Grow Your Own Magazine

I have been receiving nuisance(people trying to sell good etc) for my first wife at the rate of at least one a fortnight.
My first wife died on June 1st 2002.
It can be quite annoying.
These companies must pay for the data bases to make these calls.
And these data bases must be at least 6 years out of date.
Surly a case of fraud?
The final straw was yesterday when I had two calls.
So I had my phone number changed.

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields

You can look up the Telephone Preference Service on t'internet. Register your number. You need to renew this annually I think. We stopped getting them after we registered.

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

I agree Flum, It does work - we used to have Double Glazing salesmen phoning every Sunday when we were in UK. The final straw came when we had 4 calls in one day. When Scared became abusive, the caller told us of the TPS
Have a look at http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/ctps/what/
Sorry to hear that you have had calls for your first wife though, that must have been especially difficult for you.

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A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! (Thomas Edward Brown)

Definitely go for the Phone Preference Service as Flummery says. Stops most of the calls. There is also a similar service for junk mail (can't remember the link at the moment - one too many glasses of vino).

That only seems work if they don't leave a return phone number or info of who called you.(when you dial 1471)
I had the preference service but it only worked partially (some calls still got through)
Changing my number was the best option as we only had to tell about ten people. And we have gone Ex directory.
Anybody else can reach me on my mobile.

So my advice is NEVER give out your phone number unless you have to!
My record for a day was 7 (not all for my first wife)

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields

We did exactly the same BW, got really really cheesed off with the automated dialling ones which 90% of them were hanging up without saying anything because there wasn't an operator ready to take the call...! The only nuisance calls we get now are from my M-I-L late at night, when I can't be bothered to talk...

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Sarah

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

i used to get the same, u can block the calls by BT, will try to find out what u need to do, its not nice i know, my mum had quite a few after my dad died 5 yrs ago, i will try and find out and let u know

Bubblewrap, i had cause to use OFCOM when cases of cold calling became ridiculous, at the time we were not BT customer's but our number was listed in the BT phonebook under an address that not longer existed.

The calls were relentless, BT, (and NTL who were our suppliers at the time where useless), it went on for over a year, OFCOM where fantastic, threw their weight around and sorted it in an afternoon.

If only we had gone to them sooner.

NOW we are getting letters to my late father in-law from AXA insurance with prefilled out application forms with all his personal details filled in, (its a good job we are living in his old house, being family members).

I wrote a letter of complaint berating them and they promised it wouldn't happen again.

Today we received the 2nd one since I wrote to them, the letter today congratulated him on his upcoming birthday, he died 5 years ago.

Boy are they in for it now.

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I wish i could make a yo-yo work.
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/

Earlier this year we received an application for a credit card sent in the name of my late wife
So we sent it back filled in.
name : my first wife's (deceased)
address: In the garden, Episkopi Crete
occupation: fertiliser, under rose-bush
income: NIL

We returned it to them giggling and expected nothing more. Two weeks later it came back, requesting SIGNATURE!!!!

I was going to fill it in but no.1 son prevailed and we tore it up as it might have been fraud.
I wish I'd kept it and framed it - even better, received a credit card to really make them look like prats.

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields

Makes you sick don't it.

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I wish i could make a yo-yo work.
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/

sorry to hear you receiving these calls and letters bubblewrap, it can be so distressing.

we get fed up with do you have a couple of minutes to spare for a home owners questionaire ones the drive me up the wall.

The worst was from a credit card company that somehow got our number for someone who doesnt live here. They had defaulted on the card and the calls became silly untill one day we have four calls in the space of about 6 hours, and when I became firm with the chap on the phone he told me if I took that tone with him he would terminate the call, can you believe it........... the cheek of it.

It's a shame you can't be bothered to talk to your MIL Sarzwix. Even if it is late at night. I wonder how many nights she was up with her son when she felt she would rather be doing something else. Why not give the phone to your husband and tell him to talk to his Mum.

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From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

Do you want a bit of fun with junk mail.?
Save all the pre paid envelopes and then post someone else's junk back.
All envelopes sent back have to be paid for by the receiver.
May not do much,but at least it can make you feel better.

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields

I have been doing this for rears now the postman knows he save me prepaid envelopes as well it also keeps the postman in a job as for the cold calling if you do not answer the phone but just pick it up nobody can activate it but if one does get through i find the best way to get rid of them just say i will give you landlords number jacob

I've found the best way to get rid of them is to shout bugger off down the phone.
But I don't shout bugger but something nastier.

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields

We are registered with the TPS, and you don't need to register annually, once registered.

The system works really well for the UK, BUT, with the sourcing of call centres out of the UK, unfortunately the TPS cannot stop international calls.

valmarg

Telephone Preference works you still get occasional calls but when you say you will report them to the TPS as your first sentence they hang up.

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Digger-07

"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right" Henry Ford.

Not really my buisness but Sarah didn't say she *didn't* talk... just that she didn't really want to. From my own experience, however much you may 'owe' your MIL for providing your hubby, sometimes they're extremely hard work!

Claire

Past two days!..... Bliss; only one call & that was from my sister.(had nice long chat)

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields

Interesting. We recently (a few months ago) started getting the odd call from companies who, when challenged, said thatour TPS entry had proably expired and we'd need to re-register. They could have been spinning a yarn - but several nuisance calls got through and since registering again it has stopped.

__________________
Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

I guess I must be the only one who just says 'no thank you' and puts the phone down then?

Oh and if I was you bubblewrap I'd just tel the caller the person they wanted to speak to was dead and leave them to think about it.

The calls that really annoy me are those automated ones but I just hang up on them too. Oh and we have an answerphone on constantly so at least it costs them a call!

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

I still think legislation is needed to compel these call centres to up date their data bases say every 3 years. This would lessen the sort of call I was receiving!
There must be thousands of people in the same position.

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields