Unwanted Phone Calls

[Richard]

Well, it's not quite mobile in this case necessarily but I often get phone calls early morning on my landline and when I get round to answering the line is totally dead.
I think it is called 'burst' calling and is sent out to many numbers at once, so the first person to answer it makes the line appear 'dead' to the other recipients.

This is annoying if you are trying to have a snooze at the weekend but how to stop this nuisance?

[Geoff]

I've never had this happen to me... yet! However plenty of PPI calls from automated services and the occasional sales call from AA or British Gas which do annoy. I would love to just not answer all calls from an "unknown number" but my daughter's school also block their number on outgoing calls so I have to answer them. Grrr!

[Derek Jempson]

In an ideal world, it should be possible to simply ignore all "unknown" phone calls on the basis that those who block their numbers have something to hide, and may no be legitimate callers. Unfortunately, as Geoff says, certain legitimate numbers are also blocked, notably schools and some government offices and agencies. Maybe there should be a "legitimacy register" against which incoming calls could be checked electronically, so that caller display can show the "legitimacy status" of unknown calls.