The Magic Phone Number
When buying something online or registering online there is usually a form to fill in of your details and quite often this insists on your telephone number even though you know it’s not needed.
This is annoying, plus, you wonder what they will do with your phone number. Will they sell it or give it to third parties?, resulting in phone calls you don’t want.
As the forms usually check the number is in the correct format, you need a real phone number to input.
You can use 0333 88 88 88 88 (the last 8 doesn’t matter if the form only allows 11 digits.)
When, they call, those cold call culprits will hear a short recorded message:-
“trueCall38 is handling my calls. I prefer not to be contacted by phone, so please contact me via my email address. Goodbye!”
Problem solved.
Do companies block this number from being entered in the form? No, but if they do then Trucall38 have a display page “Wall of Shame” but none has done so thus far.
Q. Why do companies ask for your phone number?
They rarely really need it, and you don’t know what they are going to do with it. Interestingly, experts say that asking for a phone number can reduce the number of people who complete an online form by 25%. That’s a big loss.
Of course, some companies sell their customers phone numbers on to other companies, so you don’t know who’ll get your number.
Call Blocking
The business behind the website trucall38.com have developed a call blocking device called Trucall that is reported to have been 95% successful in blocking nuisance calls. The technology has been licensed to BT and is incorporated in their BT8500 phone.
Trucall claim that half a million people in the UK are now protected from nuisance phone calls by their technology.
The guys behind Truecall say “We thought that everyone should have the opportunity to opt out of handing over their phone number unless they wanted to, so we launched the trueCall38 number – a completely free service”.
If you don’t want someone to have your phone number – tell them 0333 88 88 88 88