Be Excellent To Each Other

What's the website you go to to get put on the register that stops you getting sales calls?

Shame there isn't one that stops you getting silent calls

Ta.

Who are you with? I've heard of that happening with some people who are on Virgin and Orange I think too.

Sorry, i'll try and breath louder.

Also, tps appears to do precisely cock all.

If you're TPS registered then whoever calls you is breaching the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. Report 'em to ICO and they can get fined a bit.

I think the problem arises because you give your telephone number to Company A and tick the "yeah pester me and allow third parties to pester me" box (or fail to tick the "don't you or anyone else fucking call me" box), and they then sell on your details to Company B. Company B assumes you're a consenter and they can call you despite you being TPS registered - what most companies don't understand is that TPS overrides everything except a specific explicit consent to the company calling you.

I managed to upset one lady that called by letting her go on with the pitch while I sat there making noises like 'uh-huh', 'yeah' and 'uh, ok'. The phone was propped between shoulder and ear while I was playing on the xbox.

When she asked if I was interested, I declined. She was very angry and asked why I had let her go through all that stuff. When I told her it's because I wasn't really interested and was playing video games she yelled and hung up. I think we were on the phone for over twenty minutes. I LOLd.

Which you can't do without wasting more time on the phone to BT or whoever because you don't have the number because they block it.

Considering the "Your PC has a virus, oh noes" people can get away with what amounts to intimidation and extortion through outright lying over the phone every day, I have little faith in the systems designed to tackle it.

There's various ways around 'illicit' calls:

- Truecall - http://www.truecall.co.uk/ (don't buy from the site though, search around for better prices)

- BT's 'Choose to Refuse' service

- A phone that can block selected numbers

Get caller id and voicemail. Ignore any number you don't recognize.

Me and my friends used to tell them we were really interested, then pretend to get a call on our mobiles, and ask them to wait for a minute, then put the phone on a table and see how long until they hung up. Chum X-files had one on waiting for more than twenty minutes

Of course, if they still get through to you and you want to have a little fun with them, you can always use this.

Being registered with TPS doesn't exclude 'market research' calls I found out today.



http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps/faq.html#17

Yep, and that explains why 90% of sales cales now start "we're doing a survey" then ask you three questions, then try and sell you something. Good going, regulators.

Also it doesn't cover forrins (which BT claim to not be able to block anyway), so they either farm it out to forrins, or patch the calls through forrins.

Mostly the unwanted calls we get are for people wanting to book Colin Powell and the WMDs* for [Seasonal Event], a band which hasn't had our number for years.

* Actual name obfuscated to stop you bastards anyone finding out our landline number.

Good name for a band though!

Also "Donald Rumsfeld and the Known Unknowns".

I too wish that the stupid phone calls would end, and the twats making them would fuck off and die...

...hmm, maybe I should give up this Samaritans lark.

I once lived in a shared house and every Tuesday afternoon, without fail, the phone would ring and the same person would be on the other end asking for so-and-so, who must have been a previous tenant or something. After six weeks of this, one day I just said 'No, he's dead,' and hung up. The calls mysteriously ceased after that.

They're really beginning to piss me off now. One called yesterday morning, and I told him to sling his hook, then hung up on him. The cheeky sod called back 20 seconds later, so I had to be more forceful with him.

Then had another one this morning, so I decided to have some fun instead of losing my rag. I asked him to hold while I traced the call, left him for 10 seconds, then asked him where he had got this secure number from and asked him if was he aware that he was committing a treasonable security breach. He made a quick apology and rang off.

Oh, superb!