Arrgghhh
I am at the end of my tether.
I have been a BT customer since Sept at this new house. I have regular land line and one call sign which is used for a advice and support voluntary group thus we have no funding for a seperate line.
In my last house this was the same for aobut 4 years. I only received a few sales call from "people", double glazing, win a kitchen, market research etc.
First thing I did when we signed up to this new house number was to register with the TPS Both the home number and the call sign.
In the last few months I hav ebeen inundated with calls from International companies, who are usually debt services, as well as today alone, 4 different services, all automated, offering various services.
The problem is this.
I am a disabled person who needs my phone to make emergancy calls.
The call sign provides a much needed support line for people in extreme trauma and distress, often after being the victim of assault, hate crimes and phobia related discrimination.
When these call come through they say things like " this is a call from ...........debt service. Are you in debt? hold on the line to be conected to an advisor"
With this type of call it is usually international so not covered by the TPS, however the main problem with this is that once you have picked up th phone, the message is played regardless of how soon you put the phone down, even 20 mins later this call is still blocking my line, even after unplugging from the main socket.
This is
a) prohbitive in my making of emergany calls,
b) blocking the line for incoming calls to the support service
Other calls are from this country, take for example the one earlier today.
I received another call, firstly it was automated, in that a recorded messages give some info, not usually the name of the service but something similar. Next you can opt to be connected, which today I did, as I have done in the past, with the sole purpose of finding out more about these callers, the head office etc.
Today I was put through to Robert Henderson, who told me the company was called Debt Advisory Council. I asked where he was based, he stated London. I asked whereabout and what kind of service DAC provided his was reply was "why? who wants to know". I explained that I would like to know more information about this company (he said it wasn't a company) so I could understand where they were based, a contact number and also who I was giving my details to ( of course I was never going to be giving out my details over the phone on an unsolicited call).
His reply was classic - F*** off. Charming.
I then looked up this company/service on the net and could find nothing, so I rang what was trading standards, who were useless. Told me to ring OFCOM but I was under the impression that ofcom was to do with you not being happy with a telephone provider or similar.
So my questions are this:
Is there anything (free) that I can do to stop this nusiance.
Is it against the law for BT to allow my line to be blocked whilst these companies/services run out their taped messages?
Thanks