Yesterday our phone rang and just as I got there it stopped. We have caller ID and it was a local number that looked like a friend of ours, so I called it back.

A man answered so I asked if he had called - he said - and this is the strange bit. “Someone has taken our number and is randomly calling people”. He apologised I had been bothered. This seems odd to me, although I do know that those overseas nasties who make malicious calls do disguise their number as a local one - usually a mobile number.

Afterwards I worked it out that there are 3 people who we chat to regularly on our landline, we get more calls from botherers. We are thinking of getting rid of it. Has anyone done this? It seems so radical after always having a phone there.

We haven't had a land line for about seven years and don't miss it at all. There was one elderly relative who protested at having to ring our mobiles, but she was under the delusion that a mobile call was like an old fashioned toll call. Otherwise no problems.

I sometimes get a string of junk calls to my mobile (once a day for several days), they used to show numbers from weird places in Africa and Eastern Europe but now show numbers that look like NZ ones. I've never returned one and I recommend that you don't either.

I feel the same as you Ali and want to shut down our land line and keep saying to my husband that the only callers we get these days are organisations wanting donations and spark telling us our computer has a bug or something and is going to shut down in 24 hours (***#%@$&#***!!!) The problem with the organisations wanting donations is that they don't just phone annually, but some try for a 2nd and 3rd slice at the "donatory cake" in one year which really gets me annoyed as well, so now I ask them to e-mail instead of phoning. I guess because we've had communication via land line forever, it makes us hesitant to actually cancel it but why pay for something we are hardly using. Rant over.............
Regards,
Dawn.

We too get quite a few spam calls that actually look like NZ numbers. At first we thought we had missed calls from friends in Auckland. They are definately spam and its usually from the same two or three numbers. The spammers are always up to new tricks now. S o far I have had only one spam call on my cell phone.

I was home 3 afternoons this week and for 2 afternoons I got 2 calls each day.
One day it was a recorded message from Spark......then they tell you to push one or two, blah blah
The other day it was again a recorded message about some website searching for lost pets. Anyway to cut a long story short the animal lost was a Brown cat and an Auckland number to respond to. Havent seen their moggie in Palmerston North.
I am seriously thinking of ditching my land line too.

the calls with real people speaking, get a blast from my whistle which rests by the phone!
Funny thing is, they don't ring back!

Raewyn G

INTERESTING ABOUT DITCHING YOUR LAND LINE..I ALSO DECIDED TO DO JUST THAT AND RANG SPARK ENQUIRED ABOUT DOING THIS AND THEY TOLD ME, IF YOU RUN COMPUTER MOBILE ETC IT WILL STILL COST THE SAME AS PAYING FOR THE LANDLINE..SO I KEPT THE LANDLINE AND ONLY USE IT FOR LOCAL CALLS..WE GET THE LOOONG NUMBERS WITH THE JUST AS LOOONG SILENCE, THEY EITHER DONT GET ANSWERED OR HUNG UP ON... I MAY HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD WHAT I WAS TOLD BUT I DID SAY TO THEM SO IF I DITCH THE LAND LINE IT WILL NOT SAVE ME ANY MONEY AND SHE SAID NO THAT IS CORRECT. JAN

We haven't done it completely but more and more we are using our cell phones. Thanks for your input, Jan. I hadn't realised that.
My son, who is in Australia, has moved over to cell phones only. They may have better plans offered to them because the family of 5 each has their own cell phone and a different number.
I also had a call from a woman pretending to be from Spark. I believe that she or those particular callers have since been tracked and charged.

I'd love to ditch my landline but I'm the contact person for a local organisation and many people won't call a cell phone as it costs them to make a call. My internet connection would be cheaper without the landland, but such is life! I must admit, however, that the organisation I'm with make a decent contribution to the cost of my landline, so the only issue with me is the spam callers.

Speaking of spammers, here's one I've very recently heard of for those of you who travel and stay in hotels:

You check in and the hotel requires your credit card details. A short while after checking in, the phone in your room rings and a voice at the other end says, 'This is Reception. Sorry to disbturb you, but we have a problem with your credit card. Would you please read the details to me again to make sure we have them all recorded correctly."

If this happens to you, just say you'll come down to reception with the card. That way you'll know if the caller is genuine, or if it was a scammer.

Wow, that's one that it would be easy to fall for, Lorna - what will these spammers think of next..?

Like others the only calls we seem to get on our landline are from people asking for money, people trying to sell something or those dreaded internet or Spark calls. The only reason we keep our landline is that my MIL is in residential care and suffers from dementia and while she has a cellphone with our cellphone numbers on speed dial, it bothers me that she will forget and try and call our landline. It costs only $10 a month so I figure that the inconvenience is worth it for peace of mind.

It's amazing to think that something we thought we would never be able to do without, is now almost redundant.

Regards,

Barbara Anne