Silent Calls from 08000727732

Just had a call from 08000727732.  Picked up, said hello.  Line was silent for a few seconds then the other end hung up.  Looks like another round of marketing calls.  Phone number is registered with TPS.  What else can I do??

I Googled the number and found a page that indicates it's from British Gas but some of the comments say that British Gas deny all knowledge of the number.

Silent calls from 01612127801

Recently I've been getting a lot of silent calls from 01612127801.  Silent as in when I answer there's just silence on the line for several seconds then a voice says "Goodbye!"  This I gather is what happens when a company uses an automatic dialer to call numbers.  Basically to minimise delay and not have their agents listening to dial tones whilst waiting for someone to answer the automatic dialer calls and waits for the person to pick up then assigns the call to the next available agent.  If there's no agent available it hangs up.

As I recall John Hemming MP had a bit of campaign against these some years ago.  I am writing to him to see if this campaign is still on going or might start up again.

This is the same as was happening most of the times I got calls from 01618149905 which turned out to be 'Versatile' trying to sell PPI claim assistance, when there was finally someone to take the call at their end.  Even the voice saying 'GoodBye!' sounds the same.  So what are the odds of two different companies, both in Manchester, both calling the same number (which has been registered with the TPS pretty much since I got it) with an automaic dialer and both not having enough staff to handle their automatically dialed calls?

This new number seems to be quite new, when I googled it I could only find one site that listed it and that only had four entries going back just under 2 weeks.  But I did find a page on WhoCallsMe about this number.

ETA:  had a response from John Hemming.  He said he'd have someone look into it and confirmed it's OFCOM's responsibility to deal with silent calls.

ETAA: Had a response from the person John Hemming had asked to look into this.  They said that they had spoken to OFCOM who had said that as they have no details of who that number belongs to they can't do anything about it. I'd had a similar response direct from OFCOM as a result of my contacting them directly.

Differing prices of goods bought at different times

I use the excellent TheyWorkForYou site operated by MySociety to keep abreast of  what my MP, John Hemming, does and says in the House.  Today I got a notification that he had recived a petition regarding the purchase of a Citeron car by a constituent.  The situation, as I understand it, is that the constituent had ordered a car from Citeron before 1st April but collected it after.  On first April Citeron reduced the price of the car, the petitioner seems to feel that they should have refunded to him the difference between what he had paid and the new, lower price.

Whilst this appears to be very bad customer service by Citeron I suspect that the legal question here is when the contract between him and Citeron was formed as it is in that contract that the price will be set.  Is the contract formed when the order is placed?  When payment, or the initial part payment, is made?  Or is it when the goods are picked up.  I seem to recall that the normal milestone is when the payment, or initial part payment, is made, at that time a contract is formed.  If he paid a deposit ahead of 1st April and based on the higher price then the constituent probably locked in that higher price then.

Consider the reverse situation, if the price had risen on the 1st of April.  Would the constituent have claimed that he should pay the new higher price or, had Citeron tried to charge him the higher price, would he be claiming that as he'd ordered at the lower price and paid a deposit he should only pay the lower price?

Spam calls from 02034762589

Got a spam phone call from 02034762589 about 14:10 today to a number that has been registered with Telephine Preference Service for years, I checked and it's still registered.  The call is a recorded message saying that if I've been in a road accident I should press 1.  It doesn't identify the company it's from at all.

I Googled the number and found they seem to have been bothering quite a number of people today.

I went to the Telephone Preference Service website to complain but they won't deal with it because it's a recorded message.  They suggest contacting the ICO but the ICO website says that for phone calls you should contact the TPS.  Looks like there's a hole in the system that telemarketers are exploiting.  My MP, John Hemming, used to have an interest in combatting silent calls so I'm wondering if I need to write to him and see if he can suggest who would handle this or kick the appropriate person to make sure there is someone who will handle this?

Just sent this to my MP in the hope that he will vote against the Healthcare bill.  I used 'Write to Them' so he should have received the email by now (well, presumably one of his people will have and will hopefully be putting it with the many other messages he receives on the same subject, hopefully all politely asking him to oppose the healthcare bill):

FOR THE ATTENTION OF:

John Hemming MP
Birmingham, Yardley

Monday 12 March 2012

Dear John Hemming,

please vote against the healthcare bill. If passed this will set the stage for the destruction of the NHS and decent healthcare in the UK. The NHS is the envy of people in many countries, pretty much all of them except those that have a similar system themselves. Something this good we need to keep.

It is apposite that it be called the Healthcare bill as the end result will be that we get bills every time we access healthcare. Also, please near in mind that the bodies that represent those working in healthcare oppose the bill, as do the rank and file of your own party, and there is no voter mandate from any election to pass this legislation. The only ones who seem to be in favour are the Tory party (and not even all of them).

We have seen from the US the horror that is marketised healthcare. Please keep us off that road. Please oppose the Healthcare bill


Yours sincerely,

Stephen

Recent behaviour by the Tory party does make me wonder if they've realised that they will lose the next election and they want to mess the country up as much as possible and make as much cash as possible so they can push off somewhere else and leave Labour to clean up their mess.

Student protests

John Hemming MP (LibDem, Yardley) was on BBC Radio WM this lunch time as his office had been invaded by by a group of students. He wasn't there but did sound very unhappy at them being there, complaining they were disrupting the work of his office. He made reference to someone having been arrested in Saudi(was this the Imaam who had been arrest by the Saudi religious police then released when Radio WM publicised the situation or someone else?) and to a couple who were destitute as they had received no benefits.

Empty grit bin

The grit bin round the corner from my house is empty, again. I jusrt reported this via Fix My Street:

The grit bin on Tomey road (near corner with Albion road) is empty again. It was about half full on Sunday evening so has emptied in the past 4 days.

Earlier this year Cllr Daphne Gaved told me that as the council don't grit side roads and pavements but do provide grit it is the duty of residents to grit their road. Obviously if there's not grit we can't do this.

Please refill the grit bin. Also please advise the process of requesting a grit bin be placed on Gough Road(preferably on the corner with Medley road).

Thanks

Probably won't do any good but at least when the local Lib Dem councilors (Daphne, mentioned above, is one of three Lib Dem councilors in this ward, the local MP (John Hemming) is also a Lib Dem and the council is a Con-Dem coalition) come campaigning and I point out the lack of grit preventing us from gritting our road and pavements I can also point out that when the bin was emptied I requested it be refilled.

I have been treating the pavement outside my house with salt, hence my house (and my neighbours' due to my salt being carried on people's shoes) are the only ones clear of snow in front.

Nuisance Silent Calls - 01254277054

Once or twice a day for the past few days I've been getting calls from 01254277054 that hang up as soon as I answer. When I called back I just got music so hung up.

I Googled the number and discovered that apparently quite a few people have been having the same problem. Apparently it's a company called GM Connect who are trying to sell new mobile phones to people. The number they're calling me on is one I've only had for about 8 months and don't give out other than to family members and close friends. The number I normally give out is for my Orange phone which is my main number. This number is on 3 and I only have it because my sister and one of my friends switched to 3 and the cost of calling them from Orange (indeed any network other than 3) is huge, my Orange phone bill more than doubled, and I worked out it would be cheaper to get a phone on 3 just to call them on than to pay for the calls on Orange. My 3 phone bill is about £15 a month but has saved me about £25 a month on my Orange bill. Plus the phone is a Skype phone so I can now call people for free on Skype without needing to boot up my PC.

A while back John Hemming MP was campaigning against silent calls (where a call centre uses an autodialer to call you but when you answer there's no agent to take the call). I wonder if he'd be interested in this?