Todays Phone Call

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Paulatic
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by Paulatic »

I imagine pressing 9 tells them you are a real live number who answers the phone.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Swallow wrote:Best advice I was given only works if you have a young child in the house. You give them the phone and tell them it's Santa

I don't tell them it's santa, since neither of mine think he exists except as a character in a book...

But I have given cold callers to my 4 year old - have to be a bit careful though, I listen in as well...
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mjr
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by mjr »

beardy wrote:I would not dare to press that 9. One of the old scams was getting you to press 5 (A BT service) to dial them back which happened to be on their premium rate number.

Isn't that a hoax warning?
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Mick F
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by Mick F »

Two phone calls in the last hour.
One "Unknown" to Mrs Mick F's mobile, and one to our landline (that the answerphone answered) then the caller hung up.
Neither of which did we take any action on at all.

Ignore them.
Mick F. Cornwall
gplhl
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by gplhl »

I've got a message that loops on my iPad I play, it's hold music and keeps stopping every 10 seconds to tell them that phone call is important to me, please hold the line. I leave it until they give up. I've had some hold up to five minutes.
drossall
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by drossall »

Most nuisance calls now come on our mobiles, maybe 50%. I've got an app to stop them on mine - it works on the principle of allowing people to identify numbers as nuisance callers, and reporting when the incoming call is from a number that has been so identified by a significant number.

However, I do wonder whether, ultimately, the mobile operators will see usage drop because of this. It's happened before.

It was inconceivable, a few years ago, that large numbers would do without land-lines, or do most of their electronic communication away from email (i.e. on social media). If mobile operators allow their services to become swamped by nuisance callers, their customers will, history suggests, move on.

Of course, people did not only move on from land-lines or email because of nuisance calls and spam, but it certainly didn't help.

And the operators could do something. Why do I have to get an app that identifies nuisance callers. Why don't they offer to block them for me as standard? Because of a short-term interest in getting the termination fees?
nez
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by nez »

What's the app? The ones I've used seem more trouble than they're worth.
drossall
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Re: Todays Phone Call

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661-Pete
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by 661-Pete »

My employers moved away from landlines purely on the grounds of cost - it was cheaper to install Lync on everyone's computer. They then realised that they had to keep one or two landlines on the premises in case of emergency. I don't think spam entered into the consideration. But I hated having to wear a headset plugged into my computer whenever I needed to use the phone - made me feel like a call-centre flunkey.
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Mick F
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by Mick F »

We don't get any spam at all on our computers. None whatsoever. Zero. Nil.
It's filtered out by our provider PlusNet before it even gets to us.

We have a Hotmail address that we use for internet shopping etc and that gets one or maybe two a day, but it's automatically pushed into the Junk folder. Rarely does any of it get into our inbox.

As I said earlier, we don't use our landline and there's an answerphone on it that answers the calls. We never ever pick the handset up.
Our mobile numbers are only given to people we know and we never ever answer a call that doesn't come up in our phone books.

Put all this together, and we are never bothered with junk, spam, or nuisance calls ............... though they do exist of course, it's just that we don't get them because our "system" rejects them.
Mick F. Cornwall
nez
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by nez »

Thanks drossall. I would use Mick s approach but my aged mum only users a landline and has her number blocked so people can't see it.
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mjr
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by mjr »

Mick F wrote:We don't get any spam at all on our computers. None whatsoever. Zero. Nil.
It's filtered out by our provider PlusNet before it even gets to us.

We have a Hotmail address that we use for internet shopping etc and that gets one or maybe two a day, but it's automatically pushed into the Junk folder. Rarely does any of it get into our inbox.

Both PlusNet (or BT, who own it) and Hotmail are a bit overzealous so they are filtering out some legitimate email too, but that might not affect you personally. Secondly, both BT and Hotmail are huge sources of spam/scam/malware mails themselves. Also, in the case of BT's own-brand service, last I checked, it also disrupts the sending mailservers if they falsely label too many emails as spam. Finally, neither firm seems to take spam reports from other postmasters seriously.

In short, I feel that BT and Hotmail are part of the problem, with a beggar-thy-neighbour approach to stopping spam. They don't seem to care too much about how much spam their clients send - only about how much they receive.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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Psamathe
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by Psamathe »

I've always found mail server SPAM detection takes some important e-mails into SPAM. so you end-up having to check SPAM as well as your Inbox - which all rather defeats the purpose of it. So I rely on my own e-mail client filtering rules (i.e. as I set-up). Result is nothing I want gets treated as SPAM and most SPAM gets detected and removed correctly.

But I believe the ISPs could largely stop SPAM is they wanted to. It's just that they can't be bothered as it would cost them (not much though). And for systems to work a large portion of the internet would have to do it.

Ian
TonyR
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by TonyR »

Personally I think SPAM filters are part of the problem. If they were all switched off and we were all subjected to the full deluge out there then pretty quickly there would be the political will to do something about it. But because the filters keep it at a just about tolerable level no-one has an incentive to do anything about it at source.
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Mick F
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Re: Todays Phone Call

Post by Mick F »

Just come in and the answerphone is flashing to tell me that someone has left a message.
I press the button only to find it's an automatic message about PPI payments etc. I deleted the message.

Then, out of curiosity because we're with TPS, I pressed 1471 and found that we were called by 01338 56836.

I Googled the number - nothing of interest.
I went to Say No to 0870 http://www.saynoto0870.com/search.php good site for info about companies and numbers, but nothing.
I tried Wiki, and it says 01338 is "unused".
I tried BT.com, and 01338 doesn't exist.

Therefore, whoever or whatever phoned us, is using a pseudo number that they may have hijacked.
Best I don't dial it! :lol: :lol: Goodness knows where I'd be put through to.
Mick F. Cornwall
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