alan_m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

And plenty of the people who need to make that sort of call
need to be able to do it from their mobile today, so it just
isnt viable to have a simple universal filter that say ignores
all calls that do not present a caller ID. If a paramedic chooses
to call me from the accident scene when the injured person
has told them who they want notified, it makes no sense to
ignore all those calls. You might well end up not being able
to talk to the injured person before they die if you go that route.

That paramedic would easily get through to me even if his number was
withheld and I filter all number withheld or numbers.

That was a comment about your simple universal
filter which you have dropped from the quoting.

You seem to be suggesting problem scenarios where none exists for most
people.

Then you need to get your seems machinery seen to with all
of flood warnings, notification about urgent maintenance etc.

Those do matter for normal people.

Although it may be a good idea for utility companies to phone in the event
an unexpected event in the UK it doesn't happen

But it should for better a better service from utility companys.

so no problem with blocking number withheld numbers from them.

But is a problem if you have a more sophisticated white list system
which requires a human caller to do something specific to make the
phone ring so the person called can choose whether to answer or not.

More likely if they have your number they are likely to regular give you a
'service call' aka junk cold call selling you other services such as
service agreements and/or additional insurance (for things probably
already covered in many peoples building insurance anyway). This often
bypasses the TPS which is meant to stop these types of UK sourced junk
calls because they don't treat them as cold calls as you are already a
customer. The utility companies often use third party agencies for these
service calls.

Irrelevant to how to allow automated warning calls to get thru.

So many people are plagued by PPI, Have you had an accident, come to
Disney Land (France), You have won a prize, Your gas boiler is illegal and
needs replacing etc. cold calls that filtering is becoming very popular.

Yes, that is the reason people are looking for an effective filtering
system.

Even telephone providers are offering this filtering service at their end
of the line (at a cost). Soon any legitimate organisation that withholds
the calling number will find that it cannot operate efficiently and will
have to start presenting a number.

I bet that doesnt happen because it just isnt feasible,
particularly with calls from a mobile by their employees
who make almost all calls they make that way, just
because its simpler to use the one phone for everything.

And plenty of them arent massive operations with fancy PABXs
etc, plenty of small business has just mobile phones today.

However, in my experience, any organisation that I've dealt with,
utilities, local doctors surgery, local hospital(s), local council, bank,
credit card company etc. all present valid calling numbers.

By definition you are most unlikely to every get called by them
in a real emergency by one of their employees who is out and
about with just the mobile phone.

True call works well, but the issue is that often they do not show any
number. I find this is often true of councils, NHS etc, so really there is
nothing one can do about this. With the widespread use of such devices due
to the failure of the telephone pref service to stop rubbish callers, its
going to be up to the organisations to at least use a known number for the
star or whit list.
This is my opinion. I am aware its becoming an increasing problem for
large companies who do not show a number. The ball is in their court and
their records should show that there were issues with the calls to some
numbers by their short duration and hence flag up them to call you with a
human or send you a letter in my view.

Alternatively, you could just give them only a mobile number but
increasingly, there are junk texts and calls coming into those as well.
I think even the services operated by companies like bt have the same
problem with automated calls.
I do not know the answer unless they only allow the message to play if your
end is asked to hit a # key or something, then they would know which calls
failed.
Brian

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Tim+" wrote in message
...
Harry Bloomfield wrote:
I have just replaced our phones, with a set which filters out nuisance
callers, unless they are live callers who can follow a proceedure to
get through.

My new concern is that we sometimes get automated calls from the
electric, gas, flood and water utilities, when they have an issue and
we obviously want these calls to get through - so I need to find out
the numbers they use to ring us from, so I can include them in the list
of accepted numbers.

Has anyone found such a list, or even a proper name for this type of
prerecorded warning phone call?


The obvious answer is to ask the utilities concerned.

Do they really call so frequently that missing the call would be a
concern?


Incidentally our Truecall unit blocked 8 nuisance calls on Wednesday. Best
thing we've ever bought.

Tim

--
Trolls and troll feeders go in my killfile

In theory, if the company or organisation wishes to call, it should be no
problem to always show the same number. After all the scammers and telesales
people seem to manage to do this even if its a totally fictitious number. In
my view its sheer laziness on the part of the organisation who cannot be
bothered to set up a number to display.
Brian

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Nightjar" wrote in message
...
On 26-Aug-16 11:23 AM, Tim+ wrote:
Harry Bloomfield wrote:
I have just replaced our phones, with a set which filters out nuisance
callers, unless they are live callers who can follow a proceedure to
get through.

