# How to stop bloody telcos cold calling?



## ClubMan (29 Jan 2005)

Any ideas how to stop telephone companies cold calling to tell you how they can save €€€€€s on your phone bill by switching to them? The vast majority of calls that we receive these days are cold calls such as this (in spite of the fact that we only switched to _UTV_ a few months ago) and it's really pissing us off. We are getting at least a couple almost every day and have taken to not answering the phone unless the number is a known good one as a result. :mad


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## gerry (29 Jan 2005)

*telcos*

Funny. I got one Wednesday and Thursday from 2 different companies. Both numbers withheld..


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## fatherdougalmaguire (29 Jan 2005)

*Re: telcos*

Can you treat them as nuisance calls and get the telco to track them? I would have thought that ComReg would have something in place to handle such things. 

But then, we're talking about ComReg.


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## capaill (29 Jan 2005)

*Re: telcos*

Clubman

Me too!!  I have got to the stage when I hear "can I speak to the bill payer" I say "no" and hang up

C


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## elderdog (30 Jan 2005)

*Re: telcos*

Is there an Irish equivalent of :

www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/

Interesting to read some of the things that BT provide on the mainland   for blocking calls :

[broken link removed]


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## sluice44 (30 Jan 2005)

*Re: telcos*

1.
Tell the telesales rep you're busy but, if they give you their *private home phone number*, you'll promise to ring them back when you're free.

2. 
Tell them you've just sold your house and you're moving within the week.  Obviously, you don't know your new phone number.   (It does work)

3.
Screen your calls with Caller ID and leave a message, '_I'm not here or you're hiding your identity from me.  Phone me on my mobile phone._'


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## rainyday (30 Jan 2005)

*Re: telcos*

Clubman - Are you ex-directory? We never get these calls at home.

You could try the old 'Hold on there & I'll be with you in a minute' tactic & see how long they hold on for.

Could be worse, mind you....


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## jister (31 Jan 2005)

*abuse them!*

Well eircom used to ring me quite often until one night they caught me at a bad time and I abused them very angrily and I have never heard from them again.

My mother in law is too nice / niave to say "f**k off" and she tells them she will think about it etc. and they plague her.

Verbal abuse seems to work best IMO.


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## stobear (31 Jan 2005)

*Re: abuse them!*

A whistle might do the trick! or ask them for free calls for a whole year and then you'll think about it......click.....


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## legend99 (31 Jan 2005)

*..*

Can't you notify Eircom that you want your name off the list, but the downside is that you have to be ex-directory as a consequence??


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## Gar123 (31 Jan 2005)

*Re: ..*

lads i work in sales and a lot of it involves talking to people on teh phone

do none of you work in jobs where you have to communicate with others?

it's hard calling people up cold, be nice!


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## TarfHead (1 Feb 2005)

*Re: col-calls*



> Tell the telesales rep you're busy but, if they give you their private home phone number, you'll promise to ring them back when you're free.



*Copyright Jerry Seinfeld.*

_
JERRY: Oh, gee, I can't talk right now. Why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you later.

TEL: Uh, I'm sorry we're not allowed to do that.

JERRY: Oh, I guess you don't want people calling you at home.

TEL: No.

JERRY: Well now you know how I feel.
_


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## BlueSpud (1 Feb 2005)

*Re: col-calls*



> lads i work in sales and a lot of it involves talking to people on teh phone
> 
> do none of you work in jobs where you have to communicate with others?
> 
> it's hard calling people up cold, be nice!



Give me a break, a lot of these guys are shady, I know of a number of people who have had their telecoms switched without their consent.  They try & sell to you and then let on you agreed, one outfit say they recorded the conversation but when pressed, say they cant find the recording.  These kind of calls are intrusive and should be banned....imho.


