Some callers are selling raffle tickets and when we say we don’t buy raffle tickets, they suggest we make a donation instead. I never know when someone calls whether they are from a genuine charity, especially when they ask for money to be sent to a particular address instead of the charity’s head office. Consequently, I never give to ‘charities’ making unsolicited calls and these calls are a real nuisance. I would love them to stop.
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Since confirming my details with Do Not Call register i still receive calls from overseas , why is this ? Ive signed the petition to stop this !!
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They are truly annoying I now have a policy of never donating to a charity that cold-calls me. And I am increasingly aware of organisations that call because I have signed a petition.They make me feel really guilty for not donating, albeit if I could afford to I would do it at the time I signed. I now leave my phone nos off petitions and the like.
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Charities within Australia are to my knowledge exempt from do not call provisions. It is indeed annoying that they seem to call right on dinner, call repeatedly and refuse to take us off the call list. We have given up making donations and only do so once a year to charities of our choice.
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I heard on the ABC today that charities are now outsourcing their solicitations to call centres. Given that these call centres are not charities themselves, they shouldn’t be entitled to the same privilege as charities in terms of access to silent numbers. In this case it amounts to invasion of privacy by a third party. Ban them, I say.
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I agree with this suggestion. It would be interesting to revisit the original argument which led to the decision to exempt charities from the “do not call” register.
As happens in so many other instances, humans are very good at finding ways around barriers and jumping over hurdles. The recent example of charities “farming out” the soliciting of donations needs to be examined to see whether it falls within the original intent of the exemption.
Several decades ago political decisions were taken whereby government departments shifted a range of social and health services across to the community sector. In order to encourage community organisations to take on the provision of such services, generous funding programs were developed; organisations were also encouraged to raise complementary funding.
In recent years there seems to have been a shift away from the former generous government funding, with the result that community organisations have become forced to raise more and more funds to maintain their services.
In order to encourage the public to support those charities which have a greater social and economic impact, e.g. helping prevent negative health outcomes, or assisting people who find themselves in situations which they have no control over, I wonder if consideration might be given to providing increased rates of tax deductibility for donations to such organisations. It would become a win:win situation.
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We reached the point with unwanted calls that we now filter all our calls through our answering machine. All our family and friends know we do this and just start talking, knowing we will pick up when we recognise the caller. Unfortunately, this is not something that can be easily fixed. Now days, every time you enter a competition, sign up for something or express interest in something, particularly via online forms, you have to provide your phone number and then opt in to finish off the process. Bingo, you’re on another contact list and can guarantee you’ll be likely to receive phone calls. Trying to unsubscribe/opt out of these is almost impossible and time consuming, so filtering calls is the simplest solution. We are still one of the dwindling number of people who have a landline, so it’s easy for us to do this by providing our landline number when forms require a phone number.
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Yes I get these but I have another problem as well. Cold calls that go dead when you pick up the phone.
Some days there are multiple calls like this. As an 80 year old, with some limitations of movement and living alone, these calls are more than just annoying. Getting to the phone one time elicited a fall that caused damage and addition limitation.
How do you stop those - apart from not answering the phone or leaving it off the hook.
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I think it is a very good campaign . Australia is one of the few countries that has an "Opt In " clause. I think all these calls requesting money should be required by law to name the source where they obtained your details . In other words the "Opt In " source . Banks , Local Councils etc are notorious for passing on information . Be careful what you tick on printed matter and online and ALWAYS read the small print.
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Telemarketing should just be banned in Australia. I have had all my numbers registered on the “do not call” register. The do not call register does not work, I have made multiple complaints to them and I still get unwanted calls. I have had to set my phone to only accept calls from numbers that are saved in my phone contacts.
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In the UK BT (Telstra equivalent) have released a service (I think it is free) that answers the calls and asks the caller to leave a name and reason for call, the phone receivers phone then rings and says the message and has the option to answer or go to voicemail. This all happens within seconds and would cut 100% of unwanted called.
Telstra should have this free service as well
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I have gotten to the stage where I am just abusive to any unsolicited caller, be it spam, scam or ‘charity’!
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I had someone coming to my door supposedly for the Breast Cancer council and he wanted me to buy a pen for $20 and when I said I didn’t have any money tried to push a raffle ticket. When I said no, I told you I didn’t have any money (and I really didn’t) he stormed off across my garden and then instead of going out the driveway trampled across my side garden to get out. When I rang Breast Cancer Council and made a complaint, they advised no one was campaigning in our area! I felt he was dodgy from the beginning but his behavior was not acceptable. Also the phone calls are so wrong and I’m on the Do Not call Register as well as having a silent no and yet they still ring.
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Hi Matthewc - I agree 100% and Telstra does have that service but it is on a particular phone and it’s called a Telstra Guardian set - if you receive calls from callers that aren’t on your listing it intervenes and gives you the chance to block for all time or block that once.
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We have an answering machine and have told all friends and relatives to use it as we do not answer the phone unless we know who it is. Why, because at least 5 times a day the phone rings and often we can hear the telemarketers on the other end and as the please leave a message ends they hang up.
Not ideal, but it does stop the endless calls for donations all for very needy organisations, and we choose several organisations every couple of years and donate monthly.
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Yes please advocate for stopping unwanted calls. Deborah Webb
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Have had this phone for about a month now and not one nuisance call. Brilliant !!!
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I pursued Telstra and TIO about these types of calls (they were plaguing my elderly mother - ringing and when she answered the phone there was a pause, a clicking, and then a ‘sinister sounding’ voice saying a trite phrase). They said it was most likely that it was a scamming organisation using a computerised dialling system and when it recognised that a human had answered it would try to connect to a ‘human operator in the scam centre’ but if all lines were busy it would play a taped message and then hang up. They said it was most likely the scamming organisation was using VoIP and that trying to trace back through the number shown in Caller ID would be a waste of time …
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Lucky you. I frequently get unsolicited calls. I’ve registerd my number as don’t contact but still get local calls.
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Prior to getting the phone we had international calls barred and were also registered with the do not call register but the register doesn’t work. We have had the phone for nearly 12 months now and guess how many unwanted calls…Nil. My only concern is when the NBN comes to our area in the second half of next year we may lose the current telephone capacity (it is on a landline) The only downside to the phone is that some people are too shy ? to announce themselves and these calls will remain unanswered. However we do have the facility to view all attempted callers and their number (if not “private”. ) Cannot recommend phone highly enough.
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