My new concern is that we sometimes get automated calls from the
electric, gas, flood and water utilities, when they have an issue and
we obviously want these calls to get through - so I need to find out
the numbers they use to ring us from, so I can include them in the list
of accepted numbers.

Has anyone found such a list, or even a proper name for this type of
prerecorded warning phone call?


The obvious answer is to ask the utilities concerned.

Do they really call so frequently that missing the call would be a
concern?

I've only ever had on flood warning call, but I wouldn't have wanted to
miss it.


--
--

Colin Bignell

If anybody wants to see how these devices work,look up true call and see.I
amvery happy with my staand alon device as its totally blind friendly and
controlled from the phone itself, it has white and black lists. I understand
there is a recent update to require a hash be typed to thwart pr recorded
messages which try to fool the devices. You can even ask the caller to
enter their pin if you only want certain people to get through on a number.
brian

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Tim+" wrote in message
...
Nightjar wrote:
On 26-Aug-16 11:23 AM, Tim+ wrote:
Harry Bloomfield wrote:
I have just replaced our phones, with a set which filters out nuisance
callers, unless they are live callers who can follow a proceedure to
get through.

My new concern is that we sometimes get automated calls from the
electric, gas, flood and water utilities, when they have an issue and
we obviously want these calls to get through - so I need to find out
the numbers they use to ring us from, so I can include them in the list
of accepted numbers.

Has anyone found such a list, or even a proper name for this type of
prerecorded warning phone call?


The obvious answer is to ask the utilities concerned.

Do they really call so frequently that missing the call would be a
concern?

I've only ever had on flood warning call, but I wouldn't have wanted to
miss it.



That seems to be the only one that I can imagine not wanting to miss if I
lived in a flood zone.

Tim

--
Trolls and troll feeders go in my killfile

On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 12:45:39 -0000 (UTC), Tim+
wrote:

Davey wrote:
On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:12:30 +0100

Be wary that some companies might not have 'visible' CLI numbers. Our
local health centre comes up as private, and I read that some Councils
also do that.


Well IMO they can just **** right off then. I mean, would you open your
door to a masked man?

Depends on what you class as masked, the beekeeper who turned up to
remove some bees arrived dressed in his kit as he only had to walk
from a few hundred yards away but then I was expecting him,
just as some people will be expecting a phone call from a Council or
health centre . Telling them to **** off is your right as long you
don't later whinge that you haven't been given an appointment or no
body from the council has arranged to see you about some issue that
you may have brought to their attention.
You arn't really important enough to be treated any different to
anyone else and they will just move on an give the appointment or
arrange to see someone else who is easier to contact.

G.Harman

On 26-Aug-16 8:20 PM, Tim+ wrote:
Nightjar wrote:
On 26-Aug-16 1:45 PM, Tim+ wrote:
Davey wrote:
On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:12:30 +0100

Be wary that some companies might not have 'visible' CLI numbers. Our
local health centre comes up as private, and I read that some Councils
also do that.


Well IMO they can just **** right off then. I mean, would you open your
door to a masked man?

One of my most important customers blocks its numbers. It wants people
to call through the switchboard, not direct to individuals' lines.



Then they could present a switchboard number. The technology exists. Our
local hospital does it.

However, they don't choose to do that and I can't force them to, so I
have to accept private number calls for them to get through.


--
--

Colin Bignell

On Sat, 27 Aug 2016 09:30:12 +0100, Nightjar wrote:

On 26-Aug-16 8:20 PM, Tim+ wrote:
Nightjar wrote:
On 26-Aug-16 1:45 PM, Tim+ wrote:
Davey wrote:
On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:12:30 +0100

Be wary that some companies might not have 'visible' CLI numbers.
Our local health centre comes up as private, and I read that some
Councils also do that.


Well IMO they can just **** right off then. I mean, would you open
your door to a masked man?

One of my most important customers blocks its numbers. It wants people
to call through the switchboard, not direct to individuals' lines.



Then they could present a switchboard number. The technology exists.
Our local hospital does it.

However, they don't choose to do that and I can't force them to, so I
have to accept private number calls for them to get through.

I put them into a menu with a 'get through' option. Works fine.



