Any of you work for, "People's lottery"?

[Ricard with an H]

I bought a call-blocker two/three months ago, amongst others this bloody People's Lottery use a new number for four tries at getting through to me. What is the point ?

Most of the telephone spammers within the UK are more troublesome than the international callers, Internet callers or number-withheld callers because you can block then all in one go.

So, these companies are so determined to interfere with our privacy they now have multiple phone numbers in just the same way as Internet spammers keep changing their Internet address.

Get yourself a respectable job and stop bothering me.

[oldherbaceous]

Well said, Richard, they drive me round the twist.....

[Ricard with an H]

So, it's not just Pembrokeshire ?

I will be interested to know how many different numbers they have, eventually I'll be able to hand out a list of numbers though they probably buy more but as I already suggested. What is the point of alienating the customers they are trying to entice ?

I won't answer any calls just to be rude to the person who makes the calls, I don't find it satisfying to be aggressive or rude to people on the phone or Internet.

Face-to-face, yes.

[peter]

I had a live person one of those, who rang me straight back four times despite being told on the first call that I was not interested. No more than five seconds between calls!

Third one told him "Exactly which part of 'I'm not interested.' don't you understand?"

Fourth, answered call and put handset under sleeping dog's nose for five minutes.

Snoring wheezy old dog recordimgs available £5.

[robo]

I bought a call blocker about a month ago its the best 50 pounds i have spent , to get it to work i had to get on to the line company in our case virgin and ask for call recognition this was provided free, when the occasional nusence call gets through if we dont recognise the number we dont answer the phone

[Geoff]

If I have both a number and a company name I report them here https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/nuisance-calls/
They shouldn't call from the UK if you are registered with TPS and I think this lot will do something eventually if they do.

[Primrose]

We're registered with the TPS so thankfully rately get these kind of calls although we do get some from overseas. More bothersome to me is the huge number of banking phishing scams I receive.. I have various phishing reporting email addresses of banks to which I forward them but I very much doubt whether they have the time, inclination or resources to investigate them all so am peobably wasting my time by bothering.
Unfortunately my email address is in the public domain because of community activities I'm involved in so it would be inconvenient to change in view of the large nimber of people who have it so I will probably have to live with the nuisance.
But why can't these people just so something useful and productive with their time instead ?

[Ricard with an H]

I thought we were registered, certainly I registered. Can it run out I wonder ?

From what I gathered it's a toothless operation that protects us from unsoliced calls, it's why call-blockers are so popular and call blocking is now part of the electronics on most phones I saw in Currys.

Even mobiles are available with call block.

What I also am suspicious of is homeworkers being paid to make unsoliced calls because of the nature of their innocuous telephone number. Businesses are being paid to create leads for other businesses and using third party or even pyramid systems, the few calls I have answered have liars at the other end.

It is also the best £50 I spent though once again I bought from liars. They also sell the same £50 device for £38 and describe it as repaired to get around pissing-off it's retail supply chain.

I mostly don't get unsoliced calls now though as call blockers get more popular other operators than Peoples Lottery will find ways to use multiple numbers so they get through but what is the point I ask, when and if they get through the chance of them getting business from you has diminished ten-fold.

I want to come back as a dog.

[Pa Snip]

Richard, much to my surprise a few years back I found that TPS did require people to re-register, I think at the time it was every two yeears. Not sure if that is the case now.

You can check if you are currently registered or not here
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/registered.php

It is illegal for any UK based company or organisation to make unsolicited sales or marketing calls without checking the TPS register.

Unfortunately the law cannot be applied to calls from abroad.

[Ricard with an H]

Thanks for that help and yes my phone number is registered with TPS though I still get UK numbers calling me, probably via third party home-workers. I no longer get international callers or VOIP callers because they are blocked by the prefix.

Using the example of People's Lottery They clearly have a system in place that uses either third party callers or multiple numbers they call from which amounts to the same.

The sad fact is that you could say I used to look forward to a phone call because I live alone five days a week and sometimes more, I don't think I'm lonely though friends have often intimated that I may be. Fact is my best friend keeps in touch by phone either from her work or when she is travelling. There have been occasions when she's needed help and on a regular basis she relies on me to administer things she doesn't have time for, and I do have friends who call.

Sometimes it's inconvenient to answer the phone but I make an effort because it may be important and people worry if I don't answer the phone.

It's all got to be a damn nuisance, an absolute invasion of my privacy.

[Geoff]

I was well pleased with a cold call this morning, this nice polite gentleman told me I had got a problem with my computer that I didn't even know about. He might have been the same one who called our 90 year old neighbour who has never touched a keyboard in her life and amazingly he knew she also had a computer problem.

[Ricard with an H]

I also had that one and he wasn't very bright, I turned it around by amusing myself with questions for him on the basis of his claims and he ended up terminating the call.

The very stupid ones always use my partners name when they speak with me, such is gender-equality these days that I have to be accepted as a Maureen. I'm accused of having a deep and quite load voice over the phone, Maureen ?

Yes, our original directory was in her name though I think banks sell our information on. I always get calls for Maureen M from investment and insurance advisory types, possibly because she retains a healthy bank account compared to my living from hand to mouth type account. She has investments, I don't. She has private pensions, I don't. Put two and two together and I figure her phone number is being sold on.

If you buy on the internet most transactions insist on a phone number, I think they are collated and sold.

Not many getting through now though Geoff and I always enjoy pressing that big red button or entering a new number into the 'Block-list'. In fact, I'm now getting fed up because no one calls me.

I have 10 numbers plus the prefix blocking.

[Primrose]

A personal panic attack/screech alarm by the phone is a very useful thing to have. Let it off close ro the handset and it ensures that the caller may need a few moments to recover his hearing before he can start bothering anybody else!

[Monika]

We have had this discussion on this forum before and I also know how annoying these cold callers are. Admittedly, we seem to get fewer now than in the past.

I may be a soft soul but I can't bring myself to be rude to them. It must be soul-destroying for anybody to have to ring hundreds /thousands of people and mostly get no or rude replies when that is your only income. So, I do put them off , sometimes with a white lie ("We have no computer"), but at least politely.

Only once, my husband was horrified to hear me saying on the telephone "Oh, p*** off", but that was in response to a recorded message!

[Ricard with an H]

That is also the way I work, I don't see the point in being rude to either telephone cold calling or doorstep cold calling though we are far to isolated to be subjected to cold calling.

Quite a few cold calls have been recorded messages lately so presumably it's getting more difficult to find people who will do live calls with the continuing risk of people being rude to you.

Thanks for sharing and discussing the problem, now I'll go through my inbox to delete all the invoices that have been made out to me and need my urgent attention. Quite a few legitimate businesses have had their e mail accounts attacked with a virus that sends out e mails too their contact list.

There are a lot of people involved in the business of being crooked via Internet and telephone you'll have to excuse those who's only resort is to be rude when the opportunity arrives.