Does anyone who reads this site have any idea how to obtain a Geographic alternative number for www.media-tactics.co.uk to their quoted website telephone number of 0843 005 9468

This firm's name was given to me as the means by which they obtained my data and were calling my home phone number quite independently by two different UK based firms who were calling me despite my longstanding TPS registration.  Both had used an initial automated phone call, one to see if I had been involved in an accident and needed to make a claim and other asking if I had taken out PPI in recent years and asking to press 5 if either applied.  Whilst I had no intention of falling victim to the scam I pressed 5 to find out who was behind the unwanted phone calls.

It would seem that this firm's database was actually also behind a massive number of unwanted calls made over a period of just one month from mid February to mid March this year (2013) that led to a 26 page long thread at http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/01519091965/26  Cheekily these calls were made showing an apparently legitimate CLI of that when called back says the call was "in connection with sales and marketing activity" and is "nothing to worry about".

The number of calls made by this number can also be seen from another massive 33 page discussion thread at http://www.unknownphone.com/search.php?num=01519091965&page=33 and other threads such as the one at www.whophonedme.co.uk/01519091965,

Despite the fact that this firm engages in assisting such nasty practices as Live Telephone Transfer Leads as documented on their own website at www.media-tactics.co.uk/lead-generation/live-telephone-transfer-leads.aspx where their clients ring you with an automated dialler message (that does not avoid TPS registered homes) and if you press 5 you are then connected to an operator who farms your call out across their various clients (who appear to include Manchester solicitors and PPI claim specialists - TPF Law) they are still in business and www.ico.gov.uk is seemingly doing nothing to shut them down or fine them.

They also freely admit at www.media-tactics.co.uk/lead-generation/mobile-lead-generation.aspx to other despicable tactics such as generating leads by texting millions of people saying they may have had an accident or been missold PPI and providing numbers they have set up for unsuspecting victims to call back.  Yet so far the ICO's attentions have once again strangely not fallen on this firm.

When I rang them on their horrid 0843 number and complained my number was being illegally used by them and their clients for making calls despite being TPS registered they promised to purge it from their data and since then I have had a massive drop off in unwanted calls from companies selling numerous dodgy services from PPI claims to carbon equity and fine wine investments.

But if you do get told by one of the firms making these unwanted calls to TPS registered numbers that the source of your misfortune is clearly non TPS screened data they have bought from www.media-tactics.co.uk then why on earth should you have to pay to call their lousy revenue share phone number of 0843 005 9468 in order to get your phone number removed from their database???

I have tried searching by postcode at www.192.com and www.royalmail.co.uk for any other firm who could be this business at this postcode and who has a geographic phone number but without any success.  I also asked the firm directly if they had a Geo number for people calling from abroad or who were otherwise barred from calling 0843s and they told me they do not have one and also claimed nobody other than me had ever complained about their use of an 0843 phone number.

I therefore wonder if Dave or any other forum members with these skills can deploy their legendary super sleuth detective like powers to find an alternative number for this most undesirable business so that people at least no longer need to make a covert premium rate phone call (costing up to 40p per minute on a mobile and outside bundled minutes) to get their own number removed from the clearly completely non TPS screened data held by this company and which they then make freely available to their numerous telepest clients.

bigjohn wrote on Apr 26^th, 2013 at 4:35am:


I will give that a try later although I did already try the only other business listed at that postcode and address with a geographic number that was also an IT business via looking up the firms at that address and postcode on the Royal Mail postcode finder and it turned out not to be another incarnation of Media Tactics.

Interestingly the Companies House entry for Media Tactics shows them as being based on a business park at Chineham near Basingstoke rather than at this Serviced Offices address near Fleet.  Given their clear love affair with only using 0843 numbers they could actually be based anywhere and use a number of home teleworkers and not have a true conventional central office location at all.

Here is the Companies House address for this firm:-

Quote:


And Royal Mail only shows these seven businesses as being based at Centaur House in Ancells Road in Fleet in Hampshire.

