Tonight I received another of those annoying silent calls. The difference this time was the caller ID being 0866 4776450 instead of "withheld".

I could not find 0866 on the Ofcom number plan. Does anybody know what classification this falls under and the charge rate might be?

I have been registered for some months now. It has stopped most telesales, but some cowboys seem to ignore it. The worst being Space Kitchens.

I really wanted to know what the 0866 number was.

Interesting. I thought that foreign numbers normally came through with the country code (?)

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I personally can't believe that anyone subscribes to the Anonymous Call Rejection Service unless they are David Beckham or Tony Blair.

Think of all those large companies on 0870 who need to call you back who have Number Withheld.  I just don't see how people can use this service unless they are suffering a genuine stalker/pest who makes unwanted calls at 3am in the morning?

My number is listed with directory enquiries but I am also registered with the TPS and the only sales call I have had all year from a company based in the uk is from my former University trying to sell me a 4 year donation plan at £180 a year.  This started off on the pretext of a market research call and then switched to the agressive hard sell donation front.  I have made a complaint to the TPS and am probably also going to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner.

I do of course get calls once a fortnight or so from Las Vegas telling me I have won a Jackpot and to call a certain number.  The last one invited me to call an 0800 number rather than the usual 0906 so I have no idea how they make money on that.  Of course all these prizeline calls are International and then Number Withheld or Unavailable.  The problem will stop when ICSTIS introduces a one month payment delay between the making of an 0906 call and the transfer of the money to the companies concerned.

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I just find it hard to credit that some people have this closed a circle of likely callers.  And if they do then surely the odd unexpected call is hardly going to bother them that much?  So long as they have also registered with the TPS as a much cheaper and more cost effective alternative to using Anonymous Call Rejection.  Also using an answerphone to screen calls would surely be more effective than ACR?

Also surely all the Las Vegas Jackpot calls are Unavailable instead of Withheld so what good does this anonymous call rejection service actually do her?  Obviously it is going to make BT richer though so perhaps she is a loyal BT shareholder then?

Is your mother a full time recluse then or just old and confused so probably gets very upset when someone she doesn't know calls?  Or perhaps you are worried that some pushy salesman will try and sell her something to her although again the TPS should deal with that better than ACR will.

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The block of central London flats that my mother lives in provides a phone service to residents via a business PBX system and that provides a false CLI number of 020 7698 2000 that does not exist so as to overcome the automated rejection thing for withheld number calls.

At present it doesn't seem to actually be illegal to provide a fictitious CLI, although I assume there might be problems if you picked a CLI number that actually belonged to another real subscriber?

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OK if you are receiving genuinely malicious calls with people hanging up or making threats then this would be the one good reason to employ the facility for automatically rejecting calls from number withheld.  But there do seem a lot of downsides to activating such a facility in terms of preventing genuine callers from also being able to reach you.

By the way do BT let you have this facility in their package of up to 4 network services for £10.50 a quarter or is it like Call Minder by having its own special higher charge and not being available in a network services package deal?

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They can't release their number if they are calling you back from any sort of large corporate office with a PBX or from most large customer service centres.

But perhaps you and your mum never receive any calls from those kinds of places.