Nuisance calls

[Johnny1983]

Hi

Do you have any plans to implement anything into your systems to stop silent calls? 🤔

My grandparents are getting calls where there's no one at the other end when they answer their phone🙁. This is annoying and frustrating for them 🙁. I've signed upto tps, had Acr, caller display put on my landline. Is their anything else you can do? 🤔 My grandparents are fed up of nuisance calls. We've even got a gigaset cordless. I'm constantly blocking the numbers on their. But we are still getting nuisance calls. 

[DJ_Shadow1966 · Accepted solution]

Hello

From what you have said it looks like the number calling them is being spoofed and all you can do is to keep blocking them, there is physically no way of detecting silent calls, the only way would be too using a call filtering system that the caller has too speak who they are before thee call is put through what will happen is the phone will ring it will say who is there and they will be able to allow or deny the call, VM do not have a system in place you would have to buy and extra piece of equipment to do that. TPS will not stop silent calls will only stop marketing calls for legitimate companies.

Have a look at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/problems/tackling-nuisanc...

Regards Mike

[Andrew-G · Accepted solution]

You can block incoming calls with a witheld caller ID number, but this is a chargeable feature (shame on you, Virgin Media), and not a complete solution (double shame on your VM).  Some legitimate services use withheld numbers because their switchboard can't pass direct dial numbers on as caller IDs, including some GP surgeries, pharmacies and hospitals, so simply blocking anonymous calls isn't so good for vulnerable customers.

The best option is (if you or they can afford it) to splash £100 on a Truecall box, and then £20 a year after that.  

[Johnny1983]

Hi

 The true call box sounds like a good system to use. Unfortunately it's out of my price range at the moment 🙁. Hopefully all these nuisance calls discussions will trigger virgin media into doing something to stop nuisance calls for their customers. Maybe they could implement something into their exchange that detects and blocks nuisance silent calls. I'm sure one of their clever technicians could implement some software to block these calls at their end 🤔. 

[Andrew-G · Accepted solution]

I doubt it.

The IMMEDIATE problem with a silent call is that it is only a proportion that are silent when you pick up the line, because the auto-dialler for a call centre has dialled your number, and when you pick it up there isn't an available agent to start trying to scam or mis-sell to you. So no way of knowing which calls are silent and blocking in advance.  The "please hold whilst I try to connect you" routine that Truecall and some BT services offer is usually effective against these.

Then there's the fact that in the world of wholesale telecoms, all large phone company are making money from scam calls through the wholesale call fees paid by the originating telco.  In some cases there's even a "ring tone no reply fee", so they even get paid if the phone isn't answered.  Given the deplorable standards of telcos (one step above financial services companies) very few if any companies will voluntarily walk away from the millions of pounds a year they make for funnelling silent calls, fraudulent calls, and mis-selling calls to waste the time of their customers, and cause distress to the vulnerable.  They'll explain how difficult it all is, and that they can't be responsible, and that they don't know where calls come from, and there's no rule of law in India/Pakistan or wherever, or that even if they block a number, the call centre just start up again the next day with a new number.  But that's all a load of total and utter kcollobs - if there were the will to implement proper controls, they'd do it, the fact is they're rather happy making money.  Taking a (guessed) average termination fee of 2p per call, a hypothetical company of the same size as VM would be making £10-15m a year based on a proportionate share of UK nuisance calls.  If their average termination rate is higher at (again a guess) 4p, that's £20-30m they make from facilitating this public nuisance.  

In theory we are protected by the regulator Ofcom.  Unfortunately that is a true chocolate teapot, fit for nothing.  Actually, even that's doing Ofcom a favour, because you can eat a chocolate teapot, but I doubt Ofcom would be edible.  I'd guess all stringy, gristly and chewy, with no good quality meat, plus a distinct flavour of beards and sandals.

A couple of further thoughts on Truecall: Buy a secondhand unit on eBay, and you can get one for as little as £15-20.  Or investigate (new or secondhand) the BT handsets that integrate the Truecall technology.

[Lee_R]

Hi Johnny1983

Thanks for posting and I'm sorry to hear of issues with nuisance calls, and the distress they're causing.  All the options Virgin Media are currently empowered to suggest are detailed Here  I am sorry,

Regards

Lee_R

[Johnny1983]

Hey Lee

Thank you for your response.

I already have the options available to me on my landline.  Caller display, Withheld call reject. I've even signed up to tps. Unfortunately I'm still getting nuisance calls 🙁. Changing my phone number isn't an option. My grandparents want to keep it. As they've had it for over 30 years. They know it off by heart. So they won't part with it. 

[goslow · Accepted solution]

Between this thread and the one you posted on Sunday, you really have already received the best selection of options available to you.

As suggested on Sunday's post, the zero cost option would be to set up the different ringtones on your existing Gigaset cordless so that VIP (known) callers in the phone contact list get one ring tone and anyone else gets another. At least that way your grandparents will know by the ringing sound if it is a welcome call or not. It won't, however, prevent the phones from ringing with the unwanted calls. Unless your grandparents have hundreds of numbers logged in the phone that is fairly quick and simple to do and free with the phone you already own. On some of the newer Gigaset models I believe you can silence the phones altogether on a timed schedule and the only calls which will ring through will be those on the VIP list.

I have used the trueCall standalone unit for almost two months now and it has entirely killed off the problem for me (with a bit of fine tuning to the settings). Zero unwanted calls getting through (although I can see the unit processing spam calls without ringing my phone and have made a few random checks via 1471 to confirm them as spam afterwards).

The CPR call blocker products https://www.cprcallblocker.com/ have a range of price points (with presumably different range of functions). You could look into the spec's of those to see if they will suit. I have no experience of them myself.

BT also do a range of call-blocking phones with trueCall features but see below ref. possible issues in setup for those.

If you have signed up for the VM protection offerings (call rejection etc.) you will be paying £2 or £3 per month as a recurring cost for a product which only offers a minimal solution to the problem. After one year of paying the VM monthly fees, you will be well on your way to paying for one of the entry level call blocking devices.

If you do go ahead with one of the call blocking devices, keep in mind that there have been a few posts on here recently regarding issues of setup and reliability regarding how the devices read Caller ID and process the calls. Although the blocking devices are good, some people have found they are not 100% reliable on their own particular home setup/line. These issues seem to be few and far between but worth keeping in mind that, wherever you get any device from, make sure the supplier has a good returns policy in case you do meet any issues when you connect it up in case you need to send it back.

You can download the trueCall manual from here for free https://www.truecall.co.uk/category-s/116.htm Have a read through it to see what the unit can do and how it can respond to the different types of spam calls. You will see the scale of the problem is a lot bigger than the basic anonymous call rejection and TPS kind of response.

After putting up with the problem myself for 6 months, I can appreciate how annoying it is and especially so for older relatives. Hope you are able to work out some suitable resolution from the info. on the forum.

[Johnny1983]

Thank you goslow

I will consider all options. But I do feel virgin media should do more to protect vulnable customers from these nuisance calls. I'm sure virgin media could implement something into their exchange to detect and stop these calls from getting through 🤔. Or the government even. 

[goslow · Accepted solution]

See the excellent post from Andruser at message #5 above for all the reasons that won't be happening anytime soon (ever?!).

Hope you can get something sorted to deal with it.