Countryboy1

Hi Rosemary, I'm staggered as it appears you have only just had one of these calls are not read about them! We've been getting them for about the last two years. Sometimes they say they are calling from Windows, not Microsoft. The fact that as far as I know there is no company called Windows is a bit of a giveaway also.

snikpoh

I've never yet had such a call and we have a few windows PC's in the house and have been in Spain for 11 years now.

tuhler

So that has damned all BT staff....amazing

tuhler

I have a recording which i put the receiver near..lots of info...passwords...user names..date of purchase..but i confess one of my dogs had a very bad stomach..nasty noises

uk_grenada

Hoho. My ip telephony provider has a virtual extn no to transfer telemarketing calls to, it says something like 'thank you for contacting us, you are in a q and we will talk to you as soon as we can [10 sec delay] [this is point 1]. unfortunately we are so busy answering telemarketers that thiss queue is at least ZZZzzz minutes long, in the meantime here is some nice music [horrible music fir 5 mins - loop to 1...]

Rosemary

You would have all laughed at me a moment ago because the phone rang, I did not look to see the number but presumed that it was them again so answered in a very stern annoyed voice. Unfortunately it was not the pests but one of the lovely Spanish ladies who ring me every week, talk about egg on face. Even though I immediately changed to my normal friendly voice she was reluctant to speak.

Rosemary

Countryboy1

As I comment re' Rosemary's post we have had these quite frequently over the years, however over the last few days we have had between 15 - 20 of these calls each day. Thinking of cancelling my land line with Telitec as this is getting ridiculous. A few years back I was at my son's house in the UK and asked him why they never answered their home phone. He said because of all the marketing calls they just let all calls go to their answering machine and then decide phone back later if the call is valid.
Other than cancelling my line I can only think some form of screening method is necessary.
Anyone any ideas as it's getting out of hand. Calls start early in the morning.
Thanks.

uk_grenada

We drooped landlines years ago, just stick to mobiles. You can avoid some in the uk by using the govt tps service, but it doesnt stop the calls from abroad.

You can have fun however - remember they use what is effectively a script. There is something called the anti telemarketing script you can use t ototally baffle them.

Short of screening all calls, you cant stop it, only make it more expensive [mobile] or time wasting for them.

One other thing - i worked for a huge company run by a mouse once... I was someone who bought a lot of stuff. To prevent harassment by sales people, our phones had 2 numbers, the external one forwarded to a minion in hr whose job was to shield us - our names were considered secrets, never given to anyone external. Imgine the conversation - i want to speak to the head of IT, sorry he wont talk to you, whats his name, sorry we cant give that out, well how can i sell him things, you cant he'll call you if he wants to... In another co, we had premium rate nos, it was fine for a salesman to call me anytime, it cost him 3 quid a minute...

uk_grenada

At the mouse, we had suppliers so frustrated, that one computer manufacturer signed a 12 month deal to sell us desktops laptops etc at an audited -1% profit [ie 1% loss, audited by our rottweiler auditors] globally, just so their sales peole could have contact with the national managers and hopefully build up a relationship :-)

Countryboy1

Thanks for that, thinking of just confining to mobiles only as both my son & daughter in the UK do. At first we used to wind the callers up a bit. A couple of days ago, the phone went as we were on our way out. I went along with them and asked them could they wait whilst I turned on my PC. They said yes, so I just put the phone on our table and went out leaving them on the line.
Seriously though, when you have family in the UK you are reluctant not to answer the phone in case there's a problem, but the humour, if it ever was so, has now worn very thin.
If I do cancel the land line though, we must get into the habit of always having a mobile nearby and charged, something we don't do now, probably because of the land line!

uk_grenada

With mobiles, the use of ip telephony in facebook messenger, whatsapp [not very good imho] and apple facetime make call costs almost zero, you can save quite a bit. I use giffgaff when in the uk, personally 7.50 a month, you can just turn on and off prepaid arrangements at will, and of course next month those calls texts and data are same price in the entire eu.

Eric S

I'm assuming these scammers all speak English? Funny how they are calling phone numbers in Spain. I wonder how often someone answers who even speaks English.

- Eric S.

Rosemary

The ones that rang me spoke in English with a very heavy Indian accent, they were slightly thrown when I answered the phone in Spanish but still continued with their "madam I am concerned about you computer" speech.

Rosemary