In message , Dave
wrote

Joining the telephone preference service cured it for me, now I get
annoyed by American based calls.

It will work for most UK calls but most of the S**T I'm now getting is
international. I just let the answerphone pick up the call and 99% of
the cold callers ring off during the outgoing message.

There area few (Paris Disneyland) who will leave attempt to leave an
automated message, but will start during the outgoing message.

Barleycard credit card fraud department have a sophisticated auto phone
service. On detecting an answerphone it waits until the outgoing message
has finished and then gives a sensible message to contact them.

--
Alan
news2009 {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk