VODACOM "Private Number" HARASSMENT

I would like to find out how many other people are also experiencing this:

About 3 to 5 times a day I get a “no number” phone call and the moment I say “hello”, the call ends. If I don’t say anything, the call ends after about 6 seconds.

I know of at least two other people on VODACOM contract that are experiencing the same thing.

VODACOM Customer Care told me to report it to the police. :erm:

Any thoughts…?

Thanks

Somebody's looking for a piece of the kuiken......

It used to happen to me a lot, but I'm with MTN...

That is the main reason why I refuse to answer any "Private" calls. I have done so for a few years now. If the call is important, I expect the person to leave a message.

I know some a-holes (and exes) also switch off their CLI to intimidate, making sure you don't ignore their calls. Well, it doesn't work that way with me.

The way in which it happens is so consistent, that it makes me wonder if its not some sort of automatically generated calling system.

Option 2 would be a tele-marketing company. They profile you by the sound of your voice, and if you fall outside there “target market” they hang up.

Option 3 would be a network system error of sorts.

This happens to me quite a bit. I get 5-6 Private Number calls a day. When I answer, they immediately hang up. I'm with Vodacom too.

The last I heard it's like this:
1) Police will not open a case number unless you can show your life/well-being is being actively threatened
2) if you succeed in nr.1 above, then you have to pay a lawyer to represent you in court (court fees apply too)
3) If you are lucky enough to find a bright attack dog with lock-jaw (nr.2 above), then court-order must be paid for and stamp duties etc
4) At this stage It was fuzzy on sheriff of the court's involvement for which you may also have to pay
5) hopefully nr.4 above is null and nr.5 is the actual next step: you take court order to your local fleecing agent: the cellular giant
6) At this point you beg and pray for the two brain cells shared between the 30 or so consultants and advisor's to come together supply the relevant documentation in the relevant department to be processed by the relevant legal representative at said fleecing agent.
7) At this point you're pretty much screwed: their bull-dog is going to want to fight with your bull dog for which you pay premium hourly rates. (hope you got a trust fund handy, you'll need it.)
8.1) If your bull dog is lucky enough to emerge on top (however low that might be, don't discount possible further trips to the courts and additional fees) then
8.2) their upper echelons of almighty wisdom have to be persuaded by their bull-dog that they can't actually bribe their way out of this one like the countless times previous.
9) The walking gods of solid gold, sweating thousand dollar bills for having to lift a pen, then sign the doc and instruct the IT guys in the fridge to press a few buttons to:
10) deliver to you your constitutional right to privacy.

How?
by exposing the callers number on your handset which is what they should be doing in the first place, instead they are fleecing the users and the system. The cell giants protect the criminals and make money out of the average-joe, law-abiding citizens by ignoring your rights: by exposing the number by default you can then see if said intrusive call is desired or not. By hiding the number your privacy has to be invaded first, only then can you know if the call is wanted or not.

This subject continually pops up on myBB, and NONE of the cell companies respond to you when you confront them on the issue of your rights. (because they are profiteering from an upside down system, so too is the system itself.)

I have been getting the same thing. Surely the operator can still tell who called, even if the calling party is hiding their number? I'm sure if a case is opened at the SAPS then they can force the carrier to reveal the number.

Nuro said:

I have been getting the same thing. Surely the operator can still tell who called, even if the calling party is hiding their number? I'm sure if a case is opened at the SAPS then they can force the carrier to reveal the number.

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Of course they know who's calling. How else are they going to know who to charge the interconnect to? No need for SAPS involvement really: just a simple thing like a Parliamentary ruling to re-enforce the constitution. 5-mins work - tops.

Simple solution - get a call blocker and block all private numbers

@%@$ You Vodacom, I get it too, con#@$#@stantly.

I'm sure the line being dumped is their call system checking if your number is valid, the moment you answer they line you up to sell their #@%$@# Vodacom crap.
And it will keep calling you, if you don't answer it cuts out after a few seconds, but will ring again tomorrow, or the friggin day after. So you are screwed whether you answer or not, I answer and don't even bother to bring a Private number to my ear. I let it sit there so whoever doesn't want to show me their number can do whatever they want to, on their coin.........eventually it hangs up.

perhaps it's a call centre randomly and automatically calling numbers. If the call rings and then answers the system knows the number is in use and adds it to the database. I know some shady companies do this in the US.

I'm with vodacom, but ported from MTN, so it's not a Vodacom number (082...) and I don't get this at all

I get this regularly too. I think it's telemarketers using some lame VOIP system which lags. The reason I say this is because it's happened a couple of times where eventually the person gets through only to find it's a telemarketer. Most annoying!

chrissy said:

Somebody's looking for a piece of the kuiken......

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LOL

Glad to see I'm not the only one with this problem.

If only we can get somebody from inside the VODACOM circle to shed some light on the issue...

Like a previous post said: they are billing SOMEBODY for these calls ...

A work friend of mine is having the same problem, he is thinking of trying this http://intertel.co.za/unmasking.html . He did the trial thing and called a number with private number and they got his number, name and ID from it. If he decides to spend the R250 ill let you know if it works well or not.

cool lead jaffar . if that works, i'll use it. please let us know if your friend has any success.

You can hardly blame Vodacom or MTN for this.

Slootvreter said:

You can hardly blame Vodacom or MTN for this.

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Are they not the once hiding the number?

BBSA said:

Are they not the once hiding the number?

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I don't believe so. I get private calls daily, all work-related. Most calls from behind a switchboard come through as Private Numbers. Direct lines don't. Some switchboards actually show a number, but it is generated by the switchboard, and cannot be contacted.

I'm expecting my service provider to resolve this issue. We're not talking about a lonesome crank-caller here - we're talking about 100's of people receiving 1000's of calls per day.

My bet is still on some computer driven call system...