Nuisance calls

[Andrew]

Strange. None of those three groups have ever phoned me.

[Roger Hayter]

In my limited experience as a user, all large PABXs sold this century could present the extension number or any other chosen number, by a simple series of pre-dialling codes, or as a policy unless cancelled. Informing users how to do this and convincing departments that they should was were it fell down, in the NHS at least.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

All I can say is that I subscribed to TPS in my old home about 10 years ago. Every evening was a nightmare of phone calls from Asians, TPS did work quite well. In my new home I opted out of the open electoral roll as well as subscribing to TPS. Opting out does take time. I can't remember the last nuisance phone call I received.

[Chris Green]

I'm with you there John. The poor quality and plain unreliability of many mobile calls gets on my nerves, especially when the caller actually has a landline and is at home.

[S Viemeister]

I was very glad to have a landline this week - we lost power for hours, twice, due to an enormous wildfire (north coast of Scotland). After about an hour, the local mobile tower died. With the landline, we still had access to the outside world. Today, EE was working on that tower, and standard mobile service disappeared. My current phone does wifi calling, though, through the broadband I get with the landline.

[Steve Walker]

Presumably it can be set centrally? If so, simply set it up so some selected extensions send their direct numbers, others send the number of their department reception and the rest send the central reception number. Don't give individuals or departments the ability or the responsibility to do it themselves.

SteveW

[billj]

Most don?t, because that is so annoying. Mine just has a blinking led.

Sure, but that only works if you are near the phone.

Problem is that plenty of valid callers also don?t bother to say anything when they encounter an answer phone.

I hardly ever leave a message myself because most of those I call have more than one number that can be called and I normally try one of the other numbers if I get an answerphone. Even when there isnt another number to call, I don?t always want to be called back, I often prefer to try calling again later when it is convenient for me to do that.

[Chris Hogg]

Thanks for all the comments and discussion. I was with them this morning, and they did seem to be aware that they had to set up their phone in some way (see the various alternatives in the replies above) but were rather daunted by the manual and hadn't done it. I didn't offer, as I could see it generating more problems than it solved because of their age. I'll let their son do it, the next time he visits!

[billj]

All of those have phoned me. The hospital when I decided not to twiddle my thumbs there for 6 hours before they could do the blood test to see if the chest pain was a heart attack when I decided it was just the gallstones again, presumably to check if I was ok and hadn't had a heart attack.

The cops called me twice, once when they caught some stupid kids who had been apprehended walking around the streets with a wheel barrow, quite literally, filling it with what they could get from parked cars. To get me to identify what was mine.

The second time when some silly woman had backed out of the spot in the carpark and demolished the plastic bumper on my tow bar. I had rang them to get them to show up in person and had been told that they didn't do that unless someone was injured anymore. They did say that I needed to report it to the cop shop in person but I didn't bother because she agreed that it was her fault. Her car also had a massive gouge down the drivers side of the car where she had obviously run into something previously.

The doctor's surgery has mostly called to remind me about an appointment but has also done that when my GP who is one of the local gynos had been held up in the hospital with a difficult birth to tell me that he wouldn't be able to be in the surgery at appointment time.

They would also call me if a test result showed that they needed to do something about that result.

[Jethro_uk]

Until recently, one of my reasons for preferring to use my mobile was the ability to automatically record calls and have the recordings uploaded to the cloud (or a self server).

Then Google came along and broke it :( Particularly galling since it's one of the few apps I actually paid for - it was that good.

[Jethro_uk]

Well, yes. Of course not *all* outfits. Amazon, for example. Which needs to be factored into the landscape when people whinge about them.

[Scott]

I've had two calls to say my Internet will be cut off in 24-48 hours because of illegal activity. Am I suspected of downloading Jeremy Kyle perhaps?

[dennis]

Well its true, it would be illegal for them to cut off your internet.

[Dave W]

How about having your answerphone message give your mobile number as an alternative?

[alan_m]

That will be a big help to the spammers.

Currently my mobile is nearly free of cold calls which cannot be said of my landline.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Probably because it's more difficult to get free calls to a mobile.

[tim...]

well when you get old and suffer one (or more) of the usual set of old person illnesses, you will find that these people do need to call you

tim

[tim...]

, all large PABXs sold this century

But they don't like doing that, because people ring back and ask "why did you call me" and the central reception don't have Scooby

tim

[tim...]

you don't get nuisance calls from being on the electoral roll

you get them because your number somehow gets into the system as a valid number and scammers just share these lists around

Your number might get there because you reveal it somehow, but it could equally easily get there through random generation if you respond to that initial call.

As has been point out already. The scammer don't keep a list of bad responders. Once you are on the list you can be as rude to them as you like and you wont get taken off the list, so the next scamster will still call you.

tim

[tim...]

with a setup fee of 20p and 10ppp mobile calling is now much much cheaper

(and don't tell me I can get "free" calls from my LL if I subscribe into a bundle. I don't have a baseline use the phone that's enough to make use of a bundle, for the optional extra calls to be free)

tim