Today I got a phone call from a female at a Market Research company, she asked if she could ask me some questions so I said 'may I ask you a question first'? 'How did you get my (land line) phone number'? Her reply 'we do a random search' I then asked how would you get my number tho cos my number is ex' directory AND on the TPS list (Telephone Preference Service) her reply 'market research companies are allowed to contact you' my reply 'So what's the point of me adding my number to the TPS and not having it added to the directory?', in that case please remove me from your data base and don't call my number again'   I am livid!!!   Is the TPS list a scam, cooked up by market research company /ies so they can get our phone numbers? It looks like it to me.   Why should M R companies be allowed to contact us if we add our phone number to the TPS list and ask our service provider to NOT include our number in their directory, why the hell are they allowed to disregard that? It's not exactly an emergency that they need to contact us!   I had no idea that M R companies could contact us if we were on the TPS or ex' directory.   Once you add your number to the TPS you're actually giving it to M R companies! So if ya don't want to be pestered by M R companies don't add your number to the TPS list.                                                                                                                                                                               

According to the TPS site: 17. Will registering on the TPS stop market research calls? No, market research calls are not covered in the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Re...tions 2003 therefore companies conducting these types of calls are still allowed to call a TPS registered number. If you do not want to receive such calls, inform the caller to remove your details from their call lists. I wouldn't say that the TPS is a scam - it does stop other sorts of pestering calls... I get a minimum of 6 calls a day from various withheld and international numbers, so it's well worth registering with the TPS to prevent that level of calls. I never answer as I have caller display and don't answer withheld or overseas numbers. It's probably not all cold-calling though... I suspect most of them are from folk I owe money to That, or flipping call centres in India who ring me at 8am on a Sunday to gleefully inform me that I've been approved for my loan application... erm... the loan I applied for (where they're apparently getting my information from) was taken out some 5 years back and paid in full 3 years back!                                                                                                                                                                              

Dagnabbit... I've tried 3 times to change that bit of text from white to black... sorry!                                                                                                                                                                              

sorted your text for you.   Re the calls - get all witheld numbers blocked... i mean, how many of your friends call you from a witheld number?  If they can't get through to you (your friends) they should know the code they need to dial to remove their witheld status (If they have automatic hidden number that is).   Nothing you can do. Same as spam email, i get around 500 per day!                                                                                                                                                                             

Mini tanks 

I try to explain to the bossman that we have quite an excellent spam filtering service on our account - occasionally 1 or 2 get through, but that's pretty damned good for a business IMO. I get 2 daily reports of all the blocked messages and can choose to release any I believe to be genuine. Small effort for a nice clean inbox.

Not good enough for him though. But then again, what would be?!

Any friends who want to phone me from a withheld number have learned to text me on the mobile first, so I pick up
                                                                                                                                                                             

There are other ways of stopping them,I always inform them that I'm naked & feel a bit h*rny & ask them if they're up for some naughty chat,does the trick & they hang up.Or you could tell them it's not your line & you'll get the householder for them,then just leave them waiting for about ten minutes,it's their phone bill 
Another one I do is to keep asking them to repeat themselves as I'm a bit deaf or pretend to be an o.a.p & go on about the war,wouldn't have been allowed in my day ect,& it's all good fun winding them up in return
Best one was when I was on the karsey & held the phone in the pan whilst having a morning after beer & curry dump
                                                                                                                                                                             

Well, that's one way of clearing your throat, Oggy!   Kwak - I am ex-directory and also registered with TPS. I still take the odd call and mostly they are very apologetic. I took one to task over it and she just said they have a sequential list of phone numbers to go down so it doesn't matter if you have opted out or not...                                                                                                                                                                               

  I didn't see item 17 on the TPS site when I registered, not that it matters even if I did cos not much I can do about it, except ask them NOT to call me again, which doesn't work cos all they do is say they're from a different department and didn't KNOW I'd already asked not to be called. (My telephone service provider employees used that excuse, many many times til I threatened em with a solicitor and a charge of harrassment, so they stopped calling me and started mailing me  )   I didn't know I could stop witheld numbers calling me, I'll look into that one, tho my mum has her number witheld so it may prove a bit awkward.   The woman who called me, from the M R company, witheld her number!! Bloody cheek!!                                                                                                                                                                                   

Personally if it isn't a known number I leave it to the answering machine God bless caller ID. I have had a bit of an issue with it over the last year with 10-12 calls a day from debt collectors looking for my ex but by far the worst offender is "Friedrich Muller from Vienna Austria" his robot spends 15 minutes a day talking to my robot. While its nice to think that I am presumably costing them money my answer machine only has a 20 minute capacity and some days the Austrian robot fills it.

I've got all annon calls barrer but overseas call that are not shown still get through :o(                                                                                                                                                                             

Tell them you're really busy but you are interested,could you have their home number to call them back later 
Or you could simply hang up & not let it get you.They're a pain in the backside yes but there's plenty more to get peoples backs up isn't there?
Turn it into a source of amusement
                                                                                                                                                                             

WB, if your friends are calling from a land line that has a withheld number then tell them to dial 141 then your phone number. this will send their phone number to you for that call only then next call they make will have their number withheld unless they dial 141 before the phone number again.                                                                                                                                                                                 

Oh ta PP - I didn't know 141 worked in the opposite way too... i.e. I knew it withheld your number, but not that it gives out your number if you're set up for all calls to withhold your number. Cool.

                                                                                                                                                                             

Actually PP's got it slightly wrong...   141 withholds the number, 1470 releases it.                                                                                                                                                                             

Aha... thanks for the correction Mark! 

                                                                                                                                                                             

I knew 20 years of working for BT would come in handy one day!!                                                                                                                                                                              

There's always a reason we do what we do, eh?!