Cold calls on a brand new land line

I had similar fun to this, I had a new line that was x-directory and listed with the TPS. I was getting 5-6 auto diallers calling me every night and then there was the randoms during the day. In the end I bought one of these:-

http://www.truecall.co.uk/

Not cheap at £100, but I have had it a year and it stopped all of them immediately from the moment it was plugged in! They do offer a subscription service (I've not bothered) but on the free trial you can see all the auto diallers still hitting the number but never getting through. Typically auto diallers hang up after a couple of secs if there isn't anyone on the other end. I think the remainder get spooked by a recorded message stating the call is recorded, we are registered with the TPS and then asking for their name. If they provide it then the phone will ring or if its friends and family you add them to the safe list and they never hear the message again.

It is expensive but it depends how much you value silence and if getting (in my case) 5 - 6 a night drives you bonkers.
 
What I want to know, is who the hell are the idiots that fall for these scams and think "yeah, I DO need a new washing machine"? If these calls didn't work, they wouldn't still be happening.
 
Mort said:
Anyone else complained to VM about this? In my eyes its their responsibility to sort this out. Also TPS will only work for companies that use legit marketing databases, if they have got hold of this number by other means thats not going to stop these types of calls.
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ugh. What on earth do you expect them to do?
 
Also, we complained to BT the first time we had them, and they stopped completely. Never had one after that, until recently getting a Homehub V2.
 
D D Danneh said:
What I want to know, is who the hell are the idiots that fall for these scams and think "yeah, I DO need a new washing machine"? If these calls didn't work, they wouldn't still be happening.
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What scams?
I only ever got cold calls from legitimate companies or charities offering legitimate goods and services at, usually, decent prices. Unfortunately I don't buy things in that manner so I will never be interested.
What is a scam, though, is certain UK companies circumventing the legislation by allowing thrid party, off-shore organisations for telephone based activites :mad:
 
When I had Virgin installed at my new place, the number they gave me turned out to be very popular :)

At 3pm every day I'd get a recorded message stating to call a debt collection agency urgently with the ref they provided.
At 3.30pm I'd regularly get a call from a school over the other side of town regarding the same 2 kids, and usually about court visits and absence.
At 6.30 every day for at least 3 weeks the same guy would ring me and ask for Trudie, and refuse to believe he had the wrong number. Same convo every day, in the end I was putting on a different accent every time I spoke to him.

The debt collectors eventually rang in the evening after a month or two, and after a quick convo pointing out the line was now registered to a different address the calls stopped. It didn't really bother me tbh since I was never in while the calls were made.

And the TPS costs money now doesn't it, I'm sure it used to be free?
 
The TPS only stops the legal advertisers. And when you can't talk to anyone because it's automated, you're stuck.

I have considered getting a truecall system, but i'm not sure how good they are, especially as my other half's parents have their number blocked, so it would ask them to say their name each time they phoned I think.

Anyone tried one?
 
The TPS itself may not stop companies from calling you anyway, but if they do then once you have the details of the company you just need to remind them that you're on the TPS and politely suggest they stop calling you. If they do it again then it becomes something Ofcom can get involved in.
 
Had a classic just now.

Them: You've been selected to win a holiday cruise in Florida blah blah. Press 1 to hear more etc. (I decided to press so I could ask for number to be removed which I'm pretty sure they have to legally?)
Some American: Hi Welcome to blah blah can I take your name?
Me: Can I be removed from your list please.
Some American: I can't do that without you coming to Florida first!
Me: I don't want anymore calls please.
Some American: Sucks to be you! (wtf?)
Me: **** you.

Put phone down lol. What idiots. I was polite until the last line :)
 
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I recently moved into my new flat, and had a new landline installed, with a new number, this was on the tuesday and by the wednesday I was already getting stupid phone calls, mainly the recorded message ones, saying I had won a cruise or some rubbish. I gave BT a call and had a bit of a rant to the gentleman on the phone. Not had one since...
 
Even though you have a new line, your number will have been used previously. For example my number is ex-directory, but I get calls from time to time for an old woman who used to have the number previously. That coupled with the fact that there is no privacy anymore due to "so called terrorism", and no matter what, you will get cold calls from time to time unfortunately.
 
malfunkshun said:
What scams?
I only ever got cold calls from legitimate companies or charities offering legitimate goods and services at, usually, decent prices. Unfortunately I don't buy things in that manner so I will never be interested.
What is a scam, though, is certain UK companies circumventing the legislation by allowing thrid party, off-shore organisations for telephone based activites :mad:
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My mum's been contacted by people asking for bank details pretending to be with electricity company or the bank.

She also get's cold callers saying she's won a prize and all she has to do is give her bank or credit card details and they'll transfer the money.

Trust me there are scammers out there.
 
Mort said:
cant believe you have to re-register for this service every year to stop these morons calling
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You don't. For residential numbers registration is one-off. You have to contact them to de-register. You only have to re-register every year if you are a company using their Corporate TPS service.
 
Same thing happenend when we moved premises at work & had our phone number changed in the new premises. First of all kept getting like 15-20 calls a day from the so called "customers" of this manufacturing company and we had no idea why :confused: then after speaking to one of these customers we realised that we must have been given a phone number used by another company. Then the actual company themselves got on to us about this & wanted to take legal action against us even though this was BT's fault! Luckily it was not as bad as it seemed because the number we had been given was only their call divertion number that is supplied to divert the calls to their main phone line.

After a couple of weeks or so BT sorted this & swapped phone numbers back round & gave us another phone number. Then the same situation happened again, keep getting calls from customers of another company but this time it was no way as bad. Spoke to BT about this again and they said the number they gave us this time will always stay as our number as the number given to us used to belong to another company who had very recently gone bust / liquidated / no longer trading etc. Anyway we have had the same number since but we still get the odd 1-2 calls a week from this other companies customers and also faxes sent to us!

Liam
 
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