pissed offIt started on Wednesday. My phone rings & I drop everything to dig it out my bag (why is it when people ring house phones they'll ring for ages, but when they ring mobiles they stop after a few rings & you never get to answer it in time?). I notice the number is unfamiliar, but I'm unemployed & about to go to university, so unknown callers could easily turn out to be university admissions or a potential employer. So I answer & the first thing I hear is "Hello, is Mr or Mrs [my surname] there?". I don't have a gender-confusing name, so I know they're selling something. I hate cold-callers (if I want to buy something, I'll come to YOU. Quit bugging me.) but didn't feel like chewing him out in the middle of WH Smiths. I mutter something along the lines of "They're not here." (which was probably unintelligible to him anyway) & hang up. Then when I'm walking home I get another call from the same number. I answer, leave it for a second, & hang up. I figure maybe they have a policy of 'if someone says they're not they're, try again later' & that they'll get the message this time. But later that evening they call again. I feel sure that must be the last time as it was evening by that point. Nope - they call again about 8ish, & later at 9.15. By this point I was getting seriously pissed off. Not only are they calling a mobile (which I'm pretty sure is not allowed), & calling REPEATEDLY, but they're calling way later than they should.
Same thing happens on Thursday - calls start in the afternoon, & I get several, the latest being 8.46. For all these calls I either press cancel, to hang up without even answering, or just leave the phone to ring itself to death. I haven't had so many today - I had one at 6.54, but according to my phone I have 2 missed calls, so I guess maybe I had another one & I didn't hear it.
It's really annoying me, as people tend to talk to me face to face or online, so when I get phone calls they tend to be important. So I either dive for the phone thinking it's urgent & it's not, or leave it & have it turn out to be from someone I actually want to talk to.
The phone number is 08004049736, & according to the mighty Google is a call centre based in India (so why is it prefaced with 44?) working on behalf of 3 Mobile. So I know who it is, but who do I make a complaint to? I should probably tell O2 for a start, but are there any regulatory bodies I should call?