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## Gordanus (1 Feb 2005)

*Re: cold-calls*

to be honest, (being with Eircom) I WOULD be interested in a cheaper deal; but I haven't the time or patience to listen to the extraordinarily complicated phone billing schemes over the phone.  I ask them all to send me a brochure.  "We haven't got a brochure, would you like to look at the website"  No, I wouldn't - again by the time you look at all the websites you've devoted HOURS to the exercise.  One guy told me they can offer cheap calls by not spending money on expensive brochures! Ingenious, I thought, but no cigar.  
The complexity of the schemes makes it too difficult to sort them out and decide which is best- and how can you do that on the phone?! 
(Did sales incl cold-calling in past - they can take it; they have to or they'll leave if they start taking it personally)


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## Ash (1 Feb 2005)

*smart callers*

Had a cold call from Smart today.  
Was told I was contacted because my number was randomly generated.  
If only my number would come up on the Lottery as much as it comes up through "random generation" for cold call purposes.  
I'd be a blooming millionaire by now.


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## BlueSpud (1 Feb 2005)

Smart must be very smart indeed. I bitched about them last evening on this thread, and was rewarded by a call from them last night.  I asked them to take me off their call list (as I had done with Eircom), but was told that they could not even see my number, let alone take me off the list.  I feel sorry for some of the operators, the lass last night told me she was part time puttintg herself thru college (her story).  Indeed, these telcos are smart, their operators and victims are in a no win situation, and I cant believe that this is legal.


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## Gar123 (1 Feb 2005)

blue spud are you a priest by any chance? or perhaps a politician? 

because you seem to be completely removed from reality, these people are tryoing to save you money on a phone bill


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## Rujib (1 Feb 2005)

Eircom keep calling us as we left them 15 months ago. Everybody in the house is under instructions to say "no I am not the bill payer, I am just the baby sitter and I dont know when the bill payer will be back as he is either at the bookies or at the pub and when he comes back he will not be in a good mood".
It dosn't matter ... they still call back at least twice a week and when I happen to answer (me the bill payer) I simply repeat the stock answer and hang up.

"Nil illigitimus carborundum"


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## BlueSpud (1 Feb 2005)

Gar123, methinks you assume too much.  I have long parted company with Eircom...., I am happily doing business with UTV.  Secondly, these people are trying to make money..... To remove any assumtions, it is not the concept of competition I object to, it is the modus operendi.  I just noted you had a second leap to the defence of this annoying practice.  Do YOU get these calls on a regular basis?  If not, then your comments are pretty stupid.


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## ajapale (1 Feb 2005)

Rujib,

Now theres a great idea! When they ring practice your Irish (Donegal dialect) or latin (vulgaris is best) or perhaps cant (the language/dialect of the travelling community) or better still make up your own language.

ajapale


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## sherman (1 Feb 2005)

The numbers are actually randomly generated - I worked for a 'market research' phone company during my student days and half the no's generated by the computer didn't exist, the other half did.

I quit after a day cos I felt awful ringing up and confusing poor old women who reminded me of my grandmother.

Its a dreadful tactic that should be banned IMHO, or at least we should be able to opt out of it.


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## Gar123 (1 Feb 2005)

walk a mile in a man's shoes lads, then comment,


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## ajapale (1 Feb 2005)

> walk a mile in a man's shoes lads, then comment.



Hi Gar,

I'm sorry I just cant accept this logic. If we were to accept this logic then then would be very very little discussion on the board.

Lets see, you cant comment on accountants unless you have worked as one.

You cant comment on train drivers unless you have driven one.

You can comment on turkeys unless you belong to the broader poultry family.

Sorry, Gar, but I'm going to continue to critisise cold callers, door steppers and spammers where ever I come accross them.

ajapale


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## BlueSpud (1 Feb 2005)

Gar123,

If I understand you last comment correctly, you are defending the individual making the calls.  I don't think anyone here has anything against them, we are annoyed at the companies and their directors who choose to run their buisness in such a fashion.


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## Bleary1 (2 Feb 2005)

Got this response from IDMA

At present ComReg is organizing a telephone preference service for Ireland.

