Stopping international cold calls. TrueCall?
heavymental
Posts: 2,076
My folks get at least 5 unwanted calls from international call centres a week on the landline. Not a major problem as caller display shows 'international call' and they ignore them. However, my dad is starting chemo on Friday and I'd prefer it if the phone just didn't ring as it's an unwanted cause of (albeit minor) stress. Has anyone bought one of these devices? http://www.truecall.co.uk/home.aspx They are already registered with TPS http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html but it seems it makes no difference to international callers.
Any other suggestions that don't involve answering the phone and blowing a whistle down it, or shouting obscenities?
Any other suggestions that don't involve answering the phone and blowing a whistle down it, or shouting obscenities?
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Yes, my brother got one for my 83-year-old mum, as despite TPS etc, she was getting loads, and she's too polite and too sensitive just to brush them off. Seems to work a treat, though it does seem quite expensive. Just needs a bit of setting up, putting in friends numbers etc, but no cold callers at all now.0
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Can you make sure it's just international calls that get blocked? Apparently, calls from hospital switchboards which show no number or my uncle who is a social worker for example, would also get blocked?0
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I'm not sure, but anyone can leave a message, I think, which you can pick up later. Obviously most cold callers won't bother, and you just delete the ones that do. Might be worth reading the manual: https://www.truecall.co.uk/media/1859/T ... Blocker.pd0
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If you know the number you should be able to call up the phone line provider (in my case this was talk talk / sky) and ask to block a specific number. After a free trial they charge something like 69p a month.
What I found is that after I'd blocked it for a month, when I lifted the block they no longer called.
More humorously I tried lots of different tactics on the phone to persuade them not to stop. Every day they'd call me asking if I'd had a car accident in the last 18 months.
I tried being polite, rude, swearing, saying I'll be back and leaving the phone for half an hour etc. I even spun a story where id say my whole family died in a crash. You could hear the $$$in their eyes. I got transferred to the caller's boss. Told him (with as much flowery detail as possible) how we were driving when my father got a call from the very same accident helpline as he was driving, and he got so angry with their incessant calling he crashed and killed my entire family.
Didn't work.0 -
I used to have an app on my mobile that was just a women screaming with a high pitched scream. Whenever I had a cold call I would play the screaming down the phone at full volume before hanging up.
I don't know if it stopped people ringing back but it gave me some satisfaction that I might have disturbed them and ruined their day.0 -
I have a call blocker that fits between the socket and phone, mine cost £30 from amazon.
http://www.call-blockers.co.uk/product/ ... l-blocker/
It's set to block any number that doesn't give a caller ID, plus a few others that have been a nuisance (the list is growing). I don't get international calls from anyone I know, so it's set to kill those too.
It wasn't the easiest thing to set up as the instructions were Chinglish, but it does the trick.
The older I get, the better I was.0 -
Capt Slog wrote:I have a call blocker that fits between the socket and phone, mine cost £30 from amazon.
http://www.call-blockers.co.uk/product/ ... l-blocker/
It's set to block any number that doesn't give a caller ID, plus a few others that have been a nuisance (the list is growing). I don't get international calls from anyone I know, so it's set to kill those too.
It wasn't the easiest thing to set up as the instructions were Chinglish, but it does the trick.
Ah, this sounds promising. I want to set it only to block international calls. I don't want to block numbers without caller ID in case it's the hospital switchboard. Is it possible just to block the international calls?0 -
Try what that bloke did a few months back and change your number to a premium rate one so that the callers end up paying you to call you. Genius, although possibly illegal.0
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Heavymental wrote:Capt Slog wrote:I have a call blocker that fits between the socket and phone, mine cost £30 from amazon.
http://www.call-blockers.co.uk/product/ ... l-blocker/
It's set to block any number that doesn't give a caller ID, plus a few others that have been a nuisance (the list is growing). I don't get international calls from anyone I know, so it's set to kill those too.
It wasn't the easiest thing to set up as the instructions were Chinglish, but it does the trick.
Ah, this sounds promising. I want to set it only to block international calls. I don't want to block numbers without caller ID in case it's the hospital switchboard. Is it possible just to block the international calls?
I don't know.
As I said, the instructions are very poor, they use terms that they don't explain and you have to make a guess at a lot of it. But I think that it's likely that it could be set this way.
The older I get, the better I was.0 -
Capt Slog wrote:Heavymental wrote:Capt Slog wrote:I have a call blocker that fits between the socket and phone, mine cost £30 from amazon.
http://www.call-blockers.co.uk/product/ ... l-blocker/
It's set to block any number that doesn't give a caller ID, plus a few others that have been a nuisance (the list is growing). I don't get international calls from anyone I know, so it's set to kill those too.
It wasn't the easiest thing to set up as the instructions were Chinglish, but it does the trick.
Ah, this sounds promising. I want to set it only to block international calls. I don't want to block numbers without caller ID in case it's the hospital switchboard. Is it possible just to block the international calls?
I don't know.
As I said, the instructions are very poor, they use terms that they don't explain and you have to make a guess at a lot of it. But I think that it's likely that it could be set this way.
Dropped them an email and they said that is possible. Just press 'block' (or whatever the button is called), when you get an 'international' caller. Seems like a good solution, cheers Capt.0
