Telephone cold callers, is it just us?

[Digga]

Or do they call everyone else at fking lunch time?

We run two firms and both seem to get a very high volume of unsolicited sales calls between noon and 1pm. WTF is it about? I'd have thought it a daft time to call - even if the person you want to speak to is actually in the office, they're either at lunch or trying to finish up work in readiness for it. Surely the recipient's attention-span would be slim at best and, at worst, you'd risk pissing people off, since a lot of SMEs are not so packed with staff as to have completely care-free and easy staff cover for lunch times.

[singlecoil]

I seem to get them more or less any time. I've now got caller display and a Panasonic system that actually calls out the incoming number (usually 'international' or withheld' as the phone rings. You soon get to know the spam calls and those I ignore. The voicemail comes on and the tt rings off.

[Digga]

Four between 12 and 1 today. Baffling.

[S10GTA]

We used to get loads, I signed us up for TPS and it has reduced the number by about 50%

[Simpo Two]

They seem to come in batches. If you ignore the first, or hang up, very often one or two more calls come in from different sources within an hour or two. eg one witheld, one international and one unknown STD. These days, unless I recognise the number, it goes to voicemail.

Remeber the days of junk faxes that used to arrive at 1.00am? The same scum I expect.

[Digga]

Simpo Two said:

They seem to come in batches.

I'd tend to agree. What is really odd is that we have two separate businesses and they seem to get targeted at similar times.

TPS is not worth a jot really.

[Simpo Two]

Digga said:

TPS is not worth a jot really.

Agreed. The way these bandits get round it is to buy lists of numbers from some place that sold your number to another place that sold your number that got it from somewhere else because once about 10 years ago you didn't see the tiny box to tick on p4 of the T&Cs.

[MrSparks]

We get a silly amount of sales calls, every day.

Used to be nice, now we're not!

Yesterday a lady called me up to discuss my phone line, I told her that I didn't have a phone or a phone line.... she was very confused!

[bigandclever]

Simpo Two said:

Digga said:

TPS is not worth a jot really.

Agreed. The way these bandits get round it is to buy lists of numbers from some place that sold your number to another place that sold your number that got it from somewhere else because once about 10 years ago you didn't see the tiny box to tick on p4 of the T&Cs.

I know this is slightly pedantic, but TPS is for personal numbers; it's the CTPS for corporate numbers. And you have to register every number, though you can specify ranges to make it marginally easier.

[C. Grimsley]

I get three or four phone calls a day from a company called alders, they sent me a diary in the post and now literally don't leave me alone, this has been going on for two week, they call me from a land lane, a mobile, then with held numbers.


Buggers, today I literally said please just get fked.

Carl

[Simpo Two]

bigandclever said:

I know this is slightly pedantic, but TPS is for personal numbers; it's the CTPS for corporate numbers. And you have to register every number, though you can specify ranges to make it marginally easier.

Fair point, I suppose because this is the Business forum it refers to businesses not domestic.

But I got my first business started by cold calling; there was no other way apart from useless mailshots. My beef is with the mindless low quality script-reading types.

[Digga]

Simpo Two said:

But I got my first business started by cold calling; there was no other way apart from useless mailshots. My beef is with the mindless low quality script-reading types.

Yes, and it's the corporate version I was referring to. TBF, the one thing it has done is drastically reduce spam faxes - almost none.

Simpo Two said:

But I got my first business started by cold calling; there was no other way apart from useless mailshots. My beef is with the mindless low quality script-reading types.

Agreed. There is a vast gulf of difference between a targeted, specialist call - say a steel wholesaler calling and engineering shop - as opposed to a blunt, bulk, scattergun type 'phones/utilities/printers call. There is also the approach which, as you say, if scripted as opposed to principle-based and logical, is utterly time-wasting.