Number Withheld \ Number Unavailable Issue
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Through the process of trying to stop overseas sales calls, I've become aware that "number withheld" and "number unavailable" are quite different. Is there any way at all to block "number available" numbers? It seems that some overseas companies are circumventing 'number withheld' software and hardware by appearing as "number unavailable".
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Think you meant to ask if there's a way of blocking "Number unavailable"calls.BT have a service which is supposed to block all calls from within the U.K where no number is forwarded or where people withold their number,trouble is it doesn't work too well,there's a few systems that it can't block I keep getting calls from one person who's living about 1 mile from where I live,unsure if it works with Skype or other VOIP services and it's useless for calls from outside the U.K,which accounts for most of the "Number unavailable "numbers.
So realistically, there is no possible way to stop these numbers? Is there any way to get overseas companies to remove you from their lists? I'm not hopeful. I guess it's similiar to getting spammed, but there's no filter. In extreme situations will my telephone provider allow me to change number?
Don't know if you have caller display on your phone,I now won't answer the phone if there's no number displayed.This has a few disadvantages especially if you have lots of friends living abroad or using their mobiles abroad but it's really the only way I can cope with it.Most "Offshored"call centres couldn't care less whether you want their calls or not as far as I can see.
Yes, we do have caller display. We bought a unit to stop withheld and international numbers, and had to enable caller display in advance of that. All withheld and international numbers are blocked. I didn't realise at the time though that while it blocks withheld numbers, it cannot block "number unavailable" numbers (most of which are actually international). As such it's a bit of an irritating situation. Do you think if we stop answering these calls for long enough, they will stop calling?
BT have a bit about it on their website, where they try to pass it off as not being a problem:
http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8499/~/will-organisations-such-as-telemarketing-companies-start-forwarding-a-%27number
Their comments may wll be true locally, but they certainly aren't internationally. It's crappy service on their behalf that they offer no way of stop these junk calls.
Yeah I was thinking the same...
http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8482/~/what-is-anonymous-call-rejection-and-how-do-i-use-it%3F
I agree with your skeptism though, that page only specifically refers to Number Withheld calls, not Number Unavailable. I wonder if that's the catch. Still, I'd be tempted to give if a go if with BT and suffering from this - anything to lose?
So yeah, Number Withheld is the obvious - the number could be sent but the caller choose not to. Number Unavailable is slightly different, withheld or not, it means that BT (or whoeever) have no means of knowing the calling ID of the incoming call, especially if it's originating from another country.
A final option, admittedly with a one-off cost, is a TruCall box. It's like a fancy answerphone that intercepts the call first and asks the caller for their identity. You then pick up the phone and the box replays the message the caller left, you can choose whether to accept or ignore without ever having to speak to the caller. I guess it could be a pain for genuine callers wanting to ring you, but I think TruCall allows you to
enter a list of friends & family numbers where it won't interfere.
The trouble with these boxes, is that the when it's number withheld, even if there are road blocks between you and the caller (or more likely callcentre) the phones still ring, ring ringing all day long with people who are tyring to sell you stuff you don't want, even if you don't actually end up speaking to them. It appears to be impossible to get away from it.
Thanks for the reply. We're already on the list. Unfortunately, it doesn't apply to calls from outside of the UK.
Looks that way. If it gets worse, I'll try to change my number and combine that with the call features (i.e black all 'withheld' and international numbers and don't answer 'unavailable' numbers). One you're on one of these spammy lists it seems like an impossibility to get off them.
Actually.. I hear what you're saying, and maybe I'm being too optimistic but after so many "sorry, your call hasn't been accepted (get lost)" responses from a TruCall is there any chance they may have the brain cells to give up? I think I'd quite enjoy sending some cold callers to the TruCall get lost response, just for the sheer heck of it
Another trick I've been tempted to try, answer the call and start by saying "please be advised this call may be recorded for monitoring or training purposes", LOL. That might scare them away? Or perhaps i'm just being naive...
I hope you are right jaycee, that eventually they will give up. I like your training puproses suggestion too. Maybe I could just make something up, like pretend they've called a hostel for the homeless or something.. I need some kind of answer that will lead them to believe that there is zero chance of me buying anything from them.
Maybe I could answer and just leave the phone off the hook. Hmm, who knows.
Apologies for dragging up an old thread but I've only just found this forum, and have joined so that I can post this reply.
My wife and I have been plagued by nuisance 'survey' calls for a long time now. They've annoyed us so much that I've spent time and money in producing my own solution to this. And it works. Nuisance callers no longer make our phone ring.
