Cutting down the cold calls

At first I tried answering these calls in French but the language was recognised too quickly and the callers came back. However, I’ve now tried sometning that Welsh speakers are probably already using - answer in Welsh! It’s hilarious. Yesterday a Chinese voice wanted to confirm my name, address and employment status. ‘Ydw’ seemed to be accepted for the first two but ‘Dw i wedi ymddeol’ was too much for him so he passed me to his supervisor. The supervisor was happy with ‘Bore da’ but similarly thrown by ‘Dw i wedi ymddeol’ and promptly cut me off. They haven’t tried again. Result!

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Diolch yn fawr iawn!! I never thought of it!! I usually just don’t answer unless I recognise the caller’s number or am expecting a ‘withheld’, driving away the ‘Internationals’ will be brilliant!! :smile:
It makes me feel especially dragonish!!! :wink:

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Internationals, especially those from somewhere from Africa, Far East or South America can be “dangerous” and only can cost you a lot of money or even stealing some datas if you have smart phones filled with programms, apps etc.

If I don’t expect international call and it’s from those areas (where I actually really don’t know anyone) I rather don’t answer them then hazarding with such hazardeous calls.

Otherwise I rearly pay attention who is calling me, but when international call is in stake then I do.

The most “dangerous” int. call codes are those beginning with +59, +56 or so …

My mother was getting nuisance calls on her landline supposedly coming from Microsoft offering to fix her computer (difficult, when she doesn’t even have one). One day I was visiting her when a call came in from an 0112 number (Ohio I think). So I just answered in Welsh, which I think made sense, just in case they could speak Welsh. l asked who was there, what did they want and said that I didn’t understand why they calling about the cyfrifiadur. After about four sentences, they put the phone down and haven’t called again since!

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My phone in Scotland can’t tell me anything more detailed than “International”.

This is strange though. OK, those calls can also be set as anonymus, that’s true, but still for most of them I see the number.

Annswering in Welsh worked really well for cold calls right up until the time it was S4C on the other end looking for audience members for Pawb A’i Farn! Goodness knows what list of ‘learners willing to talk’ they keep but they must have thought I was dead keen answering the phone yn Gymraeg to strangers! :wink:

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