rashbre central: set shields to high

Saturday 7 February 2015

set shields to high


Like many, I probably receive most of my phone calls on my mobile phone nowadays. The landline is still there although for incoming calls it gets used more by family than anyone else.

Despite the Telephone Preference Service, which is used to block out nuisance calls, I'd say we were still getting several such calls every day. TPS doesn't exclude so-called survey calls. It also doesn't exclude pre-recorded calls nor those silent calls - when a call dialler is checking for pickup or is simply overloaded.

We changed the home phones recently and now have that Truecall thing which seems to be quite effective. Teach the phone the numbers you want to get straight through, (anyone in Contacts) and the phone puts up its own silent call screening for everything else.

The first half day I had it switched on, there were nine calls screened that didn't ring through. I could also see from the phone that it was apparently just three numbers making the calls. So much for that "don't hassle" clause that these telemarketers are supposed to follow.

I don't pay as much attention now, and genuine callers to the home land line don't seem to have noticed the difference. If anything, they are getting faster pickup because we don't need to listen to that first few seconds to work out if it's spam.


Deflector fields are set.

4 comments:

Lois (three-legged-cat) said...

We invested in the same system not long ago. It offers the option of a robot voice asking you to announce your name, but I didn't like that, so we've gone for allowing VIP calls to get straight through & the rest go straight to answerphone. Friends and family haven't noticed the difference, but we have, which is perfect!

However, I think I may have to change my polite answer phone message that promises to get back to the caller. So far, we have had a handful of messages or missed calls from actual people and a staggering number from robots or a particularly annoying company that incorrectly assumes that the more they phone us, the more business we will do with them. I quite like getting rid of those, whilst chanting 'delete' in my best voice of the Borg.

rashbre said...

Lois I expect we'll get more sophisticated and use the VIP and other facilities.

At the moment we are simply enjoying the lower number of spam-type interruptions, which were going on well into the evening.

Ours doesn't say we'll get back to them - Just 'if you'd like to leave a message, please speak after the tone...'

Pat said...

I have been getting nuisance calls about stopping the nuisance call. It all sounded quite reasonable until the caller got her supervisor. warning signs went off and I said I would have
to consult my son. Then she got quite querulous so I ended the call.

rashbre said...

Pat Nuisance calls about stopping the nuisance calls! This is taking it to a whole other level.