Following an unwanted call this afternoon from a faked 028 Northern Ireland CLI (in fact from a call centre in either India or the Philippinnes flagrantly violating both TPS and Silent Call rules) I have made the below post on the www.whocallsme.com website at http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/02814767868 and would be very grateful for any other comments from knowledgeable forum members as to whether the number block that contains 028 1476 7868 has ever so far been issued to a Communications Provider by Ofcom.   This matter may also interest SilentCallsVictim since it also involves the large scale recent making of Silent Calls to the UK by a single overseas call centre.

To add further irony to the matter I happen to know that until about 20 years ago 02814 was actually the area code for the Farnham Common exchange where one of my relatives lives.  Unfortunately at that time it was then given the same area code as Slough (01753) even though the Farnham Common exchange continues to physically exist and all numbers starting 01753 64 are served by the Farnham Common exchange building.

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Finally I know this isn't strictly the place to make such a post but it was the most appropriate forum section I could find in the absence of an Off Topic forum section.  However I do feel that the issue of which telecoms provider may own the number block in which 02814767868 is located is one to which a member of this forum (such as Tanllan) is quite likely to know the answer.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Mar 10^th, 2009 at 12:07am:


I believe it was equally distressing to the residents of Stoke Poges (of both Gray's Elegy and the eponymously named golf club featured in the James Bond Goldfinger movie fame) who also account for about 50% of the lines on this exchange.  There was a compromise in that at the time exchange code lists (since in those days there were still local short dialling codes along with Regional call rate if you can remember those dim and distant days) still listed Farnham Common, even though its code (01753) was still the same as Slough.  BT's policy on physical exchanges having their own codes does not seem to have been at all logical or consistent as the local exchange here providing my 7.5Mbps connection is less than a mile away but phone numbers have always been given the initial code digits of the town 7 miles to the North and unlike Farnham Common BT has never even admitted to the existence of my local exchange in terms of the telephone exchange name which is instead that of the large near by town.  Yet the document showing old exchange codes (including the now sadly demised Farnham Common 02814) at http://foldoc.org/pub/misc/STD_Codes shows that my local exchange never had its own dialling code identity even in those days (even though it did exist) and yet the neighbouring tiny village exchange to this one with only 200 lines (an eighth of the number of lines on my local exchange) is separately identified in this document.

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If one's telecoms company is one of the new profit hungry non ex GPO monopoly firms the chances of success in persuading them they can do this seem very small.  They will normally only enable such a trace in the event of a suspicion of a serious criminal offence being perpetrated via the phone.

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Whilst I agree in principle my own efforts in this regard show that the ICO refuses to properly investigate complaints made to it directly by just one individual.  Instead they only like to investigate individual complaints where they are backed up by a large number of calls reported to the DMA/TPS as still being made despite TPS registration.  An individual complaint to the ICO only therefore helps when lots of customers have taken the less formal route of logging a complaint with the TPS complaints system.   Hence complaints made to the TPS do achieve more than you may believe, even though I agree that they are not the enforcment body for breaches of the rules.

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I don't think so since star billing in the call actually occurred for an orthopaedic bed selling company where the young Filipino lady was very keen indee to send me their catalogue when I foolishly admitted to back problems in the past.  Also heavy prominence was given to trying to get me to give permission to a will writing company contacting me about a will when I admitted not having one.  It struck me very much as an omnibus survey where a number of parties were getting different aspects of the data.  The questions about the RSPB membership and the guide dogs for the blind matters and my agreeing to allow follow up calls or otherwise on those were phrased in such a way that I do not believe they were decoys.  The purpose of the survey was in fact deliberately to circumvent TPS for the 60% or so of UK households now registered with the TPS.

NGMsGhost wrote on Mar 10^th, 2009 at 12:56am:

Fair enough. It may still be worth having a word with these bodies, as they would doubtless wish to express discontent at being promoted in this way. There is the possibility that this company is not directly engaged, but will sell on any valuable names it collects through other agencies.

Marketing can be a very grubby business, and charity fund-raising, which is nothing but an offshoot, has little hesitation in getting in amongst the dirt, justifying this on the basis of the results it achieves. That is however not to say that reputable charities themselves would not be keen to dis-associate themselves from much that may be done in their name.


The point about the ICO and DMA/TPS is well made and totally valid on pragmatic grounds. Both Ofcom and the ICO should however be encouraged to take a less consumerist approach to the work they carry out in the public interest.

The actual reality is however perhaps different again.

I could think myself exceptionally fortunate in being able to have Ofcom launch its first investigation into a Silent Caller on the basis of only two Silent Calls reported to Ofcom. This was supported by about a dozen or so logged by BT with reports to it by others, and incidental concern about abuse of the TPS by the same company, which was never actually formally investigated.

