ICO fines 'Wolf of Wall Street' electrical survey biz for nuisance calls Electrical survey provider MyHome Installations Ltd, which entered the hall of shame on the Beeb's Rogue Traders for pressure selling to pensioners, is facing a £50,000 fine for nuisance calls. The UK Information Commissioner's Office probed 169 complaints from members of the public whose phone numbers were listed on the …
Another bunch of lying, pestering cunts who have no respect for people's privacy or the TPS list. The directors of these companies should be heavily fined in addition to the companies themselves.
I registered with the TPS years ago and report as many of the unwanted calls I get as I can, even the scum that withhold their numbers.
We access the Intarwebs via fixed wireless (Australia). We had a lot of trouble with spam phone calls until I installed a phone called Telstra Call Guardian that requires callers to announce themselves. Most telemarketers don't. The few that do I press the "2" button and send them to the answering machine where they don't leave a message. Bliss :-)
If you have Caller ID then people on your safe senders list get straight through without needing to announce themselves. Known arseholes can be sent direct to the answering machine. You can even block whole countries like India and the USA!
"You can even block whole countries like India and the USA!"
Interesting - don't know if UK BT will provide country information. My CLI says "International" - although sometimes recently it has also included a line with a long-ish number that isn't obvious as to what it is meant to represent.
"If you have Caller ID then people on your safe senders list get straight through without needing to announce themselves."
This is why malware stealing phonebooks has been around for quite a while. Spoofing calls from people you know is one way of getting past your filters.
"I'm not 100% sure but I'm going to believe its possible to get a "dry loop" in the UK as it is here."
In the UK AAISP offer "bare copper" for basic ADSL broadband IIRC for £10 a month and £50 installation. There are other options that cost a bit more. Then you pay for an ADSL service etc to go on it.
Much more importantly most of them are Conservative voters as well.
Then again too harsh a crack down on people like (for example" Blue Telecomms could seriously hamper their efforts to get the voters out come the next election..
Who knows when that might be.....
Is not far off the mark considering my limited experience of attending service calls (to fix copier, fax and printers) at a few cold call offices in the UK. No auto callers but a similar procedure.
My overall impression is that the staff turnover is high due to the pressure to hit targets and the fact that most of them making the calls don't want to be there in the first place and are forced to take anything they get offered by the jobcenter. They can't quit as it means losing work seekers allowance and eventually get sacked after they refuse to lie, burn out, don't make enough sales or just plain stop trying.
The only plus side these places had going for them was the banter in the call center and the managers giving out prizes (from a bottle of wine to a day off on full pay) to the best sales per hour, day week or month. The call center staff were normal people stuck in a bad company.
I know they are a pain in the arse but some people have no option. I feel sorry for the stress that is caused by the COMPANIES carrying out these scams but the PEOPLE on BOTH ends of the phone may have no choice in the matter.
Send the conpany owners to jail and release the staff !
There are different grades of telemarketing call centers.
They range from places with unscripted calls, used for cold calling IT departments, to the hell on Earth of calling private houses with scripts running five minutes or more.
The consumer salesmen were usually self employed, always asked callers to rack up multiple visits at about 10am the following day and would simply not bother once they got the first visit done (and their very substantial commission in the bag), leaving us to try and reschedule the rest.
The only semi professional thing they did was if people stated they were on the TPS their number would be immediately barred on the telephone system.
Anon for fear of reprisals.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
