Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => OT Knowledge => Topic started by: Poly Hive on 26 October, 2015, 03:24:35 pm
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We had a message left on the answer machine by a lad wanting a room for tonight. As I noticed the light blinking the phone rang with yet another sales call and so on hearing the message I couldn't use 1471 as the last call was the call centre. The youngster didn't leave his number as no doubt he is so used to mobiles picking it up he never does. Ho hum.
PH
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Alternative title: "Oldies and crap answering machines." ;D
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Answer machine works fine and the message says please leave your NUMBER.
PH
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Alternative title: "Oldies and crap answering machines." ;D
Or Oldies without Caller Display ;) ;D...
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Answer machine works fine and the message says please leave your NUMBER.
That's fine if the callers can remember their own number, and if they can speak clearly, and if you don't make any errors in transcribing it etc.
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Caller Display is a bit spendy but good for those who can't write, like me.
Also can be cheaper than grossly overpriced ring back.
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Alternative title: "Oldies and crap answering machines." ;D
Or Oldies without Caller Display ;) ;D...
That was my point. An answering device in this day and age has no excuse not to log CID along with the rest of the message metadata.
Well, unless your telco charge you extra for the service, I suppose. But as my CO505: Computer Networking lecturer used to say: "Use as little BT as possible."
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I think BT is charging me £1.75 per month for Caller Display but there are several reasons why I need it.
My Calling Plan can be a little opaque.
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Yeah, that's one of the reasons we ditched BT.
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It seems you can get Caller Display for free, if you sign up for a new 12 month line rental contract. Though you have to specifically request this, otherwise they will continue charging you as usual.
http://home.bt.com/news/btlife/get-bt-privacy-with-caller-display-free-11363844996657
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I got it free when I upgraded my 'Infinity' package but I'm not sure of the situation now.
These 'new contracts' rope you in to BT for a long time. They grab you by short hairs...
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In my day response #1: I'd have called again. Then I'd have turned up. Then, if there was no room, I'd have tried elsewhere. Failing all that, I'd have slept in my tent. And if I didn't have/couldn't be bothered with the tent, I'd have found a bench/hole to sleep on/in/under (see Llandudno Promenade 1985 for one of many examples).
The onus for getting a bed is on the person who wants the bed. Not the potential provider.
Unless selling beds is your business...
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We had a message left on the answer machine by a lad wanting a room for tonight. As I noticed the light blinking the phone rang with yet another sales call and so on hearing the message I couldn't use 1471 as the last call was the call centre. The youngster didn't leave his number as no doubt he is so used to mobiles picking it up he never does. Ho hum.
PH
Do you like sales calls? *
If not, have you tried registering with TPS (http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html)? On mobiles and landlines. We've been registered for years on the landline with complete success and after a couple of calls on mobile I found you can use it for those, too.
* you never know..
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Sadly TPS is a total waste of time these days, thanks to foreign call centres and number spoofing. We still get loads of junk calls, no idea who they are as their machine doesn't like talking to our machine, so its just a niusance activation of the machine by person or persons unknown.
The phone usually shows "out of area" or "private caller" and we ignore it (just as we do for most other calls, as the ones wanting appointments for Mrs W's business can just leave a message, as they invariably call just as we're sitting down to dinner anyway).
I do wish there was a way to send a signal back up the line to destroy their entire marketing system, though. If its legal to harass people, it should be legal to stop them.
However, on our Virgin line rental we do have caller display (still costs, but rather less than BT) and our phone logs all callers. I must confess if I ran a business of any sort, I'd want caller display, and phones that log the numbers.
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Yes we have TPS but as stated a complete waste of time for the Indian outfits.
We are not BT but on Virgin.
We don't see how call logging would help us nor the display as we get bookings on the phone from abroad so thinking oh look a foreign number is no help sadly.
Further the young gent phoned again last night made a booking with us and of course failed to turn up.
PH
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Sadly TPS is a total waste of time these days,
Not quite total, I was getting 2-3 calls a day, signed up to TPS and within a couple of weeks they had stopped completely.
Further the young gent phoned again last night made a booking with us and of course failed to turn up.
Which might explain his reluctance to give a number
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My way of dealing with unsolicited calls was to buy a Truecall unit (go google) which screens incoming callers. No unwanted call ever since. It wasn't cheap to buy, and was a pain to configure initially, but I've never touched the configuration screen since. I do subscribe to the 'web panel' but that's because I'm nosey and want to see who has attempted to get through to me. (It used to be 2-3 calls a day, now it's 3-4 a week, usually from off-shore numbers).