If a consumer (not a company/business) no longer wishes to be cold called at their personal telephone number (home/mobile) (excluding automated dialing machines which are not legal unless the consumer opts-in) then they can add their telephone number(s) to the National Directory Database TPS. They must do this by contacting their service supplier (e.g. O2) who will forward the details to ComReg's NDD department.

Anyone cold calling telephone numbers will be required by law to exclude those numbers which are on the NDD TPS.

The system is not set up yet but will be in the next few months. If you wish to get further information you can call ComReg (ask for the NDD section tel 01-8049600).
 also this link on comreg

[broken link removed]


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## ThomasJ (2 Feb 2005)

Receiving telephone calls at home trying to sell you cheaper calls  is an invasion of privacy in my mind, I am very skeptical about all these companies, and just how can they offer calls cheaper etc.. I think that they would not be able to save me anything, I use my phone to call england and Spain and all these companies offer is cheaper calls in Ireland not there. Until there is a company that can give me calls to cheaper abroad then i think I will stay with Eircom... Can this zefone crowd offer me this can they?? Any Ideas...


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## podgeandrodge (3 Feb 2005)

*calls*

ehh let's not forget www.telestunt.ie which offers european and USA calls for 1.26 cent a minute off peak with no prepayment - just a 1890 number.

combined with the UTV phone service - free local , national and uk calls every evening and all weekend (up to an hour a call so just hang up and redial) using the two of these in tandem seems to be unbeatable.


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## Dr Moriarty (4 Feb 2005)

*Re: This thread is degenerating...*

Couldn't agree more.

No offence to anyone who has to do this for a living (commission-only, so 'tell-them-anything-you-like-but-just-get-them-to-sign-up'...), but IMHO cold-calling people in their homes is one of the nastiest and most repulsive 'direct marketing' strategies to have emerged in the last few years. And usually counter-productive, as this thread shows.

I'm not holding my breath for Comreg to do anything meaningful about these practices - until some legal sanction is introduced, they can issue all the 'best practice' industry guidelines they like, and none of these guys will pay a blind bit of notice. In any case, Comreg have shown themselves on other matters to be about as toothless as my old gran with her teeth knocked out (God rest her soul ...and it wasn't me, I swear!  )

Jister's suggestion about verbal abuse working best is probably closest to the mark, but I suspect that it might lead to legal action if one were to get too hot 'n' heavy. Nowadays, full-on profanity and/or threatening physical violence is against the law, after all...

Not that it seems to have stopped , 'though! :rollin 
_[right-click, 'save as', change file extension to .wav or .mp3. *Warning!* Contains strong language from the start. In a Geordie accent..!]_


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## rainyday (4 Feb 2005)

*Re:  Re: How to stop bloody telcos cold calling?*

_SPAM posts deleted by RainyDay_


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## daltonr (6 Feb 2005)

*TeleSales*



> do none of you work in jobs where you have to communicate with others?



I certainly don't work in a job that would involve disturbing people in the evening after they've spent the day in work,  when they're settling down for something to eat or spending time with their families.   Quite frankly I'd rather be broke than annoy people for a living.



> it's hard calling people up cold, be nice!



Breaking and entering isn't easy but that doesn't mean I have to be nice to burglars.   I don't give a damn if someone is working their way through college.   If you bother me at home you get one chance to stop calling me,  call again you get abused.

My favourite call was a company calling on behalf of AIB asking how they could improve their service to me.
When I said that they could stop calling me at home when I'm having dinner, the guy thought I was joking.

-Rd


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## MonsieurBond (8 Sep 2005)

Having just read all the posts in this thread, and a number of PDFs on askcomreg.ie and dataprotection.ie, the short version of how to stop cold (phone) calling is:

Ring your service provider (i.e. the company you pay line rental to, e.g. eircom, BT Ireland, Smart Telecom) and tell them you don't want to receive cold calls any more. They will then set the "No cold calling" flag on the record on the National Directory Database for your home phone number.

eircom and BT are planning to add a link to their sites to promote this but they don't appear to have done this yet.


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## Lemurz (8 Sep 2005)

This usually works.........

