Intrusion from telemarketing companies

Can anyone tell me how a telemarketing company might have got our unlisted telephone number? We got an unlisted number as the previous house we lived in was inundated it with calls from some english company asking us about various services...I finally got really annoyed with them and told them to take us off the list.

This time we were hoping to avoid this but got a call from a company awhile ago and was too distracted to ask them where they got our number. Its so annoying, I always give my mobile number instead of house number for this reason....where could they have got it from?

The number they are ringing from shows up as : 800 207 407...they have rung 7 times in the last few days...is that an irish number or an english number does anyone know? am really mad as we were so careful not to give our number out. grrrrr

Can anyone tell me how a telemarketing company might have got our unlisted telephone number?

Click to expand...

usually by random autodial

what's random autodial? I've never heard of it!

I guess I'll have to wait for them to ring again to ask them...which means they'll probably never ring again now since I'm waiting for them!

I think I'd feel better if it was just our number picked at random...otherwise if its on a list somewhere it will probably be sold to more companies and the problem gets worse.

The last crowd drove me mad as they kept ringing when my mum was desparately ill in hospital so kept thinking it would be bad news...they're just bringing back nasty memories to me.

AS posted elsewhere... this is what should be done with all telemaketing companies

I never heard of "random autodial" either. unless you are referring to the predative autodialler that some companies use to automatically diall numbers from a database. They will have gotten your number from a list of names and numbers that they bought. Most likely you gave your phone number to some company and they sold it on. Its quite probable that this list will also be sold to other telesales companies.

I used to get these calls a lot, unlisted number. Often the phone would ring and it would be silent when you picked it up, then after a few clicks someone would come on the line. I got really sick of it and started to hang up on the silence. They got me on a bad day and I told them that there were young children in the house and that the silent calls were terrifying them and that if I got another one I would call the police. Never got another marketing call.

..how about a sharp blast of a referees whistle..?


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