Just had one of these “pest” calls from someone claiming to be from the “Green Energy Company from South London”
Never heard of the company so quick reply was “sorry not interested” and put the phone down. Cold callers are a pain in the backside, if I am interested in a product then I will research different companies that sell the product.What they don’t realise is you might be waiting for an urgent or important call and they are blocking your line.
RS, i don’t know if you have a mobile phone, but I always give out my mobile number to important calls. The house phone barely gets used, so when it does ring, I know its not worth answering.
I am one of those rare people without a mobile phone and the really annoying thing is everyone is expected to have one.
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Yes I suppose its the done thing now…Ok, so how about an answering machine to pick up messages? That way, if you are unfortunately stuck on one of these silly calls, and someone else is trying to get through, they can leave a message so you don’t miss it?
got one of those new fangled things, just have to remember to switch it on.
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A lot of the nuisance cold sales calls are now made by bots. And some of them are really good & hard to tell apart from a human.
We are on the Telephone Preference system, but we still get a few nuisance calls from the bots every so often. “I am the agent for your postcode area.” “What is my post code.” “I am new to the job.” “But if you are agent for this postcode, you must know what it is?” The bots cannot deal with this kind of questioning & generally show what they are, with problems developing in the system.
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Our simple mobile phones have, by arrangement, the voicemail facility turned off, so unless the number is known to either of us and displayed by the name of a known caller, it is left unanswered. Our landline is set to always switch to answering service where the message tells all callers to leave a message and their call will be returned asap IF we deem the call important. Callers such as described, never do leave a message.
we are ex/ directory and TPS . This does not stop a direct phone calls though, TPS only stops known nuisance callers. A lot are just random calls hoping to find a mug to hit on
But commercial callers have a legal duty to check our numbers are not on TPS before calling us. And we can report them for not doing so & companies who do call us risk heavy fines.
According to someone we know from a call centre, most of the calls are placed by an auto-dialler and they only take over if someone actually answers.
I was recently threatened by a cold caller.
They called about ‘an energy survey’ and I said ‘‘Rubbish you are a cold caller get off my phone and stop invading my privacy’’ and put the phone down.
I checked the number on Google and it was indeed a cold caller a British woman with a reassuring soft voice.
She rang back moments later and said ‘’ I know who you are and where you are and will be paying you a visits ‘’ quoting my name and address .
I said ''Like hell you will my dog will soon sort you out if you do now go and get a proper job ‘’ 
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Oh my word!! That’s horrific!
slightly different tact but to do with cold callers at the front door.
Sue and I still smile over this incident
When we had a new house just built and first owners on a large estate we had a nice 4 bed home. After a few weeks we had a knock on the door from a man from a double glazing company. He was trying to sell us double glazing, so we asked if he had many sales around here. He said no and he could not understand why. Sue said have you looked at the windows on this estate? The properties all have double glazed widows as they are built with them. WHAT A PRATT
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I don’t bother with the TPS.
They only monitor British Callers.
Many of the spammers/scammers are foreign (albeit using faked Uk numbers).
The telephone shows the name of the caller, assuming he/she has given a name & I have edited that name on the phone.
I never answer a call if I don’t know the number of the caller or, if using the answering machine they don’t leave a message.
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Meg That’s scary if someone with less “gumption” than you had been on the other end of the line scary. I would report them to BT or your home your phone provider; and also maybe on the no emergency phone line and can’t think who else anyone can think of. I doubt anything wil come of it but worth reporting I think
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I used to employ a telephone sales team, commercial.
It is a thankless job, soon as the recipient realises the nature of the call…the abuse and insults would often start, 85% of the time….
It really does take a certain type of person to do this job… some inexperienced people would only last a couple of days…. some retaliated with abuse and threats of their own, ending up unemployed.
Yes I get nuisance calls for an array of things, including sales……and yes its p****s me off
I wondered how they got my number, was informed if you make 0800 calls you’ll receive nuisance calls
I no longer have a landline phone, still got the line as I need it for broadband and really cannot justify full fibre.
So am not troubled by calls to a landline phone and rarely get them on my mobile.
I am much the same except I do have a VOIP “landline” using my old number purely because it is included with my internet but it goes straight to an answering machine. It says:
“I never answer this phone because you are either a scam or a charity, if you are not please call my mobile phone or leave a message after the tone. I may or may not listen to the recording. Thank you.”
Rarely get any scam calls on my mobile and the charity numbers are blocked.
I don’t bother with the TPS.
They only monitor British Callers.
Many of the spammers/scammers are foreign (albeit using faked Uk numbers).
The telephone shows the name of the caller, assuming he/she has given a name & I have edited that name on the phone.
I never answer a call if I don’t know the number of the caller or, if using the answering machine they don’t leave a message.
Ted’s right about TPS.
I phoned them once to ask why i was still getting nuisance calls while i was registered with them and ex-directory too. They told me they cannot stop calls from abroad.
Also, there is a way some scammers can ‘buy’ respectable looking phone numbers to dial from, so that it looks as if they are in this country. I dont know how this one works though.
My answerphone is permanently on on my landline, and i never pick up if it is an unknown number. You always know, because they wont speak to an answerphone. 
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I am not sure this is a good idea, some people turn their ID off for various reasons. Calls from my kids are often “Number Unknown” because they work at Defence establishments where mobile phones are not allowed inside and for obvious reasons the establishment’s number is secret.