"I'm just in the middle of my dinner.  Give me your number so I can call you back when your having your dinner"


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## ClubMan (16 Oct 2005)

_UTV _have just introduced a facility to register online to have your number removed from the _NDD (National Directory Database) _to stop cold callers. I presume that other telcos offer a similar service?

Update: just checked and  has some info on this (apologies if this is repeating something mentioned earlier!).


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## sun_sparks (31 Jan 2006)

Better one for ye all - Talk Talk "persuaded" my uncle to switch from Eircom. (He has a disability and lives on his own.) His total phone bill every month is €2.25.

It took my Mum weeks to "persuade" Talk Talk to let him change back for simplicity sake to Eircom.


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## therave (31 Jan 2006)

2 things that have worked for me..
i tell them that my company pays my bill and the other i have asked them to hold the line,when you do this they seem to hang up on you.


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## podgerodge (31 Jan 2006)

I rang Eircom this morning and asked to be taken off the database - she did that and then said "it probably won't make a difference, a lot of companies just use the phonebook".  I told her there was legislation in place and I could complain to Comreg if a company did this.  She wasn't aware of any legislation.


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## Kiddo (31 Jan 2006)

We have been getting lots of calls during the day...from unavailable & withheld numbers.

My parents are ex-directory so ignoring these calls isn't really an option.

If I answer the phone and the speil starts I just hang up. I used to tell them I didn't want to change but they just keep ringing. I can't be bothered to tell them I don't want their service and as they are rude enough to interrupt my evening then I don't feel guilty for being rude back.


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## Leo (31 Jan 2006)

Kiddo, ask your parents to dial 142 before dialing your number and their number will be displayed for that call.
Leo


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## Capaill (2 Feb 2006)

You could always try the following to see how long the caller stays on the phone<g>

http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html


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## ShaneMc (2 Feb 2006)

As annoying as they are try to have as much fun as possible cos it seems they wont stop. Try making up ridiculous things to say to them - got one last nite and told them he had the wrong number because i dont have a phone. After a few seconds of confusion on their end i heard a "but wait" just before i hung up.


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## ClubMan (2 Feb 2006)

Two key tips (which have probably been mentioned already)

Inform your phone service provider that you want to opt out of cold calling and they are obliged to log this information and other companies are obliged to respect your request.
If/when they call even after doing that then ask for the name of the company and note it down then tell them you don't want them to call again. If they do complain to them and to _ComReg _since they are acting illegally (unless you already have some dealings with them).


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## IrishGunner (2 Feb 2006)

I am with Utv talk and did it online to get my number taken off the database

I am still getting them but the seem to be from America as I have won so many cruises. Also not there during the day & the answer machine has so many blank messages ? 

Rang comreg and they cannot do anything in relation to calls that come from outside of Ireland?? When they ring and I do answer there is no one at the other end  do I have a haunted phone??

Still annoying Rant over


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## JohnBoy (2 Feb 2006)

before I registered with the telephone preference service (I live in the UK) I used to find that being rude and abusive was not only effective but therapeutic to boot.

I always assumed (wrongly perhaps) that by being polite you only opened yourself up to further nuisance phone calls. Are potential customers graded on how amenable they seem to cold calling? if you are polite upon first contact does this just encourage another call at a later date?

it is not big, it is not clever and it is certainly rude, but telling someone where to go after a hard days work used to be one of my little treats (you can also pretend that it is your mother in law)


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## Newsletter (2 Feb 2006)

The Irish data protection commisioner has a good all round site on this www.dataprivacy.ie Their point on the NDD is that the operator registers your preference details -not you- As a customer of theirs they can contact you unless you indicate otherwise. So you do have to call the operator. A list of the contacts and more info is available here:
[broken link removed]

If they do not respond you can use their complaint form or the complaint form on www.comreg.ie 

The IDMA operate a Mail Preference Service and you can register your address so that direct marketers will not send you personalised unsolicted post. It does not cover flyers or post outside Ireland. It's free, lasts 5 years and you can complete the form here and send to mailing Preference Service, Freepost, POB 5609, Dublin 4.
[broken link removed]

I am curious though as to who is receiving the bulk of the calls. Just recently my elderly parents were complaining about both of the above. They seem to get a ton of "help the poor nun in nigeria" stuff. They also told me that most of their friends get the same thing. It sounds like an unseemly approach to a vulnerable group. The worrying thing is that they believed a lot of the dubious approaches. Suffice to say I filled up the form for them and sorted out their Eircom NDD. Please take note if you are aware of anyone who may be vulnerable to this.