--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

formulated the question :
On Friday, 26 August 2016 11:12:36 UTC+1, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
My new concern is that we sometimes get automated calls from the
electric, gas, flood and water utilities, when they have an issue and
we obviously want these calls to get through

If you've no electricity because of a power cut or a flood, most call
filtering devices (and cordless phones) won't work anyway, and won't pass the
call through to you.

Owain

I disagree - we have previously had calls from the water and power
suppliers warning that they are about to begin work on the network
which might/will affect us. Obviously without a crystal ball, they can
only warn us when it is a sudden planned outage, but that is better
than no warning or guessing how long we will be off for.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

On 27/08/2016 07:51, Rod Speed wrote:


Makes no sense to have to sign up, makes a lot more sense to have the
system call all the places in the area which will be affected.

How are they going to find the telephone numbers to ring? In a typical
UK street there may be a dozen different companies providing the
telephone service and each has to legally protect their customers data.
Many phone users chose not to have their telephone numbers published and
definitely don't want it shared to a third party.

Any such system has to be opt in.


That's not correct with urgent maintenance.

In a typical UK street there may be a dozen different companies
supplying the electricity and gas. For instance I live in the SE of
England but pay for my energy by way of a Scottish company. The company
responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructure don't have legal
access to personal information about gas/electricity customers and they
don't necessarily tell the billing suppliers about any work.

Many of the utility companies don't have very good customer service
record and I wouldn't trust them to tell customers about planned work in
a timely manner.


Sure, but it isnt feasible to expect everyone to have that sort of thing
setup for warnings about urgent maintenance to the power or water
supply etc.

As there is no such facility for power or water in the UK for the
majority of consumers there is little point in discussing problems that
don't exist.

--
mailto: news {at} admac {dot] myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

In article ,
alan_m wrote:
On 27/08/2016 07:51, Rod Speed wrote:


Makes no sense to have to sign up, makes a lot more sense to have the
system call all the places in the area which will be affected.

How are they going to find the telephone numbers to ring? In a typical
UK street there may be a dozen different companies providing the
telephone service and each has to legally protect their customers data.
Many phone users chose not to have their telephone numbers published and
definitely don't want it shared to a third party.


how about "you gave it to them when you bought their service"?

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

alan_m wrote :

Sure, but it isnt feasible to expect everyone to have that sort of thing
setup for warnings about urgent maintenance to the power or water
supply etc.

As there is no such facility for power or water in the UK for the majority of
consumers there is little point in discussing problems that don't exist.

If you voluntarily put your self on the 'at risk' list with a utility,
they will ring you with a recorded message when there is likely to be
an issue. We have had two such calls from the power company and a knock
at the door once.

My late partner suffered from COPD and used a mains powered oxygen
generator, which was why we were registered. A warning phone call meant
we could put in a call for emergency bottled oxygen if necessary.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

On 26/08/16 19:51, Nightjar wrote:
On 26-Aug-16 1:45 PM, Tim+ wrote:
Davey wrote:
On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:12:30 +0100

Be wary that some companies might not have 'visible' CLI numbers. Our
local health centre comes up as private, and I read that some Councils
also do that.


Well IMO they can just **** right off then. I mean, would you open your
door to a masked man?

One of my most important customers blocks its numbers. It wants people
to call through the switchboard, not direct to individuals' lines.


If I had a highly infectious disease and an ambulance turned up and
masked men jumped out, I'd open the door to them alright.


--
"The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll
look exactly the same afterwards."

Billy Connolly

Brian Gaff wrote

In theory, if the company or organisation wishes to call, it should be no
problem to always show the same number. After all the scammers and
telesales people seem to manage to do this even if its a totally
fictitious number.

The problem with that line is that by definition those operations
will have a phone system that allows that. Doesn’t mean that every
operation that needs to call you will have a phone system like that.

In my view its sheer laziness on the part of the organisation who cannot
be bothered to set up a number to display.

Its not cannot be bothered, plenty of them
don’t have a phone system that can do that.

"Nightjar" wrote in message
...
On 26-Aug-16 11:23 AM, Tim+ wrote:
Harry Bloomfield wrote:
I have just replaced our phones, with a set which filters out nuisance
callers, unless they are live callers who can follow a proceedure to
get through.

My new concern is that we sometimes get automated calls from the
electric, gas, flood and water utilities, when they have an issue and
we obviously want these calls to get through - so I need to find out
the numbers they use to ring us from, so I can include them in the list
of accepted numbers.

