Unwelcome Phone Calls

grahos · Guru

RE: Unwelcome Phone Calls

Cupie · Guru

We recently got a flood of 'unwelcome calls' at around 5am one morning.

Home phone would ring & no one was on the line. This was repeated many times.

Thinking that there might be a family emergency we rang the kids .. not them.

After lying there waiting for the next call, I had a brain flash & went to my old prepaid mobile. Checked the call log & guess what .. it was the culprit. It had gone rogue & was calling the first number on my favourires list .. (or maybe the last real call from it) ... home!!!

Pulled the battery out & fixed the problem.

Now I have the problem of joining the smart phone generation & learning about Android (as well as Apple OS for SWMBO's iPad) I'd be lost without Android & iPad for dummies! and of course 7 & 9 year old grandchildren who know everything about smartphones & iThingoes.

Back to the orig post.

Charities regularly call us & when I answer they immediately ask for SWMBO. They must have her down as the 'giver' of the household. The local Asian businesses are another story .. trying to sell us solar & car servicing plans. We live close to Sunnybank Hills (or Sunnybank Slopes as some unkind & racist people call the area. In fact Chinese ethnics make great neighbours & are very active in civic affairs).

Santa · Guru

DEBnWEG wrote:
Hello Santa, apologies for the delayed response.
the DNC Register was created from consumer back lash to customers getting unsolicited phone calls as we know, but as Telstra was no longer run by the government and was a publicly listed company with shareholders etc, they were reluctant to create and manage as they get paid per phone call.
The reality is this ... phone numbers, like credit cards are numeric so a simple algorithm is applied and these days with computers the code is run along the lines of 000001, 00002, 00003 etc until the code creates a numerical sequence which just happens to be your phone number and all of a sudden your phone rings. Have you ever noticed a pause between you answering the call and then someone responding? This is the predictive dialler they use to filter hang ups etc from their operators.
now the DNC is an Australian Standard of behaviour which in theory regulates telemarketing industry here in Australia, that is why your caller is usually from the Philippines ... "I'm calling ON BEHALF of ....."
with profitability margins factored in to their business, and time is money, if the calling business can eliminate the chance of an incorrect number from their code / list of potential phone numbers with a list of REAL numbers, they will pay for it ... Hence the black market ... Same principles apply to credit cards and email addresses.
the government know all too well that this is the case so the DNC was created ... Hence the political rort ... A smokescreen to appease our desire to be anonymous ... When no one can actually provide the service we require.
imagine someone in the DNC office getting a hold of the list ... How much would a competitive telemarketing business pay to get this ...

As Peter Cook would have said "Is that a fact? How very interesting" Curious! wonder why I don't receive the unwelcome calls that others complain about, could it possibly be something to do with personal habits, surely not?

Big Gorilla · Guru

Received a call yesterday on my unlisted home phone. I said "Can you hang on a moment, someone is at the door". I put the phone down, went back to the TV show I was watching and about 30 minutes later, replaced the phone on the hook. They had hung up of course. This is now my standard response..

neilnruth · Guru

We think we have solved the problem. We bought a new phone with answering machine. We warned the family - start talking to us if answering machine comes on - otherwise we just let it ring and answer. The telemarketers hang up and we've had very few since. Others ring back or leave a message. Telemarketers won't leave a message. We didn't even make the message ours. We left the recorded one on it so our names aren't mentioned.

Phil C · Guru

I have a way of dealing with these calls. I give the phone to my 5 year old grandson and tell him its santa that wants to speak to him. I dont get many calls now