Simon Wistow wrote:
> A while abck I got a phone call form the Daily Mail. A journo at the
> other end was researching a story about an officer at the RAF base where
> I lived and had obviously doen a search ont he name and turned up my CV.
> He then phone d up my parenst and asked for me saying that he was a
> friend from college and my parenst gave him my phone number in England
> on good faith.
>
> When I found out I complained to the Press Complaints commission but
> have never heard anything thing back.
Most people aren't suspicious enough about enquiries like that. If I
don't know the person enquiring about someone else's contact details I
offer to take a message and to have the third-party return the call.
I've seriously considered changing my home phone no. - the last time I
distributed my c.v. to a number of recruiters was three years ago
(October 1997). Sadly it had my phone number on it - and still they
call, typically one or two a day - annoying for me ("No, I don't want to
do VB in Kent", "No, I don't know anyone else with my skills", etc.),
and irritating for my wife and children when I'm not around.
Another abuse along these lines is cold sales calls - I've registered
our number with the Telephone Preference Service
(http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/). This scheme now has statutory backing,
so it is *illegal* for cold callers to contact you (they're supposed to
screen their lists and databases) - but still we get one or two calls a
month from these ignorami. The problem is getting the law enforced
against them - complaints are handled by the Data Protection Registrar,
however, cold-callers generally hang up if you start asking questions
about how to contact them (and, naturally enough, they withhold their
numbers).
One ploy I'm trying just now is using BT's Malicious Calls Bureau to
help - they set their service up on your line for, say, a month. After
you receive a 'malicious' call you hang-up and dial 1477, and the number
is then automatically traced and recorded. It remains to be seen whether
they'll co-operate with the DPR and whether or not the DPR will do
anything worthwhile against these people - but, if they do, Britannia
Windows (which appears to be nigh on untraceable otherwise), has it
coming to them :-)
Do any of you have any better ideas?
Andrew.
