# survey phonecalls, unsolicited "cold calls" etc.



## davfran (13 Apr 2008)

Sorry if I'm posting this in wrong forum. Lately we have been getting phone calls from non Irish callers doing a survey. They speak so fast initially I never got to  hear who exactly they were doing the survey for. Having refused to do the survey they are very persistant about ringing back, now I just hang up before they get started. Has anyone else got these calls and if so what is the scam?


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## NicolaM (13 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Hi
This might not necessarily be a scam, per se, it may be merely 'cold calling', trying to sell you something or other, in the guise of a 'survey'. It is a possibility that these are actually Irish companies, with outsourced offices to a different country. Or indeed, Irish based companies with non Irish staff. 
Maybe at the start of the conversation, you should ask them to repeat what company they are calling from, and if it is still incomprehensible, to get them to repeat it, just so you know who's doing this.
If they were unsolicited calls from an Irish company, you can stop them by registering a preference to not receive them. There's information about this on [broken link removed]
I don't know how you can block call like this if they are coming from other countries though.

Nicola


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## davfran (13 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Thanks for that NicolaM, when i checked caller id it read unavailable!!!! If they call again I'l do as you suggested will keep you posted


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## Gunship (13 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

My tactic is to appear complety enthuseastic for the first couple of minutes then ask them for their home number, when they ask why, explain that you would like to phone them at their home at some very inconvienent time


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## Aoileen (13 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

We got lots of these calls in previous house we lived in.

We used to say that we were house sitting and not the resident and they always apologised and hung up!


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## DavyJones (13 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

When I lived in the UK, I rang a number and registered my phone number. Stopped getting cold calls as i was taken off list. It worked for over a year and after that I would get the odd call, they would always hang up when I informed them of my registration and questioned how they got my number. For the life of me I can't remember the service name or number! Is there anything like that here?


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## NicolaM (13 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Hi,
The info about how do do that is in the link on my post above. 
Nicola
PS Davfran, you don't need the actual number of the company who called you, you can get _all _Irish originated cold callers stopped. Just contact whatever company you pay phone line rental to, and ask them to register your number with the National Directory Database, stating that you do not wish to receive cold calls. 
After a period of 28 days (after registering your refusal to accept cold calls), if you are cold called again, you should tell any company who calls you that you don't want to be contacted again in this way (making sure you get their name, so you can complain about them if they persist!!!).
Ultimately they could be prosecuted by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioners if they keep calling you.


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## Complainer (13 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Ask them to hold on for a minute while you get rid of the wife/child/dog before the survey, and just leave them on hold indefintely.


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## davfran (14 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Thanks for advice, thing is I'm x-directory so how did they get my no.


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## NicolaM (14 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Hi
That's odd, they shouldn't be able to access your number then. Maybe you should ring your phone line company to ask them about this, and see what they say?

Nicola


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## quinno (14 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

We get a few of these calls, some are from AIB, which we are happy to do. 

Got two calls, Thursday and Friday night last, that sounded a bit suspect. The first call was a 'Private' no, the second one had an international code (think it started with 001). Both people sounded Asian, maybe India / Pakistan, and were very persistent - other than hanging up, I coundn't shake them off!!! They introduced them selves ans doing a survey on behalf of bla bla bla MRBI (when I asked them to repeat, it was just as fast - I think the MRBI part is to give it some sort of credibility). In my opinion, if they can't explain who they are from, it's pointless me wasting 10 minutes on a "survey".


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## gianni (14 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*



davfran said:


> Thanks for advice, thing is I'm x-directory so how did they get my no.


 

Being ex-directory just means that your number isn't published in the phone book. Your number can easily (and legitimately) be generated from existing directories.


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## gianni (14 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*



quinno said:


> We get a few of these calls, some are from AIB, which we are happy to do.
> 
> Got two calls, Thursday and Friday night last, that sounded a bit suspect. The first call was a 'Private' no, the second one had an international code (think it started with 001). Both people sounded Asian, maybe India / Pakistan, and were very persistent - other than hanging up, I coundn't shake them off!!! They introduced them selves ans doing a survey on behalf of bla bla bla MRBI (when I asked them to repeat, it was just as fast - I think the MRBI part is to give it some sort of credibility). In my opinion, if they can't explain who they are from, it's pointless me wasting 10 minutes on a "survey".


