OneGuyFromBarlick

I'm sure we are all getting more unsolicited calls at the moment. I have been subject to the usual insulation offers and this morning had two calls from the 'Worker's Office' informing me I had a claim against my employer for various injuries. The favourite at the moment seems to be ear damage from excessive noise. No claim, no fee. Guess what my response was.....

Stanley wrote:The favourite at the moment seems to be ear damage from excessive noise. No claim, no fee. Guess what my response was.....

Pardon?

Stanley wrote:I'm sure we are all getting more unsolicited calls at the moment. I have been subject to the usual insulation offers and this morning had two calls from the 'Worker's Office' informing me I had a claim against my employer for various injuries. The favourite at the moment seems to be ear damage from excessive noise. No claim, no fee. Guess what my response was.....

I had three calls off that same company yesterday and two from them today, I don't think they will be calling me back soon after I told them where to go

I just tell them to remove my number from their data base. I am sure there is a number you can call to stop unsolicited calls.

I find that speaking in Polish or Russian can often help with the cold callers. If you detect the classic sign of a delay before they start their pitch, answering in one of the forementioned languages normally shortens the exchange. I hasten to add that I don't speak either but it's very good fun making it up!

Sometimes you can wind them up and have a bit of fun, occasionally I have started the conversation asking them stupid questions like if they would like to sign up to my East German pre-1950 Film Club before I listen to their pitch, quite often they just hand up.

The best way to deal with them, that I have found, is to just keep them on line, by talking any sort of nonsense that might be faintly plausible. Sooner or later they realise what is happening and then ring off....with a nice addition to their 'phone bill.

As I once mentioned long ago and in a faraway place (the old OGFB website) I just say “hang on a minute, there’s someone at the door” then I leave them waiting while I go off and do other things. Apparently they aren’t supposed to hang up first.

We don’t get many cold calls now as we’re signed up to the TPS (free) although call centres from foreign countries aren’t bound by it.

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk

It’s the sister organisation to the Mail Preference Service.

I'm registered with TPS and MPS but I still get a small number of cold calls and junk mail.

Apart from wasting their time, when I'm able - I usually ask can I have their details and once I have them, tell them that as I'm registered with the TPS they will now be reported for comitting an offence......cue rapid hang up or sometimes a grovelling apology.......which doen't stop me reporting them!

The junk mail just goes straight into the recycling bin.



I'm a bit annoyed that you have to register online with the TPS, I'm aware of a couple on elderly persons who do not have 'puters who need to register.......

Anyone had the "microsoft engineer" ring them to say that you have a serious virus on your 'puter.... ....???

Yes, I get cold calls. There's always a pause, then they start going on about something or other. I just say "sorry, I'm not interested" and put the phone down. I notice they usually start saying "could I interest you in such and such" again I'd say "no you can't, goodbye".

Little doubt that there are a lot of desperate companies out there trying to get money out of us and that probably explains the frequency of calls of late. I heard a bloke talking about Face book this morning on the news and he was saying he was visiting a marketing company and they showed him how, with one click of a button they could extract from Face book over 7,000 names of people who had expressed a liking for a particular brand of biscuit. Contact information like this is invaluable to the marketeers, hence the current vogue for Nectar points. I avoid them like the plague and this is why I never use Face book, Twitter or similar sites and never walk round with a mobile phone switched on advertising my location to the world. George Orwell ('1984') didn't predict the half of it! Big Brother is alive and well.

Definitely an increase in the 'your computer has a problem' scam over the last few days. Paul Lewis has been drawing attention to this and the 'wine investment' schemes. Some people have lost hundreds of thousand of pounds....

This is a nuisance. We have also put our number on the TPS and the MPS I have also registered my mobile with them as it would seem the pests have now bought mobile phone register. The occasional one slips through. BT say that they have no control over the overseas callers. We just put the phone down it seems rude but they are rude for disturbing us. Eileen

Best policy Eileen. Manners doesn't come into it.

Just had five minutes of excellent fun with a gent who wanted to see if I qualified for a new gas boiler. Before he could launch into his script I thanked him for his call and told him it was his lucky day adding that he had called on the last day of my exclusive offer of a new bathroom suit for his house. All I required from him was his name, address and telephone number and bank account details, I even gave him the option of paying by credit card. As extra incentive to take me up on my offer I told him that as it was the last day of my promotion I would only debit his card or bank account by £25,000.00 instead of the normal price of £30K. He had to complete the transaction on the phone though in order to qualify.

Strangely enough he didn't take me up on my offer and rang off.

I just ignored him....

That's wicked, Ian...but how satisfying!
When we were selling science books I had a cold call from someone selling double glazing. I told him I already had it but tried to interest him in buying a book on fish oil. He was so surprised and intrigued that we had a conversation about fish oil before he finally declined!

I always feel so sorry for the call centre operatives who are forced by economic circumstance to work as operators. Not a lot of job satisfaction or potential to develop in that trade!

Whenever I received a cold call in the past I used to worry that if I wasn't polite to them that they would say that I had accepted their offer just to get back at all the people that had said no and been rude to them ( I would be the straw that broke the camels back). Crazy I know. Anyway I haven't had one since giving up my landline phone.
I also have a Do Not Knock sign at my front window, but that doesn't stop charities or religious callers, it's only for business callers.

There has been a problem here Cath recently because fund raising businesses working for charities have been using some very questionable tactics reminiscent of the worst cold callers. Bullying, harassment and what amounts in some cases to persecution. The targets are often people who have already donated because their details are known.

It's as well to remember that the Telephone Preference Service only applies to sales calls, and not to surveys etc. Most of these are spurious, but some are from genuine market research companies, who will disclose their details for checking.
I still find them largely objectionable, and since they are not allowed to hang up, you can waste a bit if their time (and yours) if you're in the mood.

I regard 'surveys' as nuisance calls. They want my time for nothing......

And most of the surveys aren't much use anyway, even the genuine ones, as shown in that article by the BBC head of statistics to which I posted a link.

Todays Telegraph, `The kingpins who get rich from deluge of nuisance calls' LINK

The thing that strikes me is the similarity between the regulatory efforts to control these people with those used for the bankers. Don't bother with fines, bang the principals up in gaol, they will then think twice before doing it again....

*bump*

First point - I am registered with the TPS, and have been for years.
which seems toothless as it can do nowt about the overseas call centres, or even some of the home-grown pests.
Secondly, the call centres seem to work in waves, both overseas and home-grown versions.
It has got to the point I rarely answer "international" unless I'm expecting a call.
However, the "withheld number" is another problem.
I tend to answer these as the care system looking after my 99 (almost) year old father has a number of parts, several of which use switchboards which withhold the numbers - so I can't ignore calls. Anything I don't want gets short shrift !

Just recently I've had a few calls from representatives (call-centre based, I can hear the typical background noises) of the "telephone preference management system" wanting me to subscribe to their service.

That's a scam - registering with the tps is free ...

Last time they called I asked; loudly, repeatedly and politely; to speak to the call centre supervisor. they hung up !