[broken link removed]


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## RainyDay (2 Feb 2006)

This news article suggests one possible fight back technique against the cold callers - see here for the script in question.


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## dublinboy (2 Feb 2006)

Newsletter said:
			
		

> I am curious though as to who is receiving the bulk of the calls. Just recently my elderly parents were complaining about both of the above.


My parents seem to be on the same list! They get calls at least twice a week - mainly congratulating them on the savings they are about to make on their phone bill. One crowd had them switched over based just on the conversation - thank god for the cooling off period. The folks aren't doddery and won't get caught again; the power of being rude and hanging up 

Thanks for the info re the NDD - going to check that out for them.

And I see some of the posters here have sympathy for the poor cold callers - well IMHO they are the lowest of the low and don't care about the vulnerable people they maybe calling. May they eventually spend eternity in the great call centre in the sky; on hold.


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## Carpenter (3 Feb 2006)

dublinboy said:
			
		

> My parents seem to be on the same list! They get calls at least twice a week - mainly congratulating them on the savings they are about to make on their phone bill. One crowd had them switched over based just on the conversation - thank god for the cooling off period. The folks aren't doddery and won't get caught again; the power of being rude and hanging up
> 
> Thanks for the info re the NDD - going to check that out for them.
> 
> And I see some of the posters here have sympathy for the poor cold callers - well IMHO they are the lowest of the low and don't care about the vulnerable people they maybe calling. May they eventually spend eternity in the great call centre in the sky; on hold.


 
...listening to "Greensleeves".


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## quinno (3 Feb 2006)

From today's Indo - some tactics!!

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1553502&issue_id=13623


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## demoivre (6 Feb 2006)

It's not stopping at the telcos now it seems. We have had two calls from Sky TV over the last few days and even MBNA ( I use their cc ) rang me up to see if I was interested in applying for a loan !


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## Ash (6 Feb 2006)

demoivre said:
			
		

> It's not stopping at the telcos now it seems. We have had two calls from Sky TV over the last few days and even MBNA ( I use their cc ) rang me up to see if I was interested in applying for a loan !



Sky TV first called us several weeks before Christmas 2005.  Our caller display shows they are STILL calling regularly, up to and including both yesterday and today.  It is bordering on harrassment!

ClubMan wrote:   "Two key tips (which have probably been mentioned already)
Inform your phone service provider that you want to opt out of cold calling and they are obliged to log this information and other companies are obliged to respect your request.
If/when they call even after doing that then ask for the name of the company and note it down then tell them you don't want them to call again. If they do complain to them and to ComReg since they are acting illegally (unless you already have some dealings with them)." 

Sky are phoning from Scotland.  Presumably there's no way of stopping them via ComReg or similar?


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## ssd (16 Mar 2006)

1. If your service provider is Eircom, telephone 1901 and tell the customer service operator that you "want to opt out of the national directory database".
2. This procedure takes twenty-eight days to come into effect.
3. In the meantime, keep a pen and paper by the telephone and if you receive any calls in that time note which company the call is from and tell them "I want to be removed from all lists operated by your company".
4. If within that twenty-eight days you receive a call from a telemarketing company you have said "I want to be removed from all lists operated by your company" to, then, report them to Data Protection (01874-8544).
5. After twenty-eight days if you recieve ANY telemarketting calls, then, find out who the call is coming from, write it down and report it to the Data Protection people (01874-8544)
There's a leaflet below, [broken link removed]


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## Technologist (16 Mar 2006)

First we should be asking ourselves which politician passed a law allowing cold-calling in the first place & leaving it up to the consumers to 'opt-out'. The rules are loaded in favour of the marketeers. They're not even obliged to show caller idents.

