Can you see the number that’s calling you?

This is a step in the right direction. I seem to have come up with a simple, no cost (to me) solution. All calls to my landline are answered by my answerphone after two rings. My message tells callers that all calls to my number are screened and if the call is for marketing or research purposes it will not be answered. If they do need to speak to me leave a message with their phone number and I will call them back. Nuisance calls have dropped from 5 or 6 a day to 2 or 3 a week! Its been worth the ridicule from friends.

I agree that CLI should be free, and enabled by default. Also the penalties for making scam/nuisance calls should be much more severe. I know there are plenty of call blocking phones and gadgets on the market (I have a Panasonic one, which is brilliant), but I really worry about the elderly/infirm and those who are not as sharp as they once were for whatever reason.

I have an elderly relative who needs her phone, and can just about manage to press the buttons to ‘dial’ a number, but even putting a name and phone number in the phone’s address book is pretty much beyond her now. She could never cope with the complexities of a call blocking phone, and I am not always around to help. I do hope the Government will take a hard line with these scammers, and good luck to Which in their efforts. A very important and worthwhile cause.

When will our legislators and champions wake up and get a grip. I’ve just read the note and links in my Which? The Weekly Scoop and I’m appalled at what i can only describe as the wilful ignorance and willingness to put up with misinformation by vested interests and interference or possibly misinterpretation by/of the EU Privacy Directive.

As NFH and others have pointed out the CLID is data, not a ‘service’ and does not entail a cost of any kind to the Telco – except that we might choose to refuse to accept a call and that would mean they would not get the rather small payment that they get weh we answer a call. Yet, there it is in Hansard, the assertion that the Telcos are put to cost and trouble in providing this spurious service. They are not.

Then, even worse in my view, their Lordships were told that the EU Privacy Directive dictates that the calling party should have privacy and it is terribly weighty matter making exceptions to that ‘rule’. Sorry your Lordshits I think that is the wrong way round. It is we who are bombarded with calls that we cannot identify who require privacy and not the various interests who have either a suspect reason to cloak their identity or who think they are some kind of ‘secret service’ who should have the privacy.

As for ‘requiring companies making direct marketing calls to use CLID’ well, that alone will have a miniscule effect. Every reputable company that I know already does disclose because they would like you to ring back and continue the dialogue to a sale.

It is the rest, all organisations of any kind, who should be made to send their CLID. That includes charities (a major pest for my very elderly parents), public sector bodies, police and regulatory bodies, banks and financial institutions. Otherwise two things will happen. Many organisations that presently pester us will simply claim that they are not making a marketing call, merely soliciting donations, conducting a survey, disseminating government information (as businesses are now with the RHI) etc. etc.

This will do nothing for my sister in law who has two elderly relatives about whom she might receive emergency calls at any time and who has to make multiple calls to find out if a call she unavoidably missed was – the hospital, the surgery, the nurse, the care home, the sheltered housing warden – all these people cloak their numbers and all but the nursing home frequently fail to leave a message either because they do not know that their CLID is switched off or in the mistaken belief that they are the only ones to do this.

Privacy should be about we, the people, in our homes and not about the EU or our own government dishing out ‘privacy’ to organisations. We should work outward from that and think very hard about exceptions. Indeed, having thought hard I cannot think of any organisation that I consider to have a right or need to hide their number.

Hi all, today the Which?-led Nuisance Calls Task Force announced its recommendations, including holding senior executives to account if companies break cold call laws. You can read more about the 15 recommendations here: http://www.which.co.uk/campaigns/nuisance-calls-and-texts/know-the-issue/

We’ve also invited Communications Minister Ed Vaizey to update you all on what the Government is doing about nuisance calls. You can talk to him here: https://conversation.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/nuisance-calls-task-force-recommendations-ed-vaizey/

A very interesting article on reputable companies farming out “debts” to an agency who then bombard you with calls:
http://www.mukaumedia.co.uk/becky-fuller-01256-306797-cars/

I trust that the Govt. task-force is on the case with this abuse.

Telephone service providers must be made responsible for stopping unlawful calls, and provide imformation to the regulator oboist those who flout the law,I fail to see why I pay for a system that ignores my specific instructions, and then what’s to charge extra to give me some protection.
A company providing protection would attract masses of new customers.

Which? is in the curious position of being a business needing to sell memberships and a business for representing the views of subscribers. It seems to me that subscribers take a very much harder line than Which? itself presents via the Task force it headed at the Govt.s request.

The NHS should use CLI, because it is a public service provider and many people want to block numbers that don’t .

I agree, we should not be harassed by callers who withhold their number. Fortunately, I discovered the BT8500 but it should not be necessary…… sadly it also stops necessary calls from my Dr’s and hospital.