(Quite a few years ago we used to get a lot of annoying sales calls. I signed up to the Telephone Preference Service, which stopped most of them ... for a while. But up until recently we were getting up to 3 nuisance calls a day, often waking us up at weekends etc.)
It's quite technical but for those who are interested, here's what I've done ...
I bought a Linksys SPA3102 (about £40 - £50; I bought ours from Amazon but there are loads of places selling them). It has two RJ11 ports, one of which goes to the phone and the other goes to the wall socket[1]. It also has a couple of computer network ports.
[1] note that although this is sold in this country as a UK product, it didn't work with our phone straight away because UK phones use pins 2&5 and this unit uses pins 3&4. I had to buy a couple of adaptor cables so that the phone worked with it. Ask me for more details if you need to.
I then used a small PC as a server - I installed Centos 6 and Asterisk (all free software). The PC doesn't have to be very powerful so if you have an old PC in the loft gathering dust then it may just do.
After a bit of coding and some time setting it up, this is now the setup:
Into my contacts list I've assigned names, which display on the phone's display when the phone rings so we can see the name of the caller as well as the number. This beats doing it in the phone itself, as ours only has room for 20 entries.
When we make outgoing calls, I also send them via the Asterisk server, currently for logging purposes.
When a call comes in from a presented (ie not withheld or unavailable) CLI that's not in the list, the Asterisk server checks the call log for outgoing calls. If we've called out to that number within the last week, even if that number is not in the pre-programmed contact list, it allows the call through. The phone display shows the day and time we last called that number, just in case it jogs our memory.
I plan to add a feature where a caller can, if routed to voicemail, enter a PIN to make the phone ring anyway. This means we can then give a PIN to people we might want to be able to call us (eg our bank) if they normally withhold their number.
I also plan to make it stop early risers from ringing too early at weekends and waking us up, by playing a "this really is quite early, press 1 if this is urgent, else please call back later as we're probably asleep" message.
The SPA3102 was quite tricky to set up. There are a few online guides, neither of which did exactly what I wanted, but combined with those and some faffing I got it working.
All of this is invisible to the user. We just use the phone like a normal phone, and it behaves like one. The main thing is that we now only get calls from people we want to get calls from, and whenever people phone their name comes up on the display.
Cheers,
Kingsley.
http://www.truecall.co.uk/
I have TPS but companys can get round this by using 0845 numbers TPS doesn't stop those, So I won't answer those either:eek:
Price is a bit steep, get Caller Display its cheaper.
The number that a company chooses to display via CLI is completely irrelevant. TPS itself does not filter any calls at all.
The way TPS works is that they provide a database of opted out numbers to companies. These companies have to use that database to filter calls they make.
http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html
TrueCall may do everything that most people want, and will undoubtably be a lot easier to set up. However there are things that it doesn't do (that my setup does) that I consider useful. Others may or may not care about those additional features but I do
Howard, you've missed the point I think. For many of us, the whole fact that the phone even rings in the first place is annoying. Once it's rung, even if you leave the answerphone to get it, you've already been disturbed. We were getting them waking us up by phoning early at weekends. We have an answerphone but that's not much consolation if we've been woken up and can't get back to sleep again.
I didn't see the price of TrueCall. I did notice, however, that after the first year you have to pay a fee for the internet management, and it looked to me that you needed that for some of the features so it locked you in to paying them each year.
Caller Display is indeed cheaper, but it also doesn't help much (as I explained in response to Ray) because if the phone rings then often the damage is already done.
Cheers,
Kingsley.
If they do speak i ask who they want to speak too most times they dont know, so i tell them to call back when they do and i hang up
I know what you mean when the phone rings & rings & rings it does get on your nerves, but at least you know not to answer it I won't answer 0845 or withheld or god forbid international ones just to hear someone who can't speak english asking if you had a had a fall in the last 3 months!:eek:
Yes, it does get pretty annoying.
That said, just before I installed by blocking system I did have a bit of fun with one of them.
After introducing himself and confirming that I was indeed me, he started his spiel. Being not a native English speaker he opened with an unusually phrased question:
"What is the name of your television?"
so I replied "I call it David. Actually it's really good, I talk to it a lot and it's a really good listener. It never answers back. I often talk to it just before bed time when I'm feeling a bit lonely ...".
I kept talking and wouldn't let him get a word in. I could hear him trying to butt in but I kept on with my relentless tirade of pointless waffle about how I talk to David the television when I'm lonely, how comforting he is etc.
Eventually he yelled "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" and rang off.
I think I won that one
Cheers,
Kingsley.