These "boxes" are of little use if, as I do, you have legitimate callers with hidden numbers.

I don't get that many cold callers calling here,but when they do i find playing some samples from here down the phone line:

http://www.fart-sounds.net/fart_sound_board.htm

Seams to do the trick

Edited by djfunkdup (Wed 16-May-12 20:26:13)

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

These "boxes" are of little use if, as I do, you have legitimate callers with hidden numbers.

I have some who withhold their number, the phone shows them as "Private" and I usually answer them- I'd let them through.

I don't have any who are likely to call from overseas, ie number unavailable, they show as "Out of area" and I usually just ignore them- in the unlikely event that it's a legit call then the answerphone cuts in after 8 rings and they can leave a message.

But it's pita as they usually ring at inconvenient times and I have to physically go to the phone to discover that I'm not going to answer it... if the box can divert "Out of area" calls to a recording without it ringing, that'll do me fine

In reply to a post by billford:

I have some who withhold their number, the phone shows them as "Private" and I usually answer them- I'd let them through.

I don't have any who are likely to call from overseas, ie number unavailable, they show as "Out of area" and I usually just ignore them- in the unlikely event that it's a legit call then the answerphone cuts in after 8 rings and they can leave a message.

I don'tknow the product mentioned above but at that price I can't really see it having the ability to differentiate between withheld and OOA numbers. i hope that I'm wrong.

I've been very careful with my number from day one and I suppose I've been very lucky as well but I receive very few (As little as two or three a year at most) unsolicited calls. Now when it comes to calls that I'd prefer not to receive that's a different matter!

I suppose I get one or two calls on more days than not... the worst was a couple of years ago when I was getting 3 or 4 calls on most days for a month or so. IIRC the worst was 8 in one day . All OoA.

Not many are computer related (accident damages, Gov^t insulation grants etc etc), and I've also been pretty careful where I give my number. I think most of them are targeted war-dialers, too high a proportion of silent or pre-recorded calls to be believably manually initiated and, whilst I'm far from rich, I'm comfortably enough off to be a worthwhile target .

What would be really nice would be to get a computer to answer OoA calls and, if there was the usual excuse for a human being on the other end, to give them a Turing test

When I got my 'Microsoft' call, I was indeed with an ISP with a call centre in India ..and I had been in rare contact with them not too long before that!

or you could just hang up once you've realised they're trying to scam you or sell you something.

I had one of those types of call about 4 years ago. Strangely enough I was asked for by name. When I mentioned that I had died the day before (obviousl i pretended to be someone else) there was a minute of awkward silence and an apology. I have not received any similar calls since then.

I'm surprised the major supermarkets don't cold call to mention special offers. For example, at my local asda the chicken is always going cheap (or woukd that be cheep?).

DFS would need some serious telephone infrastructure to keep customers updated with sofa sales.

In reply to a post by zhugeliang:

...... at my local asda the chicken is always going cheap.....

Now that is fresh!!!