Quote:


Connect Two and Helpsystems International both sound like they could be other telecoms related businesses.  However Connect Two has a geographic phone number but Helpsystems International seems not to so they could be the same people as Media Tactics.

Dave wrote on Apr 26^th, 2013 at 10:36am:


Whilst legally this is the formal position the practical reality is that Media Tactics or whatever else they call themselves this week or month are a huge cynical monster who aggregate the data and are clearly in a position to and have the resources to clean it up so it does not contain any TPS registered numbers.

They then sell on the data and their "we can connect you to a willing sucker" services to smaller call centre operations mainly driven by money often much less competent with using data and who are also usually more cavalier about their duties under the PECR regulations.  So if Media Tactics and their various devil's spawn are the problem (as I believe them to be) but the ICO cannot act against them but only against the people they sell the data to that makes things quite difficult.

My recommendation is that the ICO prosecute a few of the higher profile clients of Media Tactics who have zero excuse for not knowing better such as Manchester solicitors, TPF Law, and their various ambulance and PPI chasing sub businesses.  They appear to spend most of their time cold call chasing the creation of PPI claims and injury accident claims, many of which probably only even come in to being due to the aggressive marketing of these facilities to relatively poor citizens who are short of money and therefore attracted by the prospect of the filthy lucre that a successful claim of this kind may bring their way.

Either way we currently seem to be no further forward with obtaining a geographic phone number for Media Tactics.  It is possible that none exists since of their whole telecoms arrangements appear to sit on some kind of modern high tech Voip based platform.

Dave wrote on Apr 26^th, 2013 at 12:00pm:


They seem to have a perfectly clear entry for Media Tactics Resource Ltd at another near by Hampshire address and the date of incorporation for that is 12/3/2012 so it looks to me like they have a different registered and trading address.

There seem to be numerous now dissolved companies starting with the words Road Accident on the Companies House register.  Perhaps they flip companies every three months or so?.................

So clearly Road Accident Consult and not Road Accident Justice is the name of the company behind Media Tactics then.  And Media Tactics Resource Ltd is clearly a related ancillary business given that it was first incorporated at around the same time and its address is only a few miles away from the Centaur House address.  No doubt paying a quid for the list of directors of each company would tend to confirm this.

Either way as Road Accident Consult don't have any telephone numbers of any kind listed at the Centaur House address I presume we are no further forward in our quest for a geographic telephone number for the firm?

Anyone with linked.in access? Heres the linked.in profile which lists their owner Adam Mangan and Joanna Stewart their After sales manager.  This may be a way of getting a cheaper phone number to call  Hope this helps, The wife is getting calls from these guys now on her mobile which is also registered with TPS, same contact number for them 0843 as above.  I love the fact they have now claimed to be my ISP and a debt managerment company.  When I spoke to a guy called James who claimed to be the only one in the building.  Yet when I call on the 0843 number James answers and says I did not talk to him?  Even so he said he would investagate the call.  Yet he still somehow would not divulge where he got the wifes mobile number from.  Any help would be appreciated as I would like to stop what I consider to be intrusive calls from the marketing companies.  I suspect all of calls ie debt management, ISP etc all to be them operating illicitly as a multitude of companies from 1 call centre.

I'm pleased to see other people finally recognising the major harm being done by Media Tactics and other similar number vending businesses in selling lists of calling numbers to naive/stupid cold calling businesses who just take Media Tactics word that the long list of numbers is TPS compliant when it quite blatantly is not.

Unfortunately legally the ICO can only prosecute the businesses who call TPS registered homes, even if business like Media Tactics have quite deliberately misled their clients about the data they supply being fully TPS screened.   I am sure the law should be changed so that businesses who make money out of selling lists of phone numbers that they represent as being TPS screened, even though they know perfectly well the data has not been so cleansed, could also be prosecuted and ideally be subject to larger and even more swingeing fines.

I do wonder if Media Tactics is not also the source of the many unwanted calls I have had over the last two years from London based companies trying to con me in to investing in worthless unregulated so called investments.  These have taken the form of investment in carbon equities, rare earth metals, fine wines and more recently films.