Highly recommended
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I do wish there was a way to send a signal back up the line to destroy their entire marketing system, though. If its legal to harass people, it should be legal to stop them.
Not as satisfying, but you can send a signal up the wire that will generally cause their auto-dialler to remove your number from the database.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IC_SIT.ogg
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(Snip)
The onus for getting a bed is on the person who wants the bed. Not the potential provider.
Unless selling beds is your business...
The youngster wanting the bed was a little silly not to leave his number, may have decided to continue ringing around, or may have had a good (or bad) reason for not leaving it.
Anyone running a b&b or hotel is in the business of selling (or rather renting) beds. A missed call, as this thread shows, can be a loss to a business.
Having said that, I don't have caller id because SO will not pay for it and won't get tied up with a long contract.
As for TPS, I'm a big fan. It works, but not all the time (international call centres being the biggest problem. Whenever I get an unwanted call I do everything I can to identify the company responsible, including making an appointment for a sales rep to call if appropriate, and report them to the Information Commissioner's Office. They now have bigger teeth and are using them.
I also add the offender to a list of companies I will never do business with. There is no way off the list - ever. Also on the list are companies which have been successfully prosecuted for unwanted cold calling by the ICO.
I encourage everyone to do the same. Unwanted cold calling will only end when companies learn that they will lose potential customers at an alarming rate if they break the law. With information so easily available from the Internet there is no need to pester anyone with unwanted 'phone calls.
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Sadly TPS is a total waste of time these days,
Not quite total, I was getting 2-3 calls a day, signed up to TPS and within a couple of weeks they had stopped completely.
As for TPS, I'm a big fan. It works, but not all the time
That's my experience too - been on the TPS list since I knew what my phone number here was going to be, and get vanishingly few calls. They seem to go in bursts for some reason - we'll get half a dozen over the course of a week, then nothing at all for four or six months.
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I'm on TPS but still get loadsajunk.
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Both our VOIP and (now defunct) landline numbers were on the TPS. The landline got an order of magnitude more junk calls, presumably due to being in a more established block (they're both Birmingham geographical numbers) for random dialling.
They all get sent directly to voicemail, via a blast of SIT.
Oddly, I hardly get any on my mobile. On a number I've had for about a decade.
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I don't get much spam on my mobile, also had for a long time, since 1999.
I don't tend to give it to organisations though, they get 0000 000 0000, so maybe less likely to be had by people selling it.
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Very few sales calls to my mobile either - had one about a month ago, and that was the first since I don't know when. I don't really have a problem giving it to organisations that might have a need to get in touch with me so tend to use my real number, even if their need is likely to be remote.
I *am* careful to tick or untick the 'no effing spam' box though, and especially the one that says 'don't flog my details to anyone, ever.'
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I'm on TPS but still get loadsajunk.
This. I've been with TPS for many years and still get national and international spam calls. I'm looking at one of those call blocking devices.
I also get spam calls on the mobile, but they have reduced in number, which may be because of frequent use of the 'Block this caller' function.
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I've just ordered a BT 8500 phone. Needed a new phone anyway, but this one screens calls before ringing.
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They come and go via my landline and mobile. Most PPI and other claims crap. I'm on TPS. I just hang up immediately.
I've no idea what my mobile number is. It's not like I call myself.
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I've no idea what my mobile number is. It's not like I call myself.
Except that the only context in which you need to regularly use a phone number these days is when giving your own to other people. So the only numbers I know[1] are my own.
Admittedly I do that sufficiently infrequently that I sometimes end up mixing them together.
[1] Well, apart from my Gran's from the days of rotary dial telephones.
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They come and go via my landline and mobile. Most PPI and other claims crap. I'm on TPS. I just hang up immediately.
I've no idea what my mobile number is. It's not like I call myself.
I used to have a printed sticker with the number on the back of my work mobile. No longer needed as I don't have a work mobile or, indeed, a work.
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The landline at the current R towers used to belong to a bed shop so when we first moved in we used to get calls asking about beds. Goggling the number and telling the various directories to remove it delt with that.
Work telecoms are plagued with PPI calls. My work mobile number has only ever been mine, is registered to my employer and is shared only with close family and within the organisation gets several a month. Unfortunately the security set up on it means that it only displays the caller as looked up in the address book if it is unlooked, so I answer too many of them. They do go away if we tell them that it is a government secure mobile and they have no right to ring it.
The office, unlisted, not through the switch board, wtshtf, red phone rings several times a day with PPI calls.