Unknown numbers

[The Medway Handyman]

To highjack the Crazy phone call thread, like many here, I don't answer unknown numbers calling my mobile.

Surprising how many companies withhold their numbers but never leave messages.

Had a card through the door week before last, registered letter to be collected. Due to the location & opening times of our local sorting office it took me an hour & 70p in the meter to pick it up.

It was from my van insurance company basically saying 'your direct debit didn't go through, we want £400 NOW OR YOUR INSURANCE IS CANCELLED".

Been with them 6 years, never missed a payment before. They had apparently been calling the mobile & not left a message.

I realised what the problem was. For 5 years I've had a Lloyds 'trading as' account but in January I formed a Ltd Co for tax reasons & opened a Barclays Ltd Co account.

The cunning plan is that I personally pay all the van exps & claim back

45p a mile from my Ltd Co. I decided to use the old Lloyds T/A account to do so.

But of a c*ck up, SWMBO cancelled the wrong DD.

Slightly miffed at their attitude, I called them, paid the months balance (using a card from the Lloyds account) and told them to reinstate the DD.

Apparently they couldn't do that, because a DD had been cancelled from that account, I would have to use another account. I somewhat forcefully reminded the droid that I was the customer, I'd been with them for 6 years, had never missed a payment before, they had just taken a card payment from that account, I decided which account I would use not them - and if that were a problem I would simply change insurance companies.

To compound the problem, she put me on hold while she spoke to a supervisor - and I had to listen to a selection of songs by The Monkees.

Surprise surprise - they could set up a DD from that account after all.

An hour & 20 mins of my life wasted when they could have left a message for me to call them....

[Tim Streater]

That's a plus in my book.

[Part Timer]

Sorry to hear of your experience at the keyboards of the droids! I understand why people like yourself stay with an insurer year after year, but do you approach them as a new customer or get them to match other quotes? It's just in my experience people who just renew pay over the odds. A possible solution to the DD pain would be to pay it in one go (even on a 0% credit card if you can't take the single hit, then pay off the balance monthly which should work out less than your monthly DD with interest effectively charged at typically 29%.

[Brian Gaff]

I now turn off voicemail on my mobile as no sod ever left a message so the can just ring my landline and leave one there where returning it costs me less. Brian

[tony sayer]

How do you know thats not going to be a customer calling from work perhaps where they don't have CLI?..

Ought to have a decent broker. Ours sometimes offer a better deal from another insurer they seem to have some clever software that puts your detail around automatically as I believe some companies offer better deals for older drivers than others etc.

And they wouldn't come up with that bollocks re can't take direct debits etc as they know we'd be off elsewhere before the phone was slammed down.....

[The Medway Handyman]

Because they would leave a message & I would call them right back.

I do check every year, but never seem to come up with anything much better.

[Lobster]

Or customers (who for whatever reason have their number withheld), who've now taken their business elsewhere?

(Personally, I don't withold my number but have given up *ever* leaving voicemails on mobiles apart from family and friends - far too many people either never pick them up cos it costs, or say they never got the message, or whatever)

David

[Ron Lowe]

So YOU choose to make yourself un-available on the number you've given as your contact, and it's THEIR fault...?

[Steve Walker]

I have had problems (repeated every 12 months) where I get numerous silent calls per day for a couple of weeks - often at inconvenient times, such as in meetings, while driving or while getting the kids to bed. Their number is witheld. My phone provider has confirmed that it is a faulty autodialler, but refuses to release any details to me, only to the police. The police refuse to look into it as they have huge numbers of such complaints. So far I have had to put up with this for four years. All they suggest is changing my number, but I use it for both personal and business use and changing my number would guarantee me losing business. I cannot ignore answering withheld numbers, as I receive many legitimate calls (including from my wife at her workplace, my bank and numerous agencies) that show no number.

My personal ideal would be for it to be illegal for companies to withhold their numbers. I would not require them to use the real number for each phone, but at lease a single number per company, even if only linked to an answerphone that announces who they are and how to get in touch!

This would also allow automatic call rejection of known numbers.

SteveW

[fred]

In article , Steve Walker writes

It's a plan but the current vogue is to spin the presentation numbers regularly when answer rates drop off.

Helpfully they are currently using 0844 prefixes and I have no valid callers using that.

I wonder if Ofcom could be persuaded to adopt the DVLA concept of disclosing registrations/numbers to anyone having a legitimate reason for requiring it. 10+ silent calls would hopefully meet that criteria.

[Jules Richardson]

"That's a plus in my kindle" really doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? :-(

[John Rumm]

Assuming that the number is actually available... many will be international calls from VoIP lines anyway.

[philipuk]

Make it a legal requirement. If the number is not available automatically put in place an automatic system that makes the caller dial in their number before the call is connected.

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[Tim Streater]

And then there's the witticism in Private Eye where they hint that if your first name is Miles, you'll have to start calling yourself Kilometres.

[John Rumm]

In which country?

Something a consumer could do, but I can't see a national telco running with that...

[grimly4]

Yes, Kilometres O'Toole doesn't have the same ring to it.

[Owain]

You might need to update your website details then with Co. Name and registration number :-)

Owain

[Steve Walker]

I actually have a letter draughted, but this is about the time of year that it happens, so I'm waiting for that as more ammunition.

No. They just stay silent.

I also find it annoying that most international numbers are suppressed, we have family in Ireland and dealings with companies using foreign call centres, which we cannot distinguish from telesales calls without answering. We know that the Irish calls do send the number, but the UK system hides it "as they cannot be certain that IDs from abroad are genuine." We do see the IDs if they call our mobiles.

I once missed a very important call from my local hospital when driving in France (I was on holiday, as I'd just been told that I had cancer and did not want to lose the holiday in case it was my last. Luckily it turned out that their diagnosis was wrong.) The call was about an appointment for an investigatory op to determine the grade and stage of my "cancer." Luckily, although the French system suppressed the ID, the number appeared for a second on my hands-free kit and I recognised it and so could call back.

SteveW

[Chris J Dixon]

I presume it is some sort of attempt to get round the ban on silent calls. A case of "Say something even if it's only 'Goodbye'".

Chris

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

Some mobile phone companies don't (for some reason) display caller ID from VOIP calls. (Orange is OK but some others never seem to display) As more and more call centres realise the benefit of making calls over the internet (multiple calls/lines rather than 1 telephone line per call) significantly cheaper call costs (even free calls) perhaps you might want to consider changing mobile phone company to one that displays caller ID from VOIP calls... or start answering calls with no ID knowing it's most likely a real call.

Pete