Annoyed with cold callers?

dr strangelove

Get them to pay you when they phone you!

Some guy in the UK, sick of receiving unsolicited phone calls, and having given up complaining to the regulator, changed his phone number to a premium line number so anytime anyone cold-called him they were charged 10p a minute to leave a message on his answerphone.
His original stated goal was to stop people cold calling him, and it seems to be working - although the volume has dropped off dramatically he still gets enough unwanted calls to pay for the premium line!

Genius

"Two years ago Lee Beaumont, fed up of receiving daily phone calls from telemarketing agencies, connected his home land-line to a premium rate phone number and started cashing in on cold callers - covering his costs in less than two months."

Brilliant idea - i wonder if you cold do it here in Ireland?

Shamelessly stolen from: The Register

--Kaiser--

I never get cold callers.
Actually I never get callers at all.
I'm so alone

demanufactured

Well no company is going to call you if your number is 1550-xxx-xxx

mathie

demanufactured wrote: »

Well no company is going to call you if your number is 1550-xxx-xxx

I think that's mostly because it looks like a porn line.

Robbo

demanufactured wrote: »

Well no company is going to call you if your number is 1550-xxx-xxx

I beg to differ. I had a dispute with a mobile phone company a few years ago and we agreed to a settlement of my final bill. Unfortunately someone missed 42 cent in the writing off process and they kept sending me automatically generated letters demanding this princely sum. Each one costing them at least 55 cent to post.

Then the phonecalls from their Indian call center started. They couldn't fathom that this was (a) an error and (b) a sum that even if I wanted to pay would cost me more in stamps/transaction fees than it was worth.

So I ring up to "update my details" and tell them that I had a new number and they were to only contact me this way. I gave them the number for Irish Psychics Live. As far as they were concerned at the other end, this number was legit and I'm sure next time they tried ringing from India looking for their 42 cent, it cost them at least a tenner.

They never rang since.

mathie

Robbo wrote: »

I beg to differ. I had a dispute with a mobile phone company a few years ago and we agreed to a settlement of my final bill. Unfortunately someone missed 42 cent in the writing off process and they kept sending me automatically generated letters demanding this princely sum. Each one costing them at least 55 cent to post.

Then the phonecalls from their Indian call center started. They couldn't fathom that this was (a) an error and (b) a sum that even if I wanted to pay would cost me more in stamps/transaction fees than it was worth.

So I ring up to "update my details" and tell them that I had a new number and they were to only contact me this way. I gave them the number for Irish Psychics Live. As far as they were concerned at the other end, this number was legit and I'm sure next time they tried ringing from India looking for their 42 cent, it cost them at least a tenner.

They never rang since.

How would you know if they did?

diomed

No phone. Why pay to be annoyed 24/7?

dr strangelove

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

I never get cold callers.
Actually I never get callers at all.
I'm so alone

AH, you poor thing, why don't you call me and we can have a nice long chat, my number is 1590.....something, something....

Elbaston

mathie wrote: »

How would you know if they did?

Duh ... cause he's psychic.

Talib Fiasco

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dxhound2005

He better look out now for someone reporting him for not complying with all the regulations. Could be a costly day in court.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23869462

But the premium number regulator Phone Pay Plus says the public should think twice before setting up their own lines.

They say phone line providers must meet consumer protection standards, which include transparency, fairness and complaint handling, which would mean clearly setting out the cost of each call to any organisation that rang.

They told You and Yours: "Premium rate numbers are not designed to be used in this way and we would strongly discourage any listeners from adopting this idea, as they will be liable under our code for any breaches and subsequent fines that result."