This is not a scam, just annoying as they only want to pass your details on to some shopping list for sad gits.

BUT the point of my thread is that these have started up again and it is clearly the same person who simply will not let it go. They have the correct surname but wrong first names for both me and my wife, so where they dreamed those up from is anybody's business. We are not talking mobile phones here by the way.

I say started up again as previously he (the most persistent) wouldn't take no for an answer and clearly had no intention of removing us from his database despite saying he would, and so I bought a cheap rape alarm and blasted him with that a couple of times and the phone calls stopped.

So, (and this at last is my main point!!) now I have a more sophisticated phone for my land line that allows me to block quite easily phone calls (up to 100) post receiving them, it also allows for blocking of phone calls from an area code, and this I have just had a go at as I found that the nuisance calls were coming from a different phone number each time.

AND THEN I discovered on checking the area codes that the ones that were "real" related to areas all over the country and half of them were area codes THAT DID NOT EXIST - how is this possible??!?!?!!?

How can you have a phone number that uses an area code that does not exist?

Nowadays, the relationship between area code and area is no longer precise.

When Fibre Ethernet became common, many ISPs made provision for using VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and (I think) the monopolies commission said BT could not have the monopoly of phone numbers, so many ISPs have the ability to move (with your permission) your phone number from a landline to a VOIP service.

Also on a VOIP service you can choose a phone number from an available list and I suspect that is where the non-area codes are coming from.

You can also add a simple program to most computers and create an account with a VOIP service, to make your computer act as a VOIP phone.

Thank you Bill, you learn summat every day. So, I'll just keep blocking those codes singly or as a block then and using my rape alarm until the little bastard gets the message that we are not interested.

I get hundreds of em.
Having a business, my phone number is out there for all the people that want to save me money by spending some with them.
They have no scruples with the time of the day either. Sunday night seems to be quite popular.
I leave it in the car after my Sunday morning walk, they can ring as many times as they like.

I have one of those phones that makes people announce themselves verbally before even allowing my phone to ring. It's cut out every spam call that used to get through. I can either add personal callers to the allowed list (so they don't have to go through this process) or simply press 1 to talk to them as soon as I hear their voice. The option is also there to select not to speak to them and cut them off. It's very good. Like I said, I have received NO spam callers. They probably just disconnect when they hear the request to say who they are. Good.

As the person calling, I loathe these bloody phones with a vengeance . A few years ago , on holiday , I was driving up a single-track road at the crack of dawn, in agony with a dental problem and my phone rang. By the time I could find a passing place to stop, so had the phone. I could see it was the neighbour who had our house keys. Immediate thought 'We've been burgled!' aaarrrgggh! Tried to return the call and they'd had one of these bastarding phones installed which didn't know my mobile number. This happened again. By the time I reached the dentist for the early emergency appointment, I was a nervous wreck . Ended up managing to take the next call while in the dentist's chair. Dentists were wonderful, by the way. If you're ever in Tarbert, Loch Fyne, pay them a visit. Meanwhile burn those bastarding, smart-arsed phones.

My phone doesn't block numbers unless I tell it to. If you ring it you just have to say who you are so the person knows it's not a spammer or automated call.

NEW SCAM BEWARE:

I just had a phone call (number withheld) of a man who claimed to be a Police Constable, seeking details of a credit card scam supposedly taken place near me with a credit card supposedly in the name similar to mine an from my address.

When he started asking such things as when did I last make a bank transaction I became even more suspicious ans said "I don't know if you are really who you say you are" whereupon he suggested he give me more details such as which station he was calling from and that I should call 999 (telling them it was not an emergency) to verify.

I said I don't believe any real policeman would suggest calling 999 with a non emergency call and he said "you know what, you are too smart" and broke the connection.

I don't have a landline and my PAYG mobile number is new so I never get dodgy phone calls. In fact I never get any phone calls so a scammer call would probably be welcome I ignore number withheld calls because it's never going to be good news and if I answer a call and it's someone I don't know I'm polite but will say something like thanks but no thanks and hang up. The longer I give them the more chance they have of sucking me in.

When I worked for a software company one of the engineers got a call from a woman in India saying she needed to connect to his computer to remove malware. He put her on loudspeaker and spent 20 minutes acting like he was trying to set up a Teamviewer connection to the delight of everyone in the office.