[VoIP] Fun with Pat and Jane

[windmill]

Steph,

My experiences are, for instance, a call from Barclays Bank customer 
services that turns out to be from an insurance company in Ireland 
looking for business. British Telecom seem quite cagey when they call 
from mysterious 0800 or Withheld numbers and then expect me to confirm 
my name, address, postcode etc. I am naturally suspicious as I don't 
want to get 'slammed' which seems to be a growing industry despite 
official regulators for almost everything these days who seem powerless 
to curtail such illegal transfers. I simply no longer answer any calls 
without CID or those whose CID begains 08. When i eventually connect my 
PSTN line to my *box I may rethink this and put all such calls through a 
lengthy IVR and see how they like it.

Brian

Steph Kerman wrote:
> Here in the US, companies that you already have a business relationship 
> with are supposedly allowed to solicit you.  Nevertheless I find that 
> when I call SBC/The New AT&T they ask for permission to use information 
> you give them when calling in about any matter whatever, for the purpose 
> of calling you for solicitation about new services.  It's kind of a 
> nuisance to have to go through the accept/decline exercise each time you 
> call but I have to respect the fact that they do it instead of just 
> taking advantage of the fact that (AFAIK), under the existing DNC law 
> they could call me without permission.   But these calls I described are 
> I'm sure not coming from anyone I have an existing business relationship 
> with.  They use some vague name in their recorded spiel to describe 
> themselves when they call, like "This is Credit Card Services calling".  
> I've found that making any inquiry about who is calling or how to reach 
> them, immediately or a few questions into the call always results in 
> being dropped very immediately and without any further word.  I have a 
> few WAV files of such dialogs at this point.
>