Thanks for that.

Some BT staff in their Nuisance Calls Bureau were maintaining that I needed to hang up for 30 minutes to clear the call which I disputed.

In practice hanging up for over 10 seconds normally works but it would seem that with calls from India the full 3 minutes worth is required.

I got the 10 seconds of hanging up figure from a BT Operator 2 or 3 years ago.  But that was before Indian call centres became the norm.

I didn't even know there was a BTwebworld website!  One learns something new every day.

Dave wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 12:28pm:


Ofcom are long on fine words and worthy statements and short on action against the most crooked and deceitful abusers in the telco industry.

As a result of obtaining a household insurance quote I received a Silent Call that I know came from MoreThan as after getting the silent call with number Unavailable then three minutes later I received another call with Unavailable from a live More Than sales person preceded by a delay on the line after I picked up before anything happened.  I asked why they had made a Silent Call 3 minutes earlier and they denied it was them and so I asked why they showed number Unavailable and they offered no explanation.  As that is the only Silent Call (as opposed to unwanted sales calls from a human despite my TPS registration of which I get one may be every 2 or 3 months) I have received in the last 12 months it isn't generally a big problem but it is the reason why I am absolutely certain the Unavailable call was from MoreThan.

As to small companies selling carpet cleaning services I have had 2 or 3 of these in the last year and each time it has been Number Unavailable.  I have listened to the sales spiel and said I am busy at the moment so can I have a number to call back on and each time been refused.

When I tried to ask both the TPS and Information Commissioner if they had the power to force BT to obtain and provide them with the CLI of such a call if I gave the time and date they said they did not and there was nothing I could do about such calls.

My experience of Ofcom is that they only bother investigating matters where they have had several hundred complaints about the same companies and if the companies carry on with using Unavailable as the CLI there will be no way to stop the abusers.  Unfortunately the whole Ofcom regulatory system relies on everyone being a "Jolly Decent Chap" so the abusers simply walk away unchallenged.

Dave wrote on Mar 1^st, 2006 at 12:50pm:


I usually start off seeming as though I am interested in their service and trying to get a number to call them back on and/or who the company is.  Then if they are obstructive I ask them if they are not aware of the TPS list and why they are not screening their call set against it.  I then usually give them a piece of my mind about calling people on the TPS list like this that centres on them clearly not being able to find a better way to earn a living and so on and I suggest that they never darken my telephone number again. Curiously by this point they often already seem to have hung up on me.  Now I wonder why?