The volume of complaints against particular callers is not reported. I am sure that it is used, but only to provide some flimsy justification for action against those who are picked on as targets. If everyone who breached the regulation about use of recorded messages for marketing purposes was handled in the same way as the Lib Dems, then the daily papers would invariably be filled with cases. Action was rightly taken in this case, but only on the basis of the absolute minimum number of complaints. I would assume that the ICO gets this number of complaints about each of the many habitual recorded message marketers every day.

Whilst investigation on the basis of the number of complaints is improperly consumerist, this is not even what actually happens. I would suggest that investigation and action is actually taken on the basis of the interests of the regulatory body itself and its perception of how best to cultivate the public reputation that it wishes to have. In the present political climate, consumerism is seen as a good thing. The interests of the citizen is seen as being something to do with allowing terrorists, muggers and other undesireables out on the streets.

(I can offer other examples).

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 12:34pm:

How do you suppose TPS and ICO could investigate with no information to go on? 


NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 12:34pm:

It is very judgmental to assert that those who choose not to register with TPS are more gullible ("far more readily go along with the scam") "victims".

If they are indeed "victims", then perhaps TPS registration should be compulsory for all UK telephone users. So how does this affect this case. Answer is, it doesn't. 

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 7:49pm:

I am not so sure that this would actually provide any real benefit, particularly as it may simply give rise to more spoofed and unavailable CLIs.


A quick explanation of CLIs will help readers understand my points:

CLI is "Calling Line Identification" and it is system that allows a number to be presented on caller displays and read out via 1471. Hence, a number on caller display is often referred to as "a CLI number" or just "a CLI".

Calling Line Identification means the identification (telephone number) of the calling line (the telephone line that the caller is ringing from).


The calling and receiving parties of any individual call may be with different telephone providers. Let's refer to the caller's telephone company as Provider A and the recipient's provider as Provider B. During a call, Provider A passes the CLI number (along with the call itself) to Provider B for display on its customer's caller display unit.

Where Provider A and Provider B don't interconnect with one another, then they will use another telephone company, Provider X, to transit the call between them. In which case, the call will go from Provider A to Provider X to Provider B, with a CLI being passed on at each interconnection.

Any request that the caller makes to withhold their number from the recipient (by prefixing the number with 141 etc) is fulfilled by Provider B. So Provider A gets the request (from its customer) to withhold the CLI. It passes on the CLI number and the withhold request to Provider X (iff applicable) and it in-turn passes it on to Provider B. It is up to Provider B to honour the request and keep the CLI from its customer (the receiving party of the call).


NGMsGhost, what you are suggesting is that the recipient's telephone company, Provider B, should be compelled to provide the CLI when its customer says that a call breached TPS or committed some other offence.

I think that any such legislation would be a waste of time due to the total lack of ruggedness in the reliability of the CLI system. When a caller receives a call, the CLI presented to them (assuming that it has not been withheld) cannot be guaranteed to be accurate by their telephone provider. All the recipient's telco (Provider B) can do is present the CLI number that it is given by the telco passing the call to it. [By "accurate", I mean that the number presented is one which the caller can be reached on.]

I would have thought that any party out for malicious intent would wish to provide a fake CLI rather than simply request the recipient's provider to withhold it (a genuine one) from its customer. However, for the purpose of this discussion, I will assume that some do provide genuine CLIs, but withhold them.

Should there be an onus put on receivers' telcos to disclose CLI numbers of those alleged to be breaking rules, then all this is likely to achieve is that those doing the rule breaking will have their telco present a fake CLI. Indeed, the prevalence of subscription to services that reject calls where a numbers are withheld means that they are probably more likely to provide fake CLIs rather than withhelds. Such examples of fake CLIs known to be used are a line of 0s and "1111". How do you propose TPS and ICO trace these? What happens if scammers catch on and start to share the same fake CLI?


Indeed, this thread is about a scam using a fake CLI. So withholding the CLI has nothing to do with it!

If you look at all the e-mail spam that is about, the same problem exists there. E-mails are sent from fake 'from' addresses and even the sender's IP address being recorded in the header does not abate the tirade. And so, CLIs are like 'from' addresses on e-mails; they can't be trusted to be genuine.

Thank you for your uncharacteristically aggressive responses to my posts Dave in which you really sound much more like our late lamented forum friends DaveM or andy9.

I think your last two posts may well serve as an admirable reference (along with some of SCVs most classically turgid, politically correct and utterly mind numbing diatribes) when it becomes time to write the thread "Why does no meaningful discussion any longer take place on the saynoto0870.com website"

Dave wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 1:57pm:


I equally find it sad that the forum's management now seems to have chosen to deliberately alienate most of the forum's longest established members whilst never editing or amending the posts of one of its most unpopular, out of tune and disruptive members (SilentCallsVictim).

