When Faxes Attack
by John Walker on Oct.23, 2007, under The Rest
This is fun:
Today I’ve been receiving phonecalls from a fax machine. Which is weird. The phone rings, and I hear a beeping tone, which won’t then hang up. This then ties up the line for the next couple of minutes. All day long.
So I called BT’s fault line, who called me back promptly, and told me that what I need to do is call Customer Services and ask them to block the number. Oh, that seems simple enough.
I call 150, dance through menus, and speak to a call centre in India. The nice lady takes all my details, and then once she’s sure I’m me she tells me, “Could you call back in ten or fifteen minutes as my system is broken.”
So I call back later on, get through to India once more, and the new nice lady tells me that I can block the number once I pay a fee of £10.05 per quarter. This seemed strange to me. I’m getting nuisance calls from a fax machine, and I have to pay money to stop them. Um, no. She tells me it’s impossible for them to block a number, but only I can. Wow – I’m more powerful than BT when it comes to controlling telephones. I pointed out that this was nonsense, but the poor woman was on a script. I protest that I’m not going to pay money to fix a nuisance call. She puts me on hold, and comes back with quite the offer. For one whole month, they’ll allow me free access to this Refuse The Call (or whatever) system, and then immediately start charging money when that month is up. Gee whizz.
That’s the BT way. If you receive nuisance calls that prevent your phone from working, you have to pay money to prevent them! Obviously they’re offering the rest of the service completely for free, so… oh no wait, they charge massive monopoly-based fees. Thanks BT – thanks for all your kind help.
So does anyone know a good trick to stop this? Or better, a way of learning whose fax machine it is so I can phone them and ask them to bloody well stop calling me. Ooh, or even better, does anyone with a fax machine want to contact me and offer to send them an politely abusive fax for me?
The number that’s calling is: 020 7490 2741
12 Comments for this entry
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number phone » When Faxes Attack
October 27th, 2007 on 14:42[…] Read the rest of this great post here […]
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aai018 » When Faxes Attack
December 10th, 2007 on 11:49[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptI’m getting nuisance calls from a fax machine, and I have to pay money to stop them. Um, no. She tells me it’s impossible for them to block a number, but only I can. Wow – I’m more powerful than BT when it comes to controlling … […]
October 23rd, 2007 on 18:21
You sure it’s not people trying to fax in their votes for John Walker award? Are the voting lines now open?
October 23rd, 2007 on 18:32
Phone up the standard helpline and ask to make a complaint. That’ll shift you onto someone with Actual* Power pretty quickly.
* “Actual” is a relative term.
October 23rd, 2007 on 19:03
Reverse phone lookups are out in the UK due to the RIPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIPA).
Can you not send a fax using your PC? Back in the day with dial-up it was possible.
October 23rd, 2007 on 19:41
That would of course be:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000
October 23rd, 2007 on 19:42
Never mind. I carried the )
Nnnggh. :-ß
October 23rd, 2007 on 21:09
Ah, you see, you’ve disobeyed the first and most important rule in dealing with BT:
Don’t deal with BT.
At least be thankful you don’t have a BT Home Hub.
October 24th, 2007 on 08:31
I love my home hub. I bought it for £1 (worth every penny) and then used cunning chicanery to force the firmware of the repackaged router it is onto it. No longer is it a slave to the BT system but a wireless router of FREEDOM.
October 24th, 2007 on 12:16
Could you not send them a fax asking them to stop?
Failing that, just fax them sheets of black paper until their machine shuts down.
October 26th, 2007 on 07:44
I gotta terra-fax … consider them fixed
October 26th, 2007 on 13:36
no response so far…shall I keep sending?
November 6th, 2007 on 22:51
Did you fax them back? I’ve done it before. It worked.
March 25th, 2008 on 19:14
Glad i’m not on my own here…anyone else gettig nuisance calls from fax number 01492 574 774 .?
It’s getting on my nerves.