Three Litre
Producer
Oscar 24
Posts: 3,419
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Post by Three Litre on Oct 25, 2020 10:07:23 GMT
I jest, my real passion at the moment is history documentaries, there's a good one about Henry VIII on Channel 5 at the moment and the BBC had a great one about the Vietnam War from Ken Burns who did another great one about the US civil war 30 years ago.
Never like history much as a kid, now it fascinates me.
Part of the reason I like this site so much, and its characters!
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Post by Sam Tyler on Oct 25, 2020 10:12:23 GMT
Oh dear. Actually I’d better stay quiet about that one. Why is that Bolly? It is often on in the Tyler household. Sam.
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DI Alex Drake
AWOL
Quite frankly, your guess is as good as mine.
Posts: 3,412
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Post by DI Alex Drake on Oct 25, 2020 13:45:38 GMT
That’s alright then . Him indoors takes the mick a lot because I’ve watched it since I was at school and now sell houses for a living.
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Post by Arthur Pringle on Oct 25, 2020 16:33:14 GMT
I thought Gogglebox was quite good at first though it was always contrived, if you know you're being recorded for a tv show then it's unlikely your reactions will be natural. The only way of getting a spontaneous reaction would be to use concealed cameras & not tell people they were being filmed. Once the gimmick wears off & the reactions of the viewers becomes predictable it gets tedious.
The people on it eventually start to get on your nerves with their socks, mugs of tea & in the case of the late Leon Bernicoff who was a regular, hairs poking out of his nostrils.
Another show I find myself wasting time on is 'First Dates', are we expected to believe that the people who apply to go on it & audition are there to find a partner? Who goes on tv to find a husband/wife?
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Post by Sam Tyler on Oct 27, 2020 16:30:50 GMT
The next candidates for Room 101 are the wasters that have phoned me three times today to tell me that:
1) my internet is going to be cut off in the next 24 hours, 2) my computer has been infected by a virus, and 3) my Virgin media download speed is fluctuating.
For the first two I was told to press '1' to be put through to an executive to correct the matter.
The first was an oriental woman with a very strong, maybe Chinese, accent who introduced herself as "Jane", the second was an automated recording in pigeon English, and the third sounded to be Indian, again with a very strong accent who introduced himself as "James".
By this point I interrupted him and said "James or whatever your real name is, do me a favour, go and get yourself a proper job and stop wasting my time, I know you're not calling from Virgin media!". It would have been stronger if my daughter wasn't in the next room to me.
It gets on my thrupennies how these people continually try to exploit the more vulnerable people in society, completely without recourse since their caller ID numbers are randomly generated so can't be reported.
Sam
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Post by Arthur Pringle on Oct 27, 2020 17:28:03 GMT
Yes my parents have been duped a couple of times by scam phone calls & emails. I tell them to just put the phone down or walk away & leave it off the hook, my mum manages to do this but my dad says 'it's impolite' to hang up on someone, either that or he enters into a sarcastic conversation with them or shouts at them. At the same time I feel sorry for these people employed to phone numbers, in fact anyone in a call centre, it's a job I'd hate to do.
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Sparky
Producer
Status? Would that be Credit or in Society?
Posts: 2,784
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Post by Sparky on Oct 27, 2020 18:17:07 GMT
The next candidates for Room 101 are the wasters that have phoned me three times today to tell me that: 1) my internet is going to be cut off in the next 24 hours, 2) my computer has been infected by a virus, and 3) my Virgin media download speed is fluctuating. For the first two I was told to press '1' to be put through to an executive to correct the matter. The first was an oriental woman with a very strong, maybe Chinese, accent who introduced herself as "Jane", the second was an automated recording in pigeon English, and the third sounded to be Indian, again with a very strong accent who introduced himself as "James". By this point I interrupted him and said "James or whatever your real name is, do me a favour, go and get yourself a proper job and stop wasting my time, I know you're not calling from Virgin media!". It would have been stronger if my daughter wasn't in the next room to me. It gets on my thrupennies how these people continually try to exploit the more vulnerable people in society, completely without recourse since their caller ID numbers are randomly generated so can't be reported. Sam Had this all day yesterday, and a couple today.
They seem to come in waves - we've had a month or two without anything, and then suddenly one week we are inundated with the.
So far, we've had:
1) Internet going to be cut off 2) Computer infected by Virus 3) Our Electricity Bill is in arrears - and so they will cut off our Smart Meter (even though - we don't have a smart meter). 4) My bank account had aparenly been hacked and they just needed "some details". But they couldn't tell me who I was. But somehow have my landline number.
5) And even one claiming to be from HMRC telling us we had a huge rebate waiting for us.
I went through a phase of making them wait - and then placing the reciever by the computer speaker and playing a 10kHz tone at reasonably loud volume down the phone (the tone off the Test Card).
These days, I just hang up.
There seems to be no point using 1471, as the number i(as you say Sam) is randomly generated anyway. I notice they seem to use numbers prefixed by a proper area code.
I thought all this crap was supposed to be outlawed years ago?
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Post by Charles Bronson on Oct 27, 2020 20:42:54 GMT
There seems to be an army of the scammers out there now. They must be conning a hell of a lot of elderly people every day.
I know someone who keeps a referee's whistle and blows it loudly down the phone if she she gets a call off the scumbags.
I had a call of one last week, but fortunately we dont get too many of them these days.
Charles..
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Post by Sam Tyler on Oct 27, 2020 21:21:11 GMT
Since posting earlier I had another call, again with what appeared to be a UK number and prefixed area code, but this time after picking the phone up I waited about 5 or 6 seconds before speaking. This seemed to confuse their automated system and they rang off. If it had been a person at the end they'd have responded. So that's it from now on, pick the phone up but wait about 5 seconds before speaking. At the same time I feel sorry for these people employed to phone numbers... I know what you mean Arthur, for the genuine employees in bona fide call centres I am sympathetic but there are so many of them that are calling and lying about their names, their company, and all trying to dupe the person on the other end of the line - what conscience do they have? Sam.
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Post by Sam Tyler on Oct 28, 2020 16:15:00 GMT
Since posting earlier I had another call, again with what appeared to be a UK number and prefixed area code, but this time after picking the phone up I waited about 5 or 6 seconds before speaking. This seemed to confuse their automated system and they rang off. If it had been a person at the end they'd have responded. So that's it from now on, pick the phone up but wait about 5 seconds before speaking. Four calls again already today and the 5 second wait before speaking seems to do the trick as they ring off without starting their automated messages. How long will they keep at it though I wonder? The pain in the jacksie with it is that I'm job hunting and waiting for recruitment agencies to get back to me. Sorry, no, it is "Talent Acquisition" now isn't it, not "Recruitment" Sam.
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