Details over the phone...

[razamakaz]

If I get calls for home improvements (which I rarely do now I have the anonymous call barring), I just tell them I'm a tenant - they don't have a leg to stand on talking to you that way as you can't touch another person's property without their permission!

Anglian Windows were a real pain - we had their windows installed in 1998 and had EVERY SINGLE external door and window done, leaving nothing to be done. However, we still continued to get calls at least once a month for the next 7 years (until last year that is, when I got the barring service) asking if we needed anything etc. etc. I really had a row once telling them to take me off of their database etc. because this was now harassment!

Yet they still called. I said "there's nothing left to be done - what do you want me to do, knock a bleedin' hole in the wall so you can put a window into it?".

It still didn't stop them. I even WROTE to them complaining about the constant sales calls and that didn't work either!

[funky_fudge_factory]

Did you know that although companies shouldn't be given your unlisted phone number, they can legally buy lists of numbers which have been allocated geographically but have the final two or three digits missing? So if, for example, your area code was 01234 and your number was 567890 the company's list would show 01234 5678--. They then set their computer to dial the first set of numbers and increment the remaining digits from 00 upwards until someone picks up at the other end. The call is then handed off to a human operator who gives you the sales pitch. Or, if there is no operator free, you get an empty line (hence the silent phone calls).

So next time, instead of demanding to know how they got your number, you'll most likely already have your answer.

Yes indeedy - Sky are guilty of that (standby, I am going to rant again)

Unfortunately the system doesn't always work.. the computer dials the number and a human operator doesn't always pick up the connected call... so you answer your phone and are left with NO-ONE. Most frustrating when it is happening 2 or 3 times day, every day, for several weeks. One day however, the same number rang and some poor soul connected to the call The relief that someone was actually at the other end of the phone was too much for my wicked side to bear.... so of course I let rip. Poor sod. Needless to say, Sky have never bothered to call us again pmsl !!

I am nice, honest !!

[funky_fudge_factory]

During my brief stint in telesales (Yes, I used to be a harrasser, albeit for an hour)... I was handed by my Manager at an Olan Mills Telesales centre a whopping wad of pages absolutely FULL of phone numbers and tick boxes at the side.... when I asked where they get their numbers from, apparently they send the latest telephone directories to HQ in the USA where they pull the numbers from the directories and list them numerically rather than alphabetically. Been ex-directory ever since.