Dodgy phone calls

[harvey77]

Hello,

If you keep getting dodgy phone calls from a with held number can your phone company trace them, as im getting lots i have an idea of who its is , but dont know if can trace it with it been with held, any bodys help in this matter would be much apprieated.

[Mrs_Pegasus]

If it is a BT line then yes you can.

Contact BT and explain the situation. Normally, they will give you a code, when the caller calls, you put finish the call, punch the code in and BT will trace it. BUT they will not give you information, it will be passed to the Police to investigate.

[Ethel]

Even if it is from Skype it can be traced to the pc the calls were made from.

And certainly no problem if made from cable telephone.

The only difficulty would be from unregistered mobile phones, but if the nature of the calls is serious enough there are ways and means to trace.

First step is to report it to your telephone company.

If the calls are threatening or obscene, you should also report it to the police.

Keep a record of time, date and length of each call, as well as the nature of the call.

[Andyvon]

Hi Harvey!
My wife had a whole series of threatening phone calls a couple of years back. Those came from a nurse we know who was using the local hospital phone (jealous we are married!) which is always a withheld number. The police dealt with all that and stopped her but we were able to get a 'Withheld Numbers Bar' on our phone. That stops anyone ringing us if they are withholding their number or calling from a withheld number like the hospital.

You only need to ask your phone company and they will provide you with that service. We got it free, as the police were involved, but I think it is only a small amount if you do have to pay. You may even get it free too if you say you are receivng nuisance calls. It is certainly worth the peace of mind when the phone rings.

[gina32]

i think you will find that numbers can only be traced on the say so of the police, the phone company wont do ifton the say so of just any body

[Dozy_Mare]

When you say dodgy do you mean abusive or just nobody on the other end?

[dzug]

BT have a (paid) service called Choose to Refuse - if you have it you dial a code following a nuisance call and (witheld or not) further calls from that number are barred.


https://www.bt.com/customerservices/downloads/malicious_calls.pdf

Other companies may have something similar.

[dzug]

That's

malicious_calls in the middle there - AB seems to have mangled it

[Dozy_Mare]

If they are calls with nobody saying anything for a while it could be a debt collector as they have a new system where the computer calls a debtors phone number, it's all automatic so that every case on a debt collector's workload is dealt with regardless of how much is owed by the debtor. It stops the Collections Agent from being picky, choosey and from only going for the bigger debts to gain maximum commission at the end of the month. (I'm a former Debt Collector)

[flyciderman]

We had this problem a few years ago, BT traced the calls from a mobile phone and passed the matter onto the police. The police dealt with it turned, out that we knew the caller, he was so stupid that he thought that ringing us would help with is marrage problems. Thick or what

[antiguru]

Does the phone ring, you pick it up, noone is there and you hang up? Chances are you are on an automated call list for a company trying to sell you something. A computer calls numbers at random and then puts the call through to an operator if it gets through.

2 suggestions:

First, get your number logged with the telephone preference service which is free and will help for the future.

http://www.callpreventionregistry.co.uk/
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/

Second, just once, answer the call and talk to the operator. Politely request that your number is removed from their database. Ask the person�s name and the company�s number. Say if you are called again by this company you will make a complaint.