Has anyone found such a list, or even a proper name for this type of
prerecorded warning phone call?


The obvious answer is to ask the utilities concerned.

Do they really call so frequently that missing the call would be a
concern?

I've only ever had on flood warning call, but I wouldn't have wanted to
miss it.


--
--

Colin Bignell

alan_m formulated on Saturday :
More likely if they have your number they are likely to regular give you a
'service call' aka junk cold call selling you other services such as service
agreements and/or additional insurance (for things probably already covered
in many peoples building insurance anyway). This often bypasses the TPS which
is meant to stop these types of UK sourced junk calls because they don't
treat them as cold calls as you are already a customer. The utility companies
often use third party agencies for these service calls.

That is not my experience. The utility company making the call is the
actual 'network operator' rather than the resellers. The 'network
operator' has nothing they might want to sell you.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

alan_m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Makes no sense to have to sign up, makes a lot more sense to have the
system call all the places in the area which will be affected.

How are they going to find the telephone numbers to ring?

Very easily with mobile phones, they can get that
from the bases the mobile is currently using.

In a typical UK street there may be a dozen different companies providing
the telephone service

But the system does know where the number physically
is, because it needs to know that with calls made to 999
which dont have anyone capable of telling the operator
where they are calling from.

and each has to legally protect their customers data.

Not from the 999 service or not from a utility that uses
that data to warn people about urgent maintenance
that is about to happen or about a flood etc.

Many phone users chose not to have their telephone numbers published and
definitely don't want it shared to a third party.

They get no choice on that with the 999 service.

Any such system has to be opt in.

It isnt with the 999 service.

That's not correct with urgent maintenance.

In a typical UK street there may be a dozen different companies supplying
the electricity and gas. For instance I live in the SE of England but pay
for my energy by way of a Scottish company.

Irrelevant to who is actually doing the urgent maintenance work.

The company responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructure don't
have legal access to personal information about gas/electricity customers

They dont need that when whoever is doing the maintenance
work can get the data on what phones need to be called from
the same database that the 999 service uses.

and they don't necessarily tell the billing suppliers about any work.

The billing operation is completely irrelevant.

Many of the utility companies don't have very good customer service record
and I wouldn't trust them to tell customers about planned work in a timely
manner.

Irrelevant to whether it is a useful service with the ones that do.

Sure, but it isnt feasible to expect everyone to have that sort of thing
setup for warnings about urgent maintenance to the power or water supply
etc.

As there is no such facility for power or water in the UK for the majority
of consumers

Wrong.

there is little point in discussing problems that don't exist.

The problem clearly does exist, otherwise Harry
wouldnt have asked about how to deal with it.

On 27-Aug-16 9:40 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
On Sat, 27 Aug 2016 09:30:12 +0100, Nightjar wrote:

On 26-Aug-16 8:20 PM, Tim+ wrote:
Nightjar wrote:
On 26-Aug-16 1:45 PM, Tim+ wrote:
Davey wrote:
On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:12:30 +0100

Be wary that some companies might not have 'visible' CLI numbers.
Our local health centre comes up as private, and I read that some
Councils also do that.


Well IMO they can just **** right off then. I mean, would you open
your door to a masked man?

One of my most important customers blocks its numbers. It wants people
to call through the switchboard, not direct to individuals' lines.



Then they could present a switchboard number. The technology exists.
Our local hospital does it.

However, they don't choose to do that and I can't force them to, so I
have to accept private number calls for them to get through.

I put them into a menu with a 'get through' option. Works fine.

How do you put a withheld number into a whitelist?


--
--

Colin Bignell

On 27/08/2016 10:44, Huge wrote:


10 per day? I doubt we've had 10, ever. And other than being XD, witholding
CLI and being on the TPS, we don't take any special precautions.


But you may find one day that your number does appear on a freely
circulated list and you may find that junk calls rise significantly.

The phone's log shows I've had 29 calls in the past 2 weeks where the
caller has chosen to hang up when presented with a message.

Once on a 'list' the TPS is a complete waste of time. It doesn't
consider International calls to be part of its remit even though they
are all on behalf of UK based companies.

