Annoying and upsetting phone calls

[noiseboy72]

So, last night my wife's mobile rang. Unusual, as hardly anyone has the number. When she answered, a foreign male asked to speak to "Alex". When she said she did not know anyone called Alex and that he must have the wrong number, he became abusive and said this was the number "Alex" had given and that she "Owed" him for a car he had sold. My wife repeated that he had the wrong number and hung up.

 

He phoned back a minute later and I answered. I repeated that he had the wrong number and he just shouted me down and said "Tell that Alex I will FXXXing kill her" I then hung up and turned the phone off.

 

Later that evening, I turned the phone back on and it rang within a few minutes. He was now so drunk that I could not understand him, so I told him again he had the wrong number, told him we would call the police and they would trace him if he called us again.

 

The thing is, he has not threatened us, and I doubt the police can trace him if the phone is a "Pay as you go" without a lot of effort.

 

No doubt he is very upset with "Alex", but I feel our options are limited.

[Andy Y]

"Tell that Alex I will FXXXing kill her"

 

.......................

 

The thing is, he has not threatened us, and I doubt the police can trace him if the phone is a "Pay as you go" without a lot of effort.

 

 

You've got the number; I would report it to the police and let them determine if anything can be done rather than assume they can't.

 

What if he did find Alex and did threaten/harm her and you hadn't done anything?

 

 

 

[Dagworth]

Report it to your mobile provider too, they should be able to block the incoming number.

 

Andi

[Pennine MC]

I doubt the police can trace him if the phone is a "Pay as you go" without a lot of effort.

 

 

deleted

 

 

[woodenhead]

Pennine, according to McAfee that link 'TheMobileTracker' is a Phishing site and gives false information after getting your email details.

[woodenhead]

However, on the subject of GPS, Mobile phones can be tracked but not by GPS - it's done through simple triangulation from three mobile transmitter masts.

 

Been done for years and used regularly by the emergency services to find locations of mobile phones used to call 999 for real emergency and hoax purposes.

[Simon Lee]

Hi,

 

My wife had a similar problem a couple of years ago, same sort of thing but this was a couple who were generally abusive, with insults aimed at someone else ( a name was quoted). This really scared her as some were at night when I was at work.

 

We went to the police who simply rang the number gave the caller a severe but polite lecture that ended with the words "if you do it again we will come and find you"

 

That cured the problem.

 

I would say take 20minutes to go to the police station report it as them for assistance in sorting it it should give your wife peace of mind.

 

Good Luck

Simon

[Leicester Thumper]

Report it to your mobile provider too, they should be able to block the incoming number.

 

Andi

 

this is a good option, and all mobile users take note:

 

It doesn't matter if you are Pay As You Go or if you are contract, you can still ring up the netwoirk and say 'this number is a nuscience with abusive/upsetting/unwanted calls can you please blacklist it' and they should happily oblige, best time to do this is weekdays around 1-2pm when hardly anyone is ringing customer services so on average no more than 20 minutes with waiting included.

 

every network should be willing to do this, I have been an Orange and Vodaphone customer and both told me when i asked about Nuscience calls 'Ring customer service, give them the number and they will be blacklisted'

[noiseboy72]

Thanks chaps. No calls or messages today, so will wait to see if he calls again.

 

Triangulation depends on how many cells are within range. In a city, accuracy of 5M is possible, but more usual is about 50M - 100M. Fine if you want to locate a broken down car, but no good when finding a drunken idiot crashed out on his sofa. AGPS uses this on iphones and Nokias etc. while it gets a better fix with conventional GPS.

 

I might well get his number blocked anyway. If he has a smart phone or some of the more modern Nokias or Samsung, a kill code can be sent to disable the phone until it's chip is replaced. A bit extreme in this case though !

[Robert]

People give out wrong numbers for all sorts of reasons! A slightly more light hearted story, but a couple of years ago, I was texted a few times by a guy who had obviously met a girl at a party. At first the texts were pretty tame - but as things got raunchier I texted the guy back.

 

"Sorry mate, but I think she gave you the wrong number!"

 

There was an almost immediate reply:

 

"$%&§°! Sorry - it won't happen again"

 

and it didn't...

 

There's lots of good advice in this thread. This bloke might be upset with "Alex" but that's no reason to take it out on you. Report it to your provider.

[Pennine MC]

Pennine, according to McAfee that link 'TheMobileTracker' is a Phishing site and gives false information after getting your email details.

 

Thanks WH, my machine didnt flag anything up but to be on the safe side, I've taken it out now. There was some pukka relevant info on there as well, that confirmed (as you say) that mobiles can be tracked, sometimes very accurately

 

best time to do this is weekdays around 1-2pm when hardly anyone is ringing customer services so on average no more than 20 minutes with waiting included.

Off topic, but this makes me laugh/cry at the modern world - a 20 min wait when they're *not* busy is *not* customer service

[Guest Max Stafford]

I can't really add a great deal more to the good advice offered already. Best policy is to report it to the police and your service provider. In the event you get repeat calls it'll do no harm to log them yourself as a 'paper' back- up record if it were to get into the realms of ASBO territory.

