Pro - Does anyone else's nest boxes get soaked in rain?

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I'm getting between 3 and 6 calls daily to our house phone - mostly silent and Out of Area or Private Caller. If there is a number I add it to my phone's address book and label it IGNORE so we don't answer it but the ringing is still an intrusion.

 

I'm with the TPS and Silent-Call Guard but it's not helping much so I've decided to turn off the ringers on all our phones. If someone really needs us they'll leave a message or call our mobiles. My mum will find that difficult though.

 

I don't know what else to do. I don't want to change my number.

Edited November 14, 2013 by Guest

[The Dogmother]

Sorry to hear that V. Depending on your provider, you ought to be able to get the numbers (if you have them) blocked by them.

 

The silent ones are usually dialled automatically by computer and then passed on to a salesperson if one is available, if not then they go silent, which might be what is happening to you. The only way to get rid of these is to not pick up at all, so your idea of marking them 'ignore' is a good one.

 

Hope you get it sorted.

[Alis girls]

TPS - frankly I find it a waste of time. We can check number now so just like you ignore them. My elderly dad found them upsetting - adv him several times its a computer but due to his slight vascular dementia he doesnt or won't take on board. Time the powers out there did something.

[soapdragon]

I share your pain! We use TPS which did actually reduce calls but I had one from a lady of....shall I say an Asian persuasion...the other day and, when I said we were with TPS she said she was allowed to call as she was only asking my opinion and we were nearly done. When I asked opinion on what and where she was from she just said that it was permitted and we were nearly finished....I persisted in asking WHO she represented and was assured, yet again, that it was only my opinion she wanted. After another few mins of this to-ing and fro-ing she rang off........I am still none the wiser as to who she was calling for or what opinion she wanted (I was SOOOO tempted to give her my opinion by YS was in the room!) Very odd!

[Leicester_H]

:, when I said we were with TPS she said she was allowed to call as she was only asking my opinion

Shes correct, I'm afraid. TPS only covers calls from UK when they want to sell you something.

 

We've been getting LOTS of out of area / International call recently. I let them go to the answering system.

 

H

[Chortle Chook]

TPS only covers calls from UK when they want to sell you something.

Another important thing I've learnt from Omlet I'm very bad at picking up the phone full stop and tend to ignore any international calls anyway as the friends I have from abroad don't seem to have learnt about time differences . The International calls aside, I have found the TPS to be useful and when I've had the odd cold call I've just said 'You should not be phoning me as I am on the TPS register'. They've always desisted. Guess I've been lucky.

[Cinnamon]

I have the home phone on permenant call minder now & just use my mobile for day to day use.

I have an app on it to automatically block any calls i don't want - works a treat.

TBH, if it wasn't for broadband, I would get shot of the home phone line altogether

[Charlottechicken]

I am registered with TPS and it did reduce the amount of annoying phone calls. However, I used to get fax machines calling me in the middle of the night so also registered with FPS (fax preference service!). This also reduced fax calls to nothing at night, but the odd one still sneaks through every now and then during the day.

 

I still get random calls though, and generally wait for the phone to stop ringing and google the number.

 

Many years ago I started to receive unpleasant phone calls from someone who knew my name, but then wouldn't hang up, so I couldn't use my phone until they had (sometimes it was hours). At that point I got myself a PAYG mobile, so I could still use a phone, and reported them to BT. It was a right faff, and they wouldn't tell me who was calling, even though the Police told me they should! I refused to change my number, much to BT's annoyance, but I wasn't going to do that because of some oddball

[Chortle Chook]

TBH, if it wasn't for broadband, I would get shot of the home phone line altogether

I sometimes wonder what the point of my home phone is. I have it really, like you, Cinnamon, just for the broadband connection, but my sister hasn't got a home phone at all (or a TV come to that) but seems to do everything including phoning and watching TV through the Net (blackberry and laptop). Not sure how that works

I'd be grateful if anyone can shed some light on this as I'd quite like to do the same thing but don't really know how to go about it and oddly my sister does not seem to have clue as it was all set up by a past boyfriend

[redbug]

TBH, if it wasn't for broadband, I would get shot of the home phone line altogether

 

I too, do not use my house phone only for broadband. It would be good to have broadband only and mobile.

 

Is there a way

[Charlottechicken]

You could rent a modem. OH has a modem for his studio, think it is through 3, and less than £20 per month. It allows internet access for up to 5 devices, and he allows students to hook up when they are in the studio, has the password on the wall. We take it on holiday, and as 3's coverage is pretty good, we've had both our devices working off it in the wolds of Yorkshire! It's a Huawei one, and I've seen OH's in the latest Tesco catalogue.

[Pearls007]

Spare a thought for those of us who don't get a mobile signal at home! Why I pay O2 £16.83 a month I really don't know - I can only use the mobile when I am out - and that isn't very often!

[majorbloodnock]

Have you thought of going ex-directory? It doesn't guarantee the calls will cease, since war diallers simply start at one number, then keep incrementing until they get an answer (then carry on again for the next sales person and so on). However, I've been ex-directory for many years now, and I get one unsolicited call every six months or so. I did find I was starting to gett sales calls a few years back, but got Brutish Terrorcom to change us to a different ex-directory number and it's been fine ever since.

 

This, of course, means I don't usually bother answering the phone, but let the call go to the answering machine. People who know us know it's better to use our mobile numbers to contact us, and we have call filtering apps on our mobiles. Landline is only really for broadband and as a standby if ever we needed to contact the emergency services (we don't have good mobile coverage).

[Cinnamon]

This, of course, means I don't usually bother answering the phone, but let the call go to the answering machine. People who know us know it's better to use our mobile numbers to contact us, and we have call filtering apps on our mobiles. Landline is only really for broadband and as a standby if ever we needed to contact the emergency services (we don't have good mobile coverage).

 

Exactly the same with us, only our home line is set to go to the answering service without even ringing, as we were getting many late night or early morning 'business' calls.

[The Dogmother]

The same subject has come up on another forum, and there's a link to this, which is funny.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

That's hilarious - what an imagination . I've only got to page 5 but might just save the page to read more later .

[Chook n Boo Mum]

I've got to the American Wave on page 17.....snorting with .....it runs to pg40 .....think I should get on with something more constructive now tho....and that does not include trying to find the Mexican Wave smilie!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I'm getting used to my "silent" phone - gives me a start when I suddenly hear "thank you for calling" from my answerphone but at least that reminds me to look and see if anyone real has been trying to get us.

 

I'm off to read some more of those Debitas calls .

 

I wonder if this is true ... (posted by someone on that forum). Let's hope so.

 

An outbound call center can ring as many times as it needs to in a day until it speaks to/gets what it needs from that customer... the way around this: - an outbound contact center can not call AFTER 25 failed attempts, Meaning: in our call center by law for our outbound dialling licence we can only dial a number 5 times in a day (if we have gotten the answer phone each time of that dial, after the 5th we cant dial it), but it can be dialled another 5 times the next day, for a total of 5 days until the number of the customer is removed from the system.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I'm off to read some more of those Debitas calls .

You only have to read as far as page 16 (in case you're thinking 40 pages will take hours to get through!)

[WitchHazel]

The same subject has come up on another forum, and there's a link to this, which is funny.

 

Excellent.

I only read zincoxide's posts, skipped past the others, so it didn't take too long to read.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Me too - he's a hoot .

[Alis girls]

hilarious _ I just cant banter like that. i have told cold callers I am out in the past and that I'm the cleaner, nanny, bit on the side etc - the kids were shocked as I brought them up not to lie but hey needs must.