 
It doesn't sound all that suspicious to me, MRBI are a reputable market research organisation that regularly conduct interviews over the phone. The use of 'overseas' call centres is quite common too. 

It sounds like you just had a bad interviewer.


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## quinno (14 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*



gianni said:


> It sounds like you just had a bad interviewer.


 
Twice? anyway, as I said, if they can't explain what the survey's aims are, I'm not going to waste 15 minutes of my time...


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## Brendan Burgess (14 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Ask MRBI? 

Brendan


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## berflan (14 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Ever seen the advert on tv?  say hold on a minute , I have someting on the stove, leave phone off hook and go back 10 mins later, guaranteed they won't be there.  Also, get in touch with eircom, if that is your network. apparantly being ex -dir does not guarantee unsolicited calls but they they have a facility that does.


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## mik_da_man (15 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

We had this and got it sorted by doing the following:



> If you are an *eircom* *customer* you can opt-out of unsolicited calls by contacting us on 1901, selecting _service enquiry_ and then choose _other request_ - please remember to have your account number ready. We will pass your preference to the National Directory Database (NDD), which is the central register for this information


 
If after 28 days you still get calls the company calling you can be proscuted. And this may happen because some companies just use a phone book - which they are not allowed to do..

Mik


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## Ash (16 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

About a week ago, I was busy doing something when the phone rang.  It look an extra beat or two before I could go to answer.  After about five rings, it stopped.  Caller ID said: Unavailable.  About 25 minutes later, the phone rang again.  Once again, I was busy.  After 5 rings, it stopped.  Unavailable.
Precisely the same thing happened the following day; I couldn't answer the phone immediately; rang at the same time of day, the same five rings; the same gap between unanswered calls; Unavailable.  Glad I missed those "survey" calls.
When I questioned a previous cold caller about how they kept ringing our number, I was told the number was generated randomly.  If only our number came up that often in the Lottery!


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## divadsnilloc (16 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Apart from contacting your phone provider to have your number blocked from cold calls, I found a very interesting and amusing way to deal with them. If it's a male caller, get the man of the house to speak to them and *chat them up*. I've had great entertainment doing this and the calls have dried up. Similarily, if it's a female caller, get the woman of the house to do the business!!


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## gianni (22 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*



Ash said:


> When I questioned a previous cold caller about how they kept ringing our number, I was told the number was generated randomly. If only our number came up that often in the Lottery!


 
As long as you don't answer the phone your number will stay in their system and continue to be called (to a limit) until an answer is achieved.

So your number isn't being randomly generated each time!


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## Brianne (22 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

One way that works with Irish companies is the following, and this was told to me by a person who worked in a call centre. Interrupt the speil and say that as one of your family works for a market research company , this precludes you from taking the call. Has worked for me. Like previous poster, I am ex directory and  I queried the person who told me this as to how my number was coming up, who then  told me about these random diallers that they use. I only get about three calls a year so its not a problem.


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## Buffett (23 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Buy a nice loud whistle and keep it handy by the phone. Very effective and guarantees no future calls .


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## truthseeker (23 Apr 2008)

*Re: survey phonecalls*

Was at a funeral recently - missed 9, yes 9 calls from private number, became worried at the sheer volume of calls in an hour long period, answered call 10.

"Hello can I speak to truthseeker please?"

"May I say who is calling"

"Whoever, from NTL"

"One moment please"

beeep beeep beeep beeep beeep...... and I switched the phone off for most of the rest of the evening.


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## Janet (28 Apr 2015)

Resurrecting an old thread as it's close to what I want to ask about.

