Iright reports:
'Never mind the G8 summit, I have tried to make my home impregnable to the host of right wing, late night, sales, cloaked by 1471, nuisance telecommunications callers and have to admit defeat. At present it is not illegal to dial a random phone number, state to the caller ‘you have won a prize, call me back on xxx number’. Should you call back you may get charged several pounds a minute and you might also win a plastic bracelet rather than the promised world cruise. No laws broken in the UK at present. Should you too be scunnered with such callers complain to: 0800 500 212 (free call business hours) Or log onto:
And return the .PDF form If you have won the cruise I suggest you send the Gurn a postcard
P.S. Understand Queen Elizabeth may be seen off Nairn this weekend on her way to Invergordon (this is the boat not the woman herself (as far as I know))'
I think they get round it now Iright by phoning from overseas. We're on the no list but still get them ringing up from the UK as well. I usually say can you wait for a moment and then leave the phone off the hook for ten minutes.
ReplyDeleteIt is a problem, maybe one for our brand new MP: I see he has asked another written question down the road, this time concerning the Gurkhas.
I have a thing on my 'phone line called "choose to refuse" (costs about £4 a quarter I think) which allows me to bar any caller I don't like, even withheld numbers. The only ones it will not work for are the international cold-calls offering/selling (as your write) their so-called cruise-prizes!! The worst aspect of these is that even if you hang up right away, as I always do, they stay on the line for a couple more minutes - effectively blocking incoming and outgoing calls; I wish something could be done about that. During the last election at least two of the political parties used international calls to cold-call people - I personally had calls like this from both Labour and SNP.
ReplyDeleteekim sends the following info fae Seattle:
ReplyDeleteOur problem here with that nonsense has literally gone away with the "no-call" list. Those caught calling numbers on the list face a fine of $11,000 per incident. A company was just fined over a million for such.
The other way of minimizing that is with caller ID. If you get an out of area call that you can't identify, you can just let it ring.
Another favorite is if you answer and it is obvious "one of those" calls, ask them what relationship they had to the deceased!