Another phone scam?

[alexkp]

I am ex-directory, and have been very careful with giving out my number. But over the past couple of weeks I have been receiving automated calls.

I pick up the phone, there is a brief pause and a female recorded voice says "All our operators are busy but we have an important message for you. Please hold the line". Then music starts playing.

I hang up of course, but does anyone know what these calls are about? Are they legal? Are they a scam? How do I stop them?

This invasion of privacy is really getting on my nerves, as these calls invariably happen while I'm watching something good on TV or during teatime.

[darrent]

Sounds like a call centre to be honest and not a scam. They sometimes dial 2 numbers as the odds are that 1 won't be answered. If both are answered then they put one of them on hold.

[KITT]

Are you registered with the TPS:

www.tpsonline.org.uk

Cut's out most of it

[Thelemming]

Someone using an autodialler, however they typically hangup if no operator is available within a couple of seconds...

Since outsourcing to India costs pennies, these things will continue to rise.

As the company is 99% sure to be based offshore, they arent affected by the DMA code of practice, or any UK legal constraints.

Meaning that the TPS service is becoming rather toothless.... Once your number is on a database, depending on how its used, you may get more and more of these calls

[rude-boy]

Someone told me that what a number of auto dillers do is go:-

01905 770001
01905 770002
01905 770003

and on

and on

and on

Gits

[alexkp]

I find it hard to believe that the telecoms companies here can't protect their customers from this growing nuisance.

It seems to me that the massinve expansion in communications technology, whether it be voice or data, is simply meaning a huge and disproportionate growth in the abuse and misuse of it.

I don't think the phone and ISP companies are really facing up to their customer responsibilities.

If they don't, I can see that in a few years most of the world's electronic communication will be so corrupted and contaminated by this garbage that it will be rendered largely inneffective.

[quasimodo]

Next time they do it, wait for them to answer, leave the handset next to a radio and let them listen to canned music for a while before hanging up (and remember, they're paying for the call!)... Soon puts them off.....

Similar thing for junk mail through the letterbox - put it into an envelope, write their address on the outside then stick it in the post box without a stamp.... they get to pay for the letter they recieved which contains nothing more than their own junk..... and it only costs an envelope...

These sods rely on th fact that you'll be nice to them. If you play them a their own game they soon see why that form of marketing isn't a good idea...
Email is a bigger problem.....

[Raify]

quasimodo said:

Similar thing for junk mail through the letterbox - put it into an envelope, write their address on the outside then stick it in the post box without a stamp.... they get to pay for the letter they recieved which contains nothing more than their own junk..... and it only costs an envelope...

I've been using a similar method with junk mail, particularly credit card offers.

1. Take their pre-paid business reply envelope
2. Fill it with confetti, made up of tiny, ripped pieces of their own (or sometimes other comapnies) junk mail.
3. Mail it off, and chuckle.