Winners And Losers, Did I Win?

About three years ago I started getting phone calls from abroad from call centres, the calls were about PPI, Surveys, Broadband, gas or electric provider, life insurance and lots more. There would be minimum of six calls in one day, after a while it got too much and I was sick of them! They became nuisance calls, and because there was a lot of them, answering them, didn’t ever satisfy them, for in their eyes, they are ringing me for the first time.

So, the first year, I’d answer the phone, again and again, and again, they would ask me the same questions that I’d already answered ten minutes ago, or this morning.

The second year, I became more creative, I’d give my phone to my manager, who would tell the caller, “Please remove this number from you mailing list,” Like they would listen. Or I’d give my mobile to my husband who would shout down the phone, “F*CK OFF!” It made a jot of difference. Meghan tried to help, we did have lots of fun, she had things on her phone small jingles like, “Your phone call is NOT important to us, please continue hold the line,” This is what they would hear when I answered the phone to them! Paul would answer my phone, after I heard it was them, and he would say, “This is the FBI headquarters, how can I help you,” They would put the phone down then. But it didn’t stop them. One of my favourites was the laughing Policeman, but I could sadly still hear them talking over it. I tried stringing them along, but I was just wasting my own valuable time, they had all the time in the world. I even had a string of lies I would tell them like when they asked, “How old are you?” I would either say an age twenty years older than I am or twenty years younger than I am, or I’d say, “I’m two years old,” Or I’d say, “I’m two hundred years old.” When I did that some of them would swear at me and put the phone down. I would also lie about my broadband, or service provider, then the service provider or broadband that I’d mentioned the real company would ring me up, thinking I’m interested in joining them, but I’d say, “I lied to get them off my back, as none of them accept the word, “No, I’m not interested, do not ring me back.” The UK company would then say to me, after I’d explained, “I’m sorry, I will remove your details from our system.” But still that didn’t stop them, it seemed that every single person in that country were there is a billion people and more, all of them were ringing me.

Another one of the jingles, that Meghan got from the internet was the, Crazy witches laugh, that one I loved, but it was seconds long, so Meghan would have to keep pressing it again and again, but still, that didn’t stop them.

I got in touch with my mobile phone provider, and they sent me a Nuisance mobile link, so any number, I got that rang me, I could in seconds copy and paste it to them. Blocking numbers didn’t help, my block button became useless. My mobile phone provider informed me, “When you see cities and villages around the UK, it was not really from the UK at all, it was that same country abroad, we are not sure how they do that.” He went on, “This link I sent you should cut it down drastically,” It didn’t. Still, for a while, it did cut it down to one a day, but it was still one a day too many. Then one day I noticed I didn’t get any calls for a week! Progress I thought, but it was too good to be true, I slowly started to get two calls or one a week, I’d been spoilt and now they were back.

So, after many toing and froing I decided to take matters into my own hands. Three months ago, I decided not to answer my mobile phone if I didn’t recognize the name or the caller, I’d just let it ring! They didn’t like that, so after they had rung me from the pretend Scotland, and I didn’t answer, the phone, would ring straight back but with no caller ID, I didn’t answer it. From that time until today, I have not answered the phone. At first it was hard but now it’s easy. I know they know my full name and address, oh and telephone number, so if it’s legitimate, they can either email me or write a letter to my address.

During this time of not answering the phone, my home insurance had also tried to ring me for my renewal but unable to get me on the phone to offer me a bargain, they just sent me the booklets and that is how I knew I was still with them.

So, I wonder if I’m a winner or a loser in this? I feel I hurt them, for there is nothing they can do, all they can do is ring me, and the second they ring me sometimes it is for a minute or so, I block them, then copy and paste their numbers to my mobile phone provider, so very slowly, I’m chipping away at their billion or so people in that country. I can almost feel their frustrations, for before this, me sending them to Coventry, it had got to the stage when I answered, they would straight away put the phone down on me. That would hurt, it was like they were playing cat and mouse with me.

Me, I think I’m a Winner.