One final tip that is good for nuisance calls, be they mobile or land-line.

Have an Acme Thunderer handy - a friend of mine had nuisance calls off a weirdo some years ago and after deploying this particularly brutal sonic weapon just once, she never got another from him!

Works for cold callers too...!

 

Dave.

[Kris]

 

Have an Acme Thunderer handy - a friend of mine had nuisance calls off a weirdo some years ago and after deploying this particularly brutal sonic weapon just once, she never got another from him!

Works for cold callers too...!

 

Dave.

 

Rightly or wrongly doing this could be considered to lead to you being reported for assault as you have created a loud noise that goes down the phone line and could cause acoustic shock leading to hearing loss.

 

 

 

[gordon s]

That just about sums up with this crazy PC/litigious world we live in......

[shortliner]

Max Stafford, on 15 August 2010 - 21:28 , said:

 

 

Have an Acme Thunderer handy - a friend of mine had nuisance calls off a weirdo some years ago and after deploying this particularly brutal sonic weapon just once, she never got another from him!

Works for cold callers too...!

 

Dave.

 

 

Rightly or wrongly doing this could be considered to lead to you being reported for assault as you have created a loud noise that goes down the phone line and could cause acoustic shock leading to hearing loss.

 

 

I have this horrible temptation to say you won't hear from him again - but in fact he might not hear from you, or anyone else, again!

[Oldddudders]

I find an answerphone/voicemail is the perfect foil for every type of call known to man or woman. Legitimate callers will leave their name, rank and number, but if you aurally screen the call as it comes in, you can pick up the phone anyway. Cold callers will ring off, as I suspect will the foul-mouthed brigade.

 

It also prevents us from ever having to talk to her mother.... Yes!!!!

[Fat Controller]

I find an answerphone/voicemail is the perfect foil for every type of call known to man or woman. Legitimate callers will leave their name, rank and number, but if you aurally screen the call as it comes in, you can pick up the phone anyway. Cold callers will ring off, as I suspect will the foul-mouthed brigade.

 

It also prevents us from ever having to talk to her mother.... Yes!!!!

Working shifts, an answering machine is essential anyway,but I agree on its call filtering and deterrence values. If I happen to pick up the 'phone from a number I don't recognise, a quick 'je t'ecoute', or something else in French or Welsh normally gets rid of them.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Cold callers will ring off, as I suspect will the foul-mouthed brigade.

Cold calling is generally done by automated systems, which are programmed to work out if the phone has been answered by a human or an answering machine. Normally they ring off (and don't connect the call to a call centre operatives) if they detect an answering machine, although sometimes this doesn't work and you get 30 seconds of confused Indian call centre worker on your answer phone.

 

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_dialer

[Horsetan]

My landline is a fax number. Usually keeps everyone away

[Shamouti Ben Yafo]

For Indian call centres I like a playful approach. Last time (the 3G network - I smell scam!) I was Ivar Gunnarsson from Stockholm, theorising that perhaps the dialling software was at fault - "Because, my friend, as you are speaking to me in English, surely you must think I am in England? - And we don't get your network here in Sweden."

They believed me! Twice!

The third time I got an extremely irate "Why are you talking like this?" to which I replied - "Well; my English is not so good, but it is better than yours, my friend!" I haven't heard from them since.

 

But this, of course, is no use for drunks etc.

[Guest Dutch_Master]

My landline is a fax number. Usually keeps everyone away

Likewise here! For those who need to reach me by phone I have a mobile number. Two, actually: one personal and a work phone. At one time I got a call on my work phone, during work. Guess what, sell sell sell... I made them clear in no uncertain terms that they called a private mobile network number belonging to my employer and that I would them report to my manager for the breach of conduct. Never heard from them since (it seems that call-centres have some sort of "gentlemans" -agreement with other employers not to annoy call their employees on work numbers. Nor do they seem to call mobile phone numbers anyway...)

[Re6/6]

Rather off topic but I found this amusing. (Apologies as I think that I got it off here in the first place a while ago!)

[45156]

Rather off topic but I found this amusing. (Apologies as I think that I got it off here in the first place a while ago!)

Brilliant.

[Oldfield_Park]

I think BT provides some service or other by which you can remove yourself from the lists that can (and are) obtained by call centres. I really need to sort that myself if I can...

 

We've had the odd dodgy phonecall from somebody, the last on Christmas Day from what was clearly a teenage lad. He'd ask for somebody called 'Matt' before, strangely, propositioning you. I think he was responsible for several similar calls though, I saw mention of it in the paper a couple of weeks later.

 

More amusing was the text I recieved one morning reading "Hi Harriet. Really enjoyed last night. Hope to see you again soon. Love from James." Clearly either Harriet didn't enjoy the night as much as James did, or James isn't much good at writing down numbers...

[pete_mcfarlane]

My landline is a fax number. Usually keeps everyone away

 

Or have a phone with the ringer removed, like Kraftwerk supposedly have in their recording studio.