Annoying Caller to stop?

Hi All:
For the past three weeks or so, there has been a telephone call asking a strange female name to whom the caller wants to speak, ... often telling that this is a long-distance call or similar phrase, that happens not only once but also twice a day. Most of time it's during day or dinner time, then I've been kept hanging up when I'm home.

It's quite annoying to say the least, ... but it's a bit intimidating to hear a strange voice with long-distance call.

So far, hanging-up is best way to deal this, 'spam-like' telephone call, but is there any way for me to stop this? Should I inform this, annoying and daily telephone call to my home by using my telephone # to Telephone Co.?

Any helps and suggestion on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

Log the exact time the calls happen for a week, then call the telephone company and report it as harrassment.

 

If you have caller ID, you can recognize the number and not answer. Do not answer Anonymous, Unknown, or Private numbers.

If you have Call Block, there are instructions in the front of the phone book that tell you how to use Call Block. There are also instructions in the front of the phone book for what to do to report harassing and annoying calls. There is a number to call at the phone company to report the problem. If you have the number that would be helpful, but if it shows up on caller ID as Anonymous, that's no help.

Stopping Harassing Phone Calls

Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel

 

If you are in the United States, you might consider registering your phone number with the National Do Not Call Registry. If you have the phone number via caller ID, you can report it after 31 days of registering your phone number.

You can contact your phone company as well to see what options they might have available to you. Most phone companies offer a bundled plan to consumers and usually most of the features are unused. You might be able to do away with one feature and opt for one that will help you out.

We have Qwest, and unfortunately the number block feature only works with local phone numbers (not to include cell phones). We have though added the call block feature which requires a phone number (most of the time). Every so often, a number will not show. We also have another feature (for a fee) that instructs the user to remove their number from their database when our phone number is dialed. They can press 'one' or stay on the line to be connected.

We have had our home numbers registered since the US government started the program. One company was bombarding us and we kept reporting it on the website above. It took awhile but it did work.

 

Pine Cone didn't state the calls were harassing, just annoying. There is a legal definition to harassing as I am sure you well know. Unless the calls ARE harassment neither law enforcement nor the telephone company can do much. Pine Cone could request the telco change her number for free is about the best she could hope for if the calls aren't legally defined harassment.

I have a similar story in that about 14 months ago I signed up for Verizon FiOS service and (stupidly) also got the "Freedom Phone" service. I was assigned a local number and almost every day since connection I have received calls for Julia ****;the person to which "my" number had previously been assigned. Some days I get several calls for Julia and often times it is a machine that upon my answering speaks, "Please hold the line for an important message...". I have tried everything from politely telling the person calling (if I am connected to a real person) that Julia no longer has this number to telling them that Julia is dead. Sometimes the call is for another woman's given name but the same surname. Most of the time it seems to be some institution or business calling.

There seems to be nothing that I can do to stop these calls except to turn off the ringer and use this line strictly for outgoing calls. After this length of time it is more than just a little annoying but it is in no way harassment.

BTW, I was also getting telemarketers and that stopped 30 days after registering on the "Do Not Call" site. Julia, however, lives on.

 

I would consider passing the phone to a female in the vicinity (wife, GF) and have them play along for as long as possible to waste as much time as possible for the person on the other end (when it's a live person).

 

I just lay the phone down and come back in about 5 min. to hang it up. works with computors/automated calls to help stop them.
sounds like the poster has a problem with long distance though, don't know any fix for that other than time.

life begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies

 

1. If you have caller id and there is no number displayed for these calls your telephone company can't do much to help. (Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.)
2. Let your answering machine do the work of screening your calls. If they won't leave a callback number, which means you still cannot identify these (bleep)s to your phone company, your surest and quickest bet is to change your phone number. For a brief period, you can have your current number forwarded to the new one until friends and family adjust. Immediately register your new number at DoNotCall.gov.
3. In addition to my residence line- which IS registered with DoNotCall.gov - I have a business line at the house. Business lines don't seem to get any help from the Do Not Call Registry, so I found a used device called a Telezapper on eBay. I think I spent $20. When the phone goes off hook, it puts out a short tone that the robo-dialers interpret as a telephone number disconnected alert. Over a period of 30 days, or so, your number propagates through the robo-dialer network, and the number of such calls should drop. Human callers probably won't even notice the tone, but I know it is doing something because from time to time I will pick up a "No Caller ID" call and can hear background noise of other calls going out from their farm. The call is dropped by their computer before anyone starts speaking.

Incidentally, if you do get a person on the other end and they do not identify their company and the purpose of the call, they are violating the law and their repeated calls are then harassment.

