Update: Calling time on withheld numbers

Far too many by far, sometimes up to a dozen per day. Gov appears to be powerless or unwilling or inept at dealing with this problem, particularly if calls are coming in from overseas.

Help, do something effective! Make a difference!!!

My elderly Mother is frequently getting calls from the green deal providers promising money savings. She is distressed and alarmed by this. She is now being told that it doesn’t matter if she already been surveyed for this it would save her monies to do it again. We’ve check on this and the deal is the same. They then seem to work through a lengthy questioner. Being polite my mother feels it’s rude to hang up and finds herself ‘hooked’. Maybe the government & council needs to sort it’s own house out here?

I’ve had six nuisance calls in last 4 days – four from India, claiming to be doing a survey and most irate when I refused, one from a car crash company, and 1 I missed. This is less than it used to be. My main number is ex-directory as well.

I believe the alleged survey calls are directed at getting information that will enable scammers to hack email and bank accounts, from the nature of the questions asked – about suppliers and things like your favourite colour. The only time I fell for this, thinking it was a real survey, I realised how pointed the questions were getting and misled the scammers or refused to answer. Sometimes these guys call 6 times a day for a week or so. Fortunately “Microsoft Service Centre” seem to have given up on me for time being. All these people use internet numbers and I notice these display now, though of course they are not real numbers.

The car crash companies are quite funny – they refuse to believe I haven’t been in any car incident and don’t have a car anyway. But they are still a waste of time and energy and I dislike having to get angry to get rid of them. I hope the new BT initiative will cut this down and that all providers, including mobile providers, do the same.

My husband gets withheld number calls from a number of medical teams (especially oncology outpatients dept) involved in his cancer care. They say they cannot reveal the number they are calling from or they would be inundated with calls that can be screened via the switchboard number. So sometimes we do answer withheld calls – although waiting for them to identify themselves via the answer phone and then answer the call is probably the best way. Perhaps there could be some sort of an awareness campaign for those sectors (like the health sector) that feel they must protect themselves from unwanted calls to ALWAYS leave a message and expect that if the person is home and hears who is calling, then the call will be answered.

Judith-I am sorry to hear about your husband and wish him and you the best. It seems though that different areas of the UK have different policies in relaying information to patients . I attend hospital regularly for various ailments but I have arranged with them and my GP to phone me using different methods from your doctors . MY GP uses a standard number that you use to call the GP surgery and the hospital calls via a NON_RETURN number -ie- blocked from calling them, as an ex-BT engineer whom has repaired hospital switchboards (CCS) call-connect systems I can assure you they are fully programmable it only takes minutes to do. Any telephone number connected to modern electronic telephone systems can be programmed any way you want- ie- no outgoing calls/no incoming calls /no International calls /the list is endless including exclusive use by executive individuals . If that isnt enough my own specialist writes direct to me via his personal secretary not via my GP whom he is not keen on. So I am completely mystified at your husbands specialists comments ?? .They dont even have to use a telephone number that would reveal the area they are in ,-call-centre numbers for one -diverted numbers for two even a made up number could be used. Just look at the spoof numbers used today( I am only using that instance as an example of what electronics is capable of NOT telling them to use that method )

They annoy the heck out of me

Companies should also be required to register their numbers on a central database or make them searchable on the Internet!

Most of the calls I get from withheld numbers are either from the local council, or local hospital. Most nuisance calls use spoofed numbers, numbers that are clearly not even valid.

I opted out of this particular race last year when I got a call screening phone, I still get the scammers call but they never get passed the screening process so the phone never rings.

I typically get around 2-3 nuisance calls a day most days, typically from the same 2 numbers.

I do think the change doesn’t go far enough, caller id needs to be free on landlines otherwise many people still want be seeing the numbers that call them

In this day and age with all technology you would think phone companies would be able to filter these calls. When receive a call to be able to press hash key or letter to let telephone company do not want to receive a call from that number again, and this service be free. Have to pay for callers number displayed on my phone, but what good does it do, as do not want to receive call from scams which most of numbers are as check them on google . One call got a while ago had about 13 0″s.

Just to note that ‘cold callers’ who use a number logged by my cordless BT phone may not in fact be using a ‘recognised number’ on ‘call back’ if seeking to reply to an expected call whose number is not already known to you. which is just as useful as ‘undisclosed’