How do I stop unwanted nuisance malicious or withheld-number-calls

[VirginMedia]

There are three types of unwanted calls you might be receiving:

• Unsolicited calls - Persistent calls from organisations, which offer information you don’t want. These calls are more than likely automated competition lines or marketing activity from other companies.
• Nuisance calls - Excessive amount of wrong numbers or calls at unsociable hours.
• Malicious calls - A call containing obscene suggestions, personal threats or abusive language.

People making these calls, often withhold their number.

NOTE: It may be a criminal offence, under section 43 of the Telecommunications Act 1984, to make a malicious call.

Virgin Media is committed to working with the telecoms industry in the UK to reduce nuisance calls. This is formalised in our commitment to Ofcom’s Nuisance Calls (Technical Measures) Memorandum of Understanding, which you can find here

For further information and advice from Ofcom go to

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/phone/tackling-nuisance-calls-and-messages/.

If you suspect that a call may be fraudulent or a scam, visit http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/.

For information and advice from Ofcom go to
http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/phone/tackling-nuisance-calls-and-messages/.

If you suspect that a call may be fraudulent or a scam, visit http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/.

How can I stop unsolicited calls?

Protect your number

Always take care where you share your number. It’s worth making sure you tick the appropriate marketing opt-out or ‘share with carefully selected 3rd party’ boxes when you enter information online. Just remember that this doesn’t always prevent auto-diallers from calling numbers at random.

Register with the TPS

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is the only official register to help prevent unsolicited calls. Registering with the TPS will make sure your phone number isn’t available to organisations that make this type of call.  For more information or to register call the TPS registration line on 0345 070 0707, or go to www.tpsonline.org.uk

Note: Registration with the TPS only applies to your existing phone number. If you change your home phone number for any reason, including when you move home, then you’ll need to re-register with the TPS.

Be careful of 'copycat' services, especially where they attempt to charge for the service.

Make a complaint

If you would like to make a complaint about a nuisance call or message, you can do so online. If you’re not sure who to contact go to Ofcom's complaints portal which will help you find the right organisation to complain to.

How can I stop unsolicited or spam texts?

The best thing to do is simply not to respond. Instead, forward the spam text to 7726 (SPAM on your phone's dialler). It's free, and only takes two texts. Numbers generating the spam texts can then be investigated, which may result in action being taken against the companies sending them.

Need help with nuisance or malicious calls?

If you’ve been a victim of a nuisance and/or malicious phone call and need some help you can give us a call.

If you received the call on your Virgin Media home phone give us a call on 0345 454 1111. We’ll do all we can to help you.

If you received the call on your Virgin Media mobile, call our team on 789 from your Virgin Media mobile or 0345 6000 789 from any other phone. Please note standard charges apply, please check with your network operator for rates.

Managing incoming calls

Caller Display

With Caller Display in place, you can identify who’s calling you and choose whether to take the call or let it ring out. While this doesn’t stop incoming calls, it does show you the caller’s number (as long as it isn’t withheld or unknown).

Anonymous Caller Rejection

Our Anonymous Caller Rejection (ACR) service helps to reduce incoming calls from withheld numbers.

This means you have the advantage of being able to get some information about the organisation that called you via their presented number (either displayed on a caller display unit or by dialling 1471 and listening to the announcement).

Just bear in mind that if the calling number isn’t hidden or isn’t available ACR won’t stop the call coming through.

To subscribe to either Caller Display or Anonymous Caller Rejection, just give our team a call on 150 from a Virgin Media phone or mobile, or 0345 454 1111* from any other phone, and select option 4.

For details of the current cost of Caller Display and Anonymous Caller Rejection, please see www.virginmedia.com/callcosts

Texts to landline

If you’re getting text calls on your landline (text messages converted to a voice message) or texts to a compatible landline handset, you can opt out or control when you receive them by dialling 0800 587 5252.

Landline Handsets

There are a range of home phones which include a number of features to help prevent unwanted calls. These features include:

• Anonymous Call Blocking or Silencing - whenever a call is made to your phone without the caller presenting their number, the phone will either send them back a busy tone (so they think the phone is engaged), or send the caller to the answering machine without the phone ringing so not to disturb you.

• Black List - if there is a specific number that you don’t want calling you, just add it to the Black List. Callers from black-listed numbers will either hear busy tone (engaged) or be sent to the answering machine silently without disturbing you.
• Do Not Disturb - set the phone for it not to ring during specific periods of the day or night. All calls will go silently to the answering machine, unless the caller is in your VIP list in which case the phone will still ring.

In order for this functionality to work, you must subscribe to Caller Display.

NOTE: Whilst these handsets may help with reducing unwanted calls, we can not guarantee they will stop all together.

Gigaset handsets include many of these features. Other handsets with nuisance call management features are available.

Further help

For further help, join the Which? consumer group campaign to help put a stop to nuisance calls.

*For details about how much it costs to call our team from a Virgin Media home phone, visit virginmedia.com/callcosts Call costs from other networks and mobiles vary.