I find it hard to sustain much enthusiasm for a campaign where we are clearly not getting anywhere and where as soon as we make any progress the perpetrators are allowed to have the rules altered again in their favour by OfCON

The one thing that used to sustain me in the campaign was sharing almost exactly the same mindset as most other longstanding campaigners on this discussion forum but since the arrival of SCV, who pretends to support the campaign but has a whole plethora of conflicting agendas on his slate, most of my enthusiasm for participating in this discussion forum has been drained away.

Also contrary to what SCV states this is not an open public forum in which he can say whatever he likes but actually a private one in which the forum owners must be prepared to allow his comments to continue to remain on the forum.  Fortunately for SCV he seems to be almost totally on message with the forum's management and so his comments are always allowed to remain in full.

... (continued from above)

Secondly, on the TPS.

The EU is to blame. An EU directive was issued demanding that general consent was required for the receipt of unsolicited direct marketing calls. The Telephone Preference Service was already in place as a voluntary register run by the telemarketing industry to assist its members in not wasting their time by calling those who had indicated a reluctance to respond. It was decided to assume that all those not registered with the TPS had thereby granted general consent, and so the TPS acquired statutory status. (Subsequently this was complemented by the Corporate TPS.)

The Direct Marketing Association continues to run the register (under contract to Ofcom) and provides summaries of complaints to the ICO, which is responsible for enforcing compliance with the relevant regulations.  (N.B. These are statutory regulations enforced under civil law. It is not a criminal offence to make a direct marketing call to a TPS-registered number.)

Other EU countries have an opt-in system, whereby the telemarketing industry has to win consumers' consent to this way of finding out about products and services. Many (on all sides) argue that this would have been a better option for the UK.

With the statutory TPS in place and growing, in 2005 BT launched "BT Privacy at Home". This offered free CLID provision (through the network) and automatic registration with the TPS. This was presented on the totally false basis that CLID enabled you to know "who" was calling and that TPS registration was a reliable way of ensuring that Silent Calls were made to other people, rather than oneself.

BT had previously been required to provide its competitors with the names and telephone numbers of its customers, so that they could have a chance to compete with its former monopoly position. BT was losing customers fast. Admittedly some of this was due to bad telemarketing and some very dubious practices, known as slamming. Aside from these indefensible abuses, BT obviously benefitted from getting as many of its customers as possible onto the TPS, as this was an effective means of revenue protection. It is likely that the financial benefit offset the cost of lost CLI fees.

Partly in response to this, many of BT's competitors automatically put the numbers of their customers onto the TPS. The TPS register is simply a list of numbers; there is no verification that the user of the number actually wishes to be registered. Any company that fears losing its customers to telemarketing competitors is well aware of this.

TPS registration continues to be promoted as a solution to the problem of Silent Calls. I do not deny the fact that it offers some benefit in relation to Silent Calls and would never question the right of anyone to register. I do however point out that registration may deny access to those who wish to offer products and services (in the widest sense) that one may be pleased to hear from. Overall, the high level of TPS registration has a negative effect on the domestic telemarketing industry and the standards that it follows.

Furthermore, whilst I campaign against misuse of the telephone network, I believe that we all have to avoid being too precious about our telephone lines. If we connect to an international communications network and receive incoming calls, we cannot expect to have total personal control over who tries to call us and when. I believe that the regulators have a duty to require every caller to say who they are and why they are calling at the beginning of each call that is answered - this cannot be achieved by so called "caller display". Beyond that, it is up to each of us to deal with each call that we choose to answer in whatever way we wish. Those who cannot be expected to cope with deceit must be advised, or instructed, never to speak to anyone who they do not know. I use an answering service to deal with calls that I am not ready to answer and have great sympathy for the few who do not have such a facility available to them, as I would commend use of such technology to capture all calls that arrive at inconvenient times.

The TPS and display of CLI have nothing whatsoever to do with "privacy". That important issue is misrepresented and devalued by being falsely applied here.


Very few of us have a positive view about marketing of any sort. I find that most of those who work in the telemarketing industry have a low opinion of themselves; even those in the industry who genuinely aspire to high standards regard many of their colleagues with contempt.

There is also a general contempt for all those who are "victims" of marketing of any kind. We perhaps like to think that we are above it all. I am however reluctant to agree that much of our TV and our newspapers, along with most of the internet (including this site), are only in existence due to a belief in what is alleged to be a fallacy - that marketing works on us all.

It is unfortunate that the telemarketing industry cannot get its own act together to raise standards generally. This is twinned with a failure by the regulators to deal effectively with totally unacceptable bad practice. Together, these create a downward spiral in standards.

Increased levels of TPS registration actually encourage this downward spiral, as there are fewer and fewer worthwhile people for legitimate operators to contact. Anyone who sees any benefit to be derived from volume telemarketing therefore onl