--
mailto: news {at} admac {dot] myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On Sat, 27 Aug 2016 11:29:58 +0100, Nightjar wrote:

On 27-Aug-16 9:40 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
On Sat, 27 Aug 2016 09:30:12 +0100, Nightjar wrote:

On 26-Aug-16 8:20 PM, Tim+ wrote:
Nightjar wrote:
On 26-Aug-16 1:45 PM, Tim+ wrote:
Davey wrote:
On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:12:30 +0100

Be wary that some companies might not have 'visible' CLI numbers.
Our local health centre comes up as private, and I read that some
Councils also do that.


Well IMO they can just **** right off then. I mean, would you open
your door to a masked man?

One of my most important customers blocks its numbers. It wants
people to call through the switchboard, not direct to individuals'
lines.



Then they could present a switchboard number. The technology exists.
Our local hospital does it.

However, they don't choose to do that and I can't force them to, so I
have to accept private number calls for them to get through.

I put them into a menu with a 'get through' option. Works fine.

How do you put a withheld number into a whitelist?

I don't. They select that option each time they call. They can 'key
ahead' so after the first time, it just takes one quick press of a button.

--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 27/08/2016 06:11, alan_m wrote:

Back in the real world, how many times have a utility company phoned YOU
to say that a service is going off?

Every time they do it. Once last year I think, and maybe once a few
years before.

Clive George wrote:
On 27/08/2016 06:11, alan_m wrote:

Back in the real world, how many times have a utility company phoned YOU
to say that a service is going off?

Every time they do it. Once last year I think, and maybe once a few
years before.




For a planned shut off I would bet that they're legally required to contact
all affected householders, which at a minimum means posting cards through
letterboxes I would have thought. It's what happens here.

What happens if you're out when they call? Do they delay cutting of the
service?

Tim

--
Trolls AND TROLL FEEDERS all go in my kill file

On 27/08/2016 20:59, Tim+ wrote:


For a planned shut off I would bet that they're legally required to contact
all affected householders, which at a minimum means posting cards through
letterboxes I would have thought. It's what happens here.

What happens if you're out when they call? Do they delay cutting of the
service?


What would happen if they phoned and you were out and you don't have an
answerphone? You would not be informed at all.

Even with an answerphone and an incoming automated message the time
taken for the answerphone to send the outgoing message and the time
taken to issue the 'beep' may be long enough for the automated message
to finish before any recording started.

--
mailto: news {at} admac {dot] myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

alan_m wrote
Tim+ wrote

For a planned shut off I would bet that they're legally required to
contact
all affected householders, which at a minimum means posting cards through
letterboxes I would have thought. It's what happens here.

What happens if you're out when they call? Do they delay cutting of the
service?

What would happen if they phoned and you were out and you don't have an
answerphone? You would not be informed at all.

Still better than not warning anyone with urgent unplanned maintenance.

And even more useful with a warning of flood than
just using a web site or a radio/TV broadcast.

Even with an answerphone and an incoming automated message the time taken
for the answerphone to send the outgoing message and the time taken to
issue the 'beep' may be long enough for the automated message to finish
before any recording started.

Still better than doing nothing.

alan_m wrote:
On 27/08/2016 20:59, Tim+ wrote:


For a planned shut off I would bet that they're legally required to contact
all affected householders, which at a minimum means posting cards through
letterboxes I would have thought. It's what happens here.

What happens if you're out when they call? Do they delay cutting of the
service?


What would happen if they phoned and you were out and you don't have an
answerphone? You would not be informed at all.

Even with an answerphone and an incoming automated message the time
taken for the answerphone to send the outgoing message and the time
taken to issue the 'beep' may be long enough for the automated message
to finish before any recording started.


My point seems to have escaped you. Being able to accept messages from
utilities over the phone is NOT a good reason to not have a call blocker.

Tim

--
Trolls AND TROLL FEEDERS all go in my kill file

On 27/08/2016 20:59, Tim+ wrote:
Clive George wrote:
On 27/08/2016 06:11, alan_m wrote:

Back in the real world, how many times have a utility company phoned YOU
to say that a service is going off?

Every time they do it. Once last year I think, and maybe once a few
years before.




For a planned shut off I would bet that they're legally required to contact
all affected householders, which at a minimum means posting cards through
letterboxes I would have thought. It's what happens here.

What happens if you're out when they call? Do they delay cutting of the
service?

For the last one, I think we got a letter a few weeks in advance, then a
robot caller a couple of times closer to it as a reminder. I think the
robot got to talk to an answering machine at least once. I have no proof
of what would happen if we were out and didn't have an answering
service, but I would strongly suspect they would just carry on.