I'm still getting calls even after optinng out & the callers are not providing the information that's required under the regulations. I've had a number of calls from 'TalkTalk' even though I've told them not to call me. When I ask to speak to a manager, they just hang up. Clearly, that company thinks Irish law is a joke.

Is there a device that could screen out the marketeers' predictive-diallers? 

There could be a market for that sort of thing here, since if the government won't protect consumers, we'll have to do it ourselves.


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## Jack The Lad (16 Mar 2006)

*NEWSFLASH!!!!!!!!*

Phone 1800 923 853 and log your telephone number. After approx. 4 weeks you will receive no more calls from those ~~~~'s. I don't know how or why it works, but it does. IFA TELECOM sent this number to all their customers.

FARMER POWER!!!!


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## Technologist (16 Mar 2006)

Jack The Lad said:
			
		

> Phone 1800 923 853 and log your telephone number. After approx. 4 weeks you will receive no more calls from those ~~~~'s. I don't know how or why it works, but it does. IFA TELECOM sent this number to all their customers.FARMER POWER!!!!


The regulations require each customer who does not want direct-marketing calls to contact their own service provider. So that's probably the number for IFA customers only.

When I phoned Eircom, I was on hold for 20 minutes before they came on the line.

Now ComReg could have allowed people to register their objection via a web site or the government could have changed the rule to an 'opt-in' one.

Indeed, they could've required the marketeers to display a special number so that we could block them automatically. But they didn't.

The law is tilted in favour of the marketeers.


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## Guest107 (16 Mar 2006)

They are non compliant with a Comreg regulation called the CPS Code Of Practice. Talk Talk were done for this a year ago , see

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0508.pdf


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## Technologist (18 Mar 2006)

2Pack said:
			
		

> They are non compliant with a Comreg regulation called the CPS Code Of Practice. Talk Talk were done for this a year ago , see
> 
> http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg0508.pdf


It's more than 28 days since I opted out & I got yet another call from someone representing 'TalkTalk'.

They said that they'd no record of my previous objections because TalkTalk contracts out the calls to external call-centres and they each have their own databases. I'd have to ring another number to ask to be deleted from their list. And, they didn't know about my opt-out on the national caller preference database.

I don't believe a word of it.

Caveat Emptor.


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## Brendan Burgess (18 Mar 2006)

According to today's Irish Times,  10,000 people have opted out and the Data Protection Commissioner is disappointed with this figure. It seems a lot to me.

Since I opted out around a month ago, I have got only one call and that was from... talk talk.


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## daithi (20 Mar 2006)

maybe blowing a referee's whislte down the receiver might eh, soften their cough....

daithi


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## Technologist (20 Mar 2006)

1: It's probably illegal to do that. You could get sued.

2: The call-centre hardware routinely filters loud noises (such as crackles etc) to protect the operatives.

Has anyone experimented with playing tones that might mess with the call-center's predictive auto-dialler logic?


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## Guest107 (20 Mar 2006)

Hee Hee

http://dialabc.com/sound/generate/

and select the gsm format which will play on your PC no worries .


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## harvey (21 Mar 2006)

Had NTL ring me on my mobile this evening trying to flog me add ons. How would i opt out of that ?


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## Technologist (26 Mar 2006)

bobboy said:
			
		

> Has anyone experimented with playing tones that might mess with the call-center's predictive auto-dialler logic?
> How "sad" is the above statement?


It depends on whether or not you enjoy pleading with tele-marketeers to be taken off their list.


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## woods (26 Mar 2006)

We were in the car last week and both our phones rang within 20 secs of each other. I answered both as I was not driving and it was the same company (Tely2 was what they said) on both phones. I think that takes the biscuit. I was talking to one and asked her to hold while I answered the other. After answering the 2nd I told them to sod off as I was too busy for this.
They had taken our numbers from our answer machine.


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