I think that they have robo dialers so that really means no one is safe, ex directory or not. I have had a few calls even though I am ex directory. Due to a cock up by BT my number was put in the telephone directory for a few weeks. So the directories went out and I still got the calls even though I was ex directory again. Even being on the Telephone Preference Service did not help.

True. The TPS had only helped once when we reported a UK company to them.
There's nothing they can do about foreign callers though.

Yes but can you get BT to block international incoming calls without being charged a fortune?

Which is fine if you don't have international friends

They all pretty much use robo-diallers. This is why you get silent calls. The system just dials as many numbers as it can, and farms those out to operators that are free when answered. The silent ones that you get which are silent are calls that have not got a free operator to connect to.

Most mask or hide their number, so dialling 1471 won’t do you any joy in reporting the calls to TPS. The TPS seems fairly toothless anyway. They log reports of calls, but I can’t say that any of the ones I have logged have caused follow up requests or even had the decency to tell me what the outcome was. The TPS is the industry policing itself - so they are clearly not going to be operating it to the advantage of those who have registered numbers. The need to re-register numbers every few months tells me that it’s not taking the problem seriously enough.

Certainly, as soon any anything gets a little advanced for them (ie you can”t identify the caller), they push you off to the Information Commissioner’s Office (who really should be dealing with the whole problem).

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/stillgetcalls.html

They should be replace with a regulatory body that has the powers to fine organisations into oblivion. As far as overseas calls maybe the solution is to have every call prefixed with a business or private line tag so that users can block businesses from abroad. All the overseas calls that I want are from individuals not businesses.

How would you get India to invest the millions required to do that? It would be impossible to police even if you had the infrastructure.

I appreciate that there would be other problems with blocking calls from India, there would be large numbers here who make and receive calls from there. Though how much would it actually cost to implement?


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