then....and they all gave me a dirty look and stalked off. The people who fell for it have dirtier drives then me now!
scary mum
Posts: 8841
Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:45 pm

Re: Is Big Brother watching me?

Post by scary mum »

Y wrote:Am I the only one who simply puts the phone down? Caller display is marvellous - I don't answer 'number withheld' or 'international' numbers, but call monitor them by listening to the answering machine. The callers rarely get all the way through the recorded message before they hang up.
I think you are on the wrong thread, Y, but we know what you mean :D
scary mum
mitasol
Posts: 2756
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:59 am

Re: Dodgy numbers

Post by mitasol »

scary mum wrote:I think you are on the wrong thread,
I've moved the posts to 'Dodgy numbers'.
aliportico
Posts: 888
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:19 pm

Re: Dodgy numbers

Post by aliportico »

I usually do put the phone down, but sometimes it's entertaining to see what sort of guff they cine up with!

I really should get a caller display phone though. Because I do tutoring, I have to answer every call and listen to the first bit politely, so knowing I didn't have to answer it would help!
yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Re: Dodgy numbers

Post by yoyo123 »

slightly off topic ( :oops: ), but when I worked night shifts I was plagued with door to door charity people who kept ringing door bell ( answerphone thingy) over and over again , unfortunately after being dragged out of slumber 3 days running , I was far from charitable..I suspect there is still a Christian Aid person in Cheltenham reeling from shock
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