I keep getting silent phonecalls ...
 

For those who don't know what these are, "The Phone rings, you go to pick up ... and there's nobody there ... not even heavy breathing. Meanwhile, on the other end of the line, a mass mailing system is waiting for your FAX machine to take the call so it can blitz you with fucking mails that you don't want.

Does anyone have a solution to this type of thing, if so, I'd love to know!!

Bloody fuming,

Chris.

Don't answer the phone.

Here in the US the silence on the other end is the predictive dialer used by telemarketers to increase the number of answered calls, but there's a kink in the system such that a live human operator is not always available to give your call. (I had written "take" there, and realized that wasn't an accurate description of the circumstance, since you didn't call anyone.)

register with the phone or fax preference service (are you in usa or uk?) this will prevent unsolicited calls.

I'm in the UK, do we have a FAX preference service here?

1) Do-not-call list. However, most of the teleslime either figure some way to claim a prior business arrangement, claim to be a survey firm or nonprofit, or simply ignore the list, so this is of limited usefulness. If you can prove they ignored the list you can get them fined, though.

2) Caller ID. Yeah, it rankles to pay the Phone Company for this, but there is significant advantage to seeing "OUT OF AREA" or "CREEPY MORTGAGE COMPANY" and being able to ignore the call.

3) Telezapper. I haven't used one myself, but I'm told they work. When you pick up the phone, it plays one of the DTMF control tones indicating a disconnected number. This tricks the predictive dialing equipment into marking your number for removal.

I gave up on the caller ID, because not all phone companies have it. If the caller is on a system that doesn't, it comes up, out of area. :(

I'm in the UK and I think we do ... In fact I KNOW we do. A quick google produced this website. Good luck.

they work. my parents have one.

try Here