I had never heard of those random dialling programs before but just got a phone call from someone claiming to be from Millward Brown and wanting to speak to the males of the house for the survey. I asked how she had gotten the number and was told it's randomly generated by a computer program. I'm kind of horrified that's allowed but how and ever. Reading through this and another thread, there was a link to ComReg on dealing with unwanted calls from direct marketing companies: [broken link removed]
I wanted to make sure I know what actually is and is not allowed before writing to complain (the caller did offer to give me a freephone number to call to verify that she really was calling from Millward Brown but I declined and told her I'd complain in writing - still not sure how me phoning a number she gives me would prove anything to me). From that link what stands out to me is the following:


> Mobile phone users
> Mobile phone numbers are automatically protected from direct marketing calls by the E privacy regulations 2011. Direct marketing companies must have your prior consent before contacting you on your mobile.
> If you want to allow direct marketers to contact you in this way, you can call your mobile service provider and ask that your number be made available to direct marketers.


She did call me on my mobile phone - although I've lived in Germany for seven years now I still keep my Irish number going as it's easiest for people to keep in touch with me. I don't mind paying the 79c to receive the calls from family and friends but don't want to have to pay for people doing surveys to phone me. At any rate, I decided to phone Vodafone to make sure that I didn't, at some stage in the past, opt in to receiving these types of phone calls. After more than 20 minutes on hold/on the phone with a nice chap called Geoffrey, I have found out that apparently Vodafone can only stop me from being contacted by Vodafone/companies working on behalf of Vodafone, which isn't really what the comreg information says. The only other thing he could offer was to block the number for me but since it was a private number, that's not possible. Has anyone ever contacted their mobile phone provider to opt into (or out of) calls from direct marketers?


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## Leo (29 Apr 2015)

Companies carrying out surveys are not direct marketing, so are exempt from that legislation.


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## Janet (29 Apr 2015)

Leo said:


> Companies carrying out surveys are not direct marketing, so are exempt from that legislation.


Interesting. Thanks for that. Although it's kind of disappointing that only cold calls trying to sell you something are covered by the legislation because, to be honest, any cold calls are kind of annoying (to me). I sent off an email to ComReg yesterday querying the situation anyway. If they report back anything to me other than that, I'll come back and let ye know. 
Thanks again.


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## Kerrigan (1 May 2015)

Please do let us know the outcome.  I've being getting quite a lot of calls from well known companies lately and recently had a quite pushy surveyor call to my address on numerous occasions because "they couldn't get me" anytime they knocked.  Again I was supposedly randomly picked.  The questions were quite intrusive and I could have kicked myself for partaking in it; all about illegal drugs.  This particular surveyor was calling in the day and evening time and leaving constant notes.  She politely informed me she would not have got paid if I hadn't have answered the questions.  Last Sunday took the biscuit when I received another call for another survey.


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## Leo (5 May 2015)

Kerrigan said:


> Please do let us know the outcome.  I've being getting quite a lot of calls from well known companies lately and recently had a quite pushy surveyor call to my address on numerous occasions...



We're talking phone calls here.


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## stefg (5 May 2015)

Over the weekend I got a strange call on the landline.  The number is ex-directory and we don't use the landline much at all so we don't give out the number so I was surprised when the phone rang.  When I answered the caller said they were looking for Mr. O'Neill (no O'Neills at our address) so I told him he had the wrong number and he then asked who he was speaking to.  I again told him there is no one with name here and he had the wrong number but he repeatedly asked for my name and I refused to give it.  He then told me that he had to update his database so he needed my name but I refused and told him he had no business with me so my name is irrelevant and he hung up abruptly.

His insistence on getting my name made me suspicious and it seems to me that this is a cold calling technique to get people's names for their marketing campaigns.  I suspect that they call numbers asking for a name they know is not there and just using this as a way to gather information.

I forgot to ask who he was representing unfortunately so I can't follow up.

I would advise people not to give their name / details over the phone when people claim to have called the wrong number.


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## Grizzly (5 May 2015)

Despite being ex directory with Eircom and an instruction with Eircom not to cold call me, I got a phone call from Red Sea asking me to participate in a survey on behalf of Eircom? I had recently moved from Eircom to Vodafone and they wanted to know why I had moved. I told them.....


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