Telephone Cold calling

[Alaric]

Does anyone know or have any theories?

Once upon a time there was a system known as a telephone directory. This listed names, addresses and phone numbers. To the extent that people haven't withdrawn permissions to be published in this way, this still provides lists of potential contacts.

[UncleEbenezer]

An interesting question is why are some people plagued by these cold calls and others are seemingly not?

Is this just some random effect or is there something else behind it. Does anyone know or have any theories?

What list(s) has your number reached?
Possibly also, how have you reacted in the past? Including rejecting or not answering cold calls.

[JohnB]

you can register mobiles as well as landlines with the Telephone Preference Service. Has the OP reported the company to them? Mum has a BT call blocking answerphone/wireless handset that does not let 'number withheld' or foreign calls through. Only the idiots at the NHS withhold their numbers, so she now has a simple phone that rings every time, and a wireless one that rings selectively, so she can tell the call type by what rings. If any company rang me more than once I'd be very aggressive in my response.

The OP could just start wasting there time by going engaging with them and seeing how befuddled they could act. Scammers would be delighted to find a muddled old fool

[redsturgeon]

An interesting question is why are some people plagued by these cold calls and others are seemingly not?

Is this just some random effect or is there something else behind it. Does anyone know or have any theories?

I think it just takes one bad company to get hold of your number and that's it. It could be any number of ways. A rogue employee for a legit company passing data on, one contact with a rogue company by mistake, lists get sold on...even charities pass you data on to others.

John

[XFool]

Does anyone know or have any theories?

Once upon a time there was a system known as a telephone directory. This listed names, addresses and phone numbers. To the extent that people haven't withdrawn permissions to be published in this way, this still provides lists of potential contacts.

That's a good point, my landline number was originally ex-directory. I wonder if it is still possible foe people to elect for this?

Mind you, it isn't as if I haven't received some such calls in the past, my understanding being they just automatically went through lists of exchange numbers.

I've always react to them in two ways:

Auto calls - don't hangup, just put phone down on table and walk away. Eventually call will time out, then hangup.
Personal calls - just be 'disinterested', 'quizzical', 'sceptical'.

Last guy who phoned me suddenly groaned and rang off. I haven't had any calls since.

[mrbrightside]

An interesting question is why are some people plagued by these cold calls and others are seemingly not?

Is this just some random effect or is there something else behind it. Does anyone know or have any theories?

I think the number of nuisance calls is directly proportional to the number of times you 'share' it (e.g. online registrations).

[didds]

wheras I syspect you just "got lucky" - or will get unlucky at some time...

in that rather than work off known lists of real numbers its possible that instead the automated diallers just start at

eg <known STD code> 000000 and just increment every attempt until <known STD code> 999999 is reached. It would be undoubtedly a little more sophisticated than that - but not a lot. Its no more than a general scatter gun approach.

So if youve not been "caught" yet you maybe caught soemtime later when your STD code gets selected one month

didds