-Dougbert


* If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space *

 

These callers may not have a sinister or harrassing intent at all. Perhaps someone placed a classified ad in the paper selling something and used common verbiage like "call Julia at 123-4567 evenings" and a typo occured when printing the phone number.

Pine Cone, are all the calls from the same person or do they appear to be different people? Have you asked them how they got your number and why they are calling that person? Perhaps if you can trace the source that's giving out your phone number, you can get the error corrected. Indeed, if the calls are legit and the intended party is not receiving them, you're doing both of you a service in getting this straightened out.

 

Something similar happened to me, and in this case it was a legit error. Several different people started to call my cellphone asking for "Rose". They had the number wrong, mine ended -9964 and they wanted -9664.

As it turned out, Rose was having a baby, all her relatives were anxious to hear the news, and someone had obviously spread the wrong number. This went on for a few days (I patiently explained the error each time), and eventually one of the callers said that both Rose and the baby were fine, before realizing they had the wrong number yet again.

The next time someone called asking for Rose, I calmly explained that "Rose's number is XXXX-9664 and oh, she and the baby are doing just fine".

A few weeks later... guess who calls? Yep, Rose! Apologizing for all the inconvenience and wishing a happy Christmas! We had a good laugh, and that was that.

Hope your caller is as benign.

 

Several times a day I would get a call from someone asking for my son. I told them that he no longer lived here but they kept calling. Finally I went out and bought a whistle and gave them an earful every time they called. The calls stopped.

 

Thanks all for your ideas and experiences. I really appreciate you, all.

As to an annoying call, it's still going on, ... never stopped.

By judgin professional tone in his and her voice, I think it's more likely a 'bill collector,' or similar to 'money related' telephone-call. However, I can NOT be sure to say this.

Seeing today's economical situation, I never answered nor giving any hints to it.

 

Many years ago (long before there was caller ID, last number redial, specific number blocking or instant call tracing in my community) I received a call from a man selling those "miracle" light bulbs that last forever or are replaced for free. I politely told him that almost all of my lights were fluorescents and I really had no need for his product. He wouldn't take no for an answer and I finally hung up on him.

Well, he started calling me several times a day and evening. I asked politely and and I told him angrily to stop calling but he continued. I told him I would report him to the telephone company and the local police but he still called. He became quite belligerent and called me names along with "ma'am" which really riled me. So I did call the telephone company and their response was that they could not do anything besides change my number (at my expense) except under court order and they suggested that I call the police.

So I did. I spoke to a detective that explained the options and said he would get to work on it. A day or two later two uniformed officers came to my door to explain that I needed to file a written complaint (it's a small town) and while they were there the telephone rang. I told the officers that it was probably him and they told me to answer and if it was the harasser to let them talk to him. Sure enough it was the perp and I just handed the phone to the officer who asked for the perp's name. He then raised his voice and said, "This is officer (name) of the (city) police department."

I was never bothered by this clown again.

 

Ok, now I've seen "perp" use 3 times in 2 different posts. Are you guys watching crime drama's?

 

I almost never watch crime dramas. Okay, I watch The Mentalist but that's the only one. I wrote perp because I didn't want to write clown which is what I normally do. unish:

 

I have gotten calls for people who don't live here. First time "sorry you have the wrong number". After that it becomes "he died in a car accident last night."
that stops them.

 

This, annoying call finally stopped after I said to the caller who sounded nice, ... 'You must have a wrong number.' However, after it got my nerve to take even legitimate calls. Probably, it went for over a month. Since this call had different voices, sometime 'female' and 'male,' ... even among same genders,' their voices had different ones, ... that puzzled me quite a bit.

If the caller had same voice, then I must have politely said the caller, ... 'it's a wrong number.'

In my household, we get many wrong numbers, sometimes two or three times per day, ... some are nice enough to just hang-up, some says, ... 'sorry, ....' Having seen this, we put all incoming-calls onto an answering-machine that helping us our time to take and answer.

Just wonder why my houshold getting many wrong numbers, particularly holidays seasons. We are all distant and shy to phone-usage.

Is anyone has similar experience to mine/our household?

 

Just a thought, but did you ever ask any of them who or what number they were trying to reach to see if its simply keypad mistakes? You might have said earlier, but didn't want to reread the entire thread. One of my fellow tow-ers in the area has a phone number that's one number off from the Pharmacy Department at Wal-Mart.

 

Well, .... I not bother to ask anything once I see wrong callers. Probably, as you quote through the experience in your business, ... maybe if I'd ask nicely whether it's a right house/person, then the callers would say something rather just hung-up. To be honest and frank, I'm not really good at that dept. tho', although in my 20', one of my duties was phone-answering.