Why Dont You Blog?

Now I have mentioned Bury Marketing Sales (BMS) here a few times and it seems there is a bit of a spooky co-incidence when I do. After my last blog post about the pond-scum organisation who were phoning me two or three times a day (from 01706713200), I had a comment on an older post on the same topic.

In this comment, Paul wrote how that, after complaining to BMS customer services he never had any further calls. I wrote that, oddly, I hadn’t had any calls from BMS since my last rant about them (even though calling customer services hadn’t helped me in the slightest). It seems I was being a bit premature.

Since my reply, late last night, BMS have tried to call me six times today. Seriously. The first two I missed because I was no where near my phone, one left a silent voice mail. The next call came while I was driving, I answered (handsfree, of course) and explained I was driving. The sales monster pretty much ignored it and started asking me questions about my handset choices, how long I had left on the contract etc. I continued to explain I wasn’t interested and had requested customer services take me off their war-dialling list. The salesman basically ignored this and carried on trying to convince me to take a new contract so I hung up on them. The last two calls came while I was fairly free so I entertained myself at their expense. Each time they called, I answered but didn’t speak. After about 5 seconds they would say “hello,” at which point I would start banging and crashing bits of metal together. Both times the call was terminated by BMS after 22 seconds (exactly, is that a part of their instructions?) Childish, yes, but it made me laugh.

Anyway, this got me thinking. Are they reading this blog? Have they worked out which number they call is mine (if they hadn’t, they probably have now unless everyone gives them the metal treatment…)? Was my previous comment seen as a challenge? Did they give up on me after my post, only to resume when I goaded them? Are they reading this? How will they react?

Come on BMS, let me know if you are here?

Popularity: 41% [?]

Popularity: 41% [?]

Another mixed entry for the bad shops routine here. In the past I have gone on about how annoying my Nokia N73 has become, and after some advice I resolved a few of the errors and had a working(ish) phone camera. This happy state of affairs was quite short lived though and once again my phone randomly reboots itself, looses its settings, crashes (which needs the battery to be removed to cure it) and so on. All in all, it is a good phone, but it had a life expectancy of about 6 months. I am not sure if I would buy it again, Nokia phones have the advantage of a known user interface and easy to find attachments (which is why changing the plug was madness!), so I may well buy a new Nokia one day - however, I will certainly look harder at the opposition.

Anyway, in the past I have been reasonably kind towards 3 (the telephone provider, not the number in general…). I have found that they provide a reasonable service although the lack of pre-installed applications is annoying, and the new charging plans for music downloads is madness. Why anyone would pay £1.29 for a music track they could only play on their phone is beyond me - especially as every single track you download (I only use the £5 per month free allowance) has cracks in from the odd compression software. Madness.

However, over the last two and a half months my opinion has changed.

Since around the start of July, my mobile (cell) phone has been getting called a least once a day from 01706713200. Every single time I have answered, no one has spoken. Not a word. Not even the hint of a word. On the times my phone has been off and it has gone straight to voice mail, this number has left me messages. Again, no one speaks but the message is often a few minutes long. Seriously, this has happened every single day.

At first, I was happy to ignore this and I assumed it was just some weird thing going on. However about a week ago, one of the voice mails had people talking in the background and it sounded like a call centre. Toutatis only knows why the operator who called me couldn’t be bothered to talk, but kept the line open for seven and a half minutes.

After this call, I became curious and decided to google the number. Wow. Not exactly lots of results, but reassuring none the less.

It seems this number belongs to a crap-happy call centre owned / run by a company called BMS (Bury Marketing Sales) with the following details (thanks to Moneysupermarket.com for the data):

Mr N Bhatti
BMS Ltd
Unit 5
Canal St
Rochdale
Lancs
OL11 1AB

If anyone knows this scumbag, please feel free to pass on my regards.

Even more annoying, when you do some more google-searches on this scumbag company you find out I am actually fortunate that they cant bring themselves to speak to me: (same moneysupermarket.com source)

BMS are constantly calling me twice a day. tonight i answered the guy on the phone said ” Hello luv we are calling you on behalf of 3 have you had an upgrade?” I replied no i don’t want an upgrade and asked why they have been calling me for the last two weeks twice a day. He replied ” well i’ll keep phoning you luv until you do alright bye” he then put the phone down before i could reply. I was fuming! First i hate anyone calling me luv on the phone like they know me,who do the think they are? The number was 01706 713200 i tried to call back and they were closed the number is from Rossendale near Rochdale . I then called 3 and complained they told me to register with TPS (telephone preference service)is the central opt out register on which you can record your preference not to receive unsolicited sales but it takes 28days.

Shocking really.

What makes it worse is 3’s reaction. There is no effort or will on behalf of 3 to rectify the problem and, worryingly, 3 appear to be willing to sell on customers details despite (in my case for example) the customer expressly wishing for this not to happen. I was more than slightly careful when I took out my contract and ensured that every box regarding use of my details was properly ticked - like most companies now, 3 have a sneaky way of re-working the tick/no-tick boxes to stop you just ticking them all and assuming that will work.

It seems that 3 are, at best, only paying lip service to their privacy policies and the reality is, I will continue to get these silent calls until I change my number.

I am sure it goes without saying that, when this contract expires, not only will I be looking for a new make of phone but it is more than likely that I will go for a new communications provider.

Popularity: 40% [?]

Popularity: 40% [?]