Eating humble pie.

[lissie]

This not hearing from the hospital really upset me and i could not understand
why the secretary kept saying that they could`nt get through.
I decided to get in touch with my phone provider and see if they could give
a reason.
THEY COULD!!!
The hospital withholds it`s number (why i don`t know) so it comes through as
anonymous so the anonymous caller reject blocks the call as they think it is
a scam call!! I have got them to remove it so will get overun with calls again.
I have phoned the hospital to explain and she was very nice about it and said
she will get the doctor to try to phone again so i will have to stay in.
I am glad i have sorted it as the doctor in question is a very nice person and it
was hard to believe he let us down.
This humble pie is hard to chew

[meriad]

Well that does make sense... but I agree; why does the hospital withhold it's number; that is a bit daft. Esp as in this day and age quite a few people have this call blocker enabled (and dare I say, esp quite a few elderly people) so surely the hospital should have thought about this?

Whatever though.... glad you figured it out and fingers crossed you very soon get the long awaited results x

[jenniren]

We're signed up to the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) Lissie and it works really well, we rarely get nuisance calls.

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is a free service run by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). It stops your telephone number being available to organisations, including charity and voluntary organisations, who may telephone you with sales or marketing calls.

You can register here http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html

Hope this helps x

[Diflower]

We have a call blocker phone and get no nuisance calls at all.
It doesn't stop anyone getting through, but if it's an unknown number they have to announce who they are before they can speak to you.
If they choose not to then the phone doesn't even ring, it's wonderful.

[Workingman]

Glad the doctor's is sorted Lissie, but as for the blockers......

Ossie posted about these about a week ago, with a few instructions for the BT version: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12235

I got rid of the TalkTalk one as I found it more of a problem than it was worth. The nuclear option of blocking all doesn't work as you miss some necessary calls and I could not be bothered setting up a white list for all the numbers I want to get through. All sorts of places now withhold their number, which seems a bit daft if they ever want you to contact hem, but hey-ho.

[TheOstrich]

So sorry to read what happened to you Lissie.

As WM mentioned, I started a thread earlier about the BT call blocker 1572 service. It was a concern of mine that if you elected to block withheld numbers, certain organisations such as the NHS might not get through to you because they use withheld numbers. The reason they do this (and social services are another) is that they want you to phone in to a central telephone number and not an individual social worker / doctor / department etc - these are the numbers that are withheld, and they are for outgoing calls only. It's so lines don't get tied up, and also incoming calls can be "vetted".

Following on from WM's reply on that earlier thread, I did reverse my choice to block withheld numbers - that's an option you can switch on or off on 1572 - so I am allowing them now. I was getting a spate of scam calls from withheld numbers and I'm hoping they don't start up again ...

Jenni, we have the TPS service but we've found over the years it's got less and less effective. There's a lot of scam calls coming from 024xx , 025xx etc. numbers which are basically set up by iffy insurance companies. One such that's been bugging me here is 02548 996*** and variations thereof. The slight benefit of BT 1572 over TPS is that if you get one, you can immediately add it to your personal banned list, and I guess BT are monitoring what numbers individuals are banning so that if a number keeps reoccurring, they can add it to their global list.

[Kaz]

Gosh Lissie, really hope this is all sorted out for you soon (((x)))

None of this is your fault, no need for humble pie xxxxxxx