Who calls me? Spam numbers

  

Beautiful Ballachulish

The village of Ballachulish in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, is centred on former slate quarries. 

It’s a beautiful part of the world. Apparently. I’ve never been. But Today I got called at 10:10 am by this number: 01855 605 303

This is evidently a spam number. I know nobody in Ballachulish. I don’t tend to give out my mobile number when I fill in forms, etc. If I do, I always tweak one of the numbers so it’s not accurate.

Yesterday, I got called at 11:43am by 01943 593491. This is from a place called Guisely, based in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated south of Otley and Menston, it is a suburb of north west Leeds.

Also, a very beautiful little town. From the pictures I’ve seen, it has quaint limestone walls and small grey-stone buildings.

But once again I know nobody who lives there. And nobody who would want to call me in the morning. The mystery deepens.

On Tuesday, I was phoned by 01792 828958. This is a proper firm called Opinion Research Services. At least, it has a web presence. Now, nobody can be 100% sure that any firm with a web presence is actually genuine but it looks genuine. It has even put a helpful notice on its website:

“Our telephone interviewing centre based in Swansea makes calls from 01792 828958, 01792 674980 or 01792 348614. We understand that many people are reluctant to answer calls from numbers that they don't recognise, so we have prepared this FAQ page for people who receive a call from us and then search for 01792 828958, 01792 674980 or 01792 348614. It explains who we are, why we are calling and will hopefully answer any other questions you may have.”

Well, not really. I want to know how it knows who I am and how it has my personal mobile number. Anyway. Of course I ignored it.

Monday was also fun. At 11:57 I was called from Bridgend on 01656 360199. Again although I know a few people there, nobody would call me. You see the pattern here? Random numbers from across the UK, all calling at roughly the same time. I actually answered this one as “Newsdesk”. When they realised they’d called the national newsdesk of a major newspaper, they quickly apologised, said they’d remove me from their database, and hung up.

I bet they didn’t. I bet they passed me to Guisely and Ballachulish.

I had quite a few unwanted calls on Monday. Spammers 0843 724 0610 called me – I get this one quite regularly. In fact, it has its own entry in my phone book as “Spam”.

That evening, Opinion Research Services called me again.

I got spammed by Spam on Sunday, by ORS again on Sunday, by Morons last week – Morons being 0117 301 7723. They also have a special entry in my phone book.

ORS called me twice more last Friday, last Thursday, and last Wednesday.

I got a fun call from 0800 056 2422 on the 19th, ORS on the 19th, again in the morning from 0800 056 2422. ORS is starting to be a PITA (pain in the xxxx)

On 18th I got called by 01530 382 170. This is from the place called Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Coalville. This is accordingly a very nice place to visit in Leicestershire. It boasts several centuries’ worth of historical activity, Norman Castles and quiet English Pubs.

Overall, the past couple of weeks I’ve been blessed by such a national variety of spammers trying to do whatever – sell me PPI or talk to me about my accident claim. In fact, it’s risen so much over the past couple of weeks that I have to suspect either that my details have been passed on by one of my providers – I recently signed up with Amex – or someone has a grudge against me (perfectly reasonable) and has put my number on every single spammer’s website to punish me.

I can only assume I am being punished. And I probably deserve it. But just in case you get met with one of these numbers, I am informing you now to be aware. The scammers are everywhere, even in the middle of absolutely frigging nowhere.