Tenth Circle

I am an atheist which means, of course, that in addition to not believing in Heaven, I don't believe in Hell. There are times however when I wish that I did believe. In Hell that is. It would be very nice, for example, to believe that Dante got it wrong and that there is a tenth circle, lower even than that reserved for traitors, into which telephone cold callers are sent to burn for eternity.

We receive anything up to half a dozen cold calls a day. I have caller ID and they usually show up as "INTERNATIONAL" or with a "00" international prefix. Lately however they have started showing up with spoofed numbers that look like UK numbers but aren't. 

Now I can recognize them for what they are most of the time and just not answer but my Dad is older, a bit slower to read the number and of a generation where you were always polite to people no matter what, so he answers them. They are usually auto-dialer hang-ups but I am concerned that one of these days he will sell the family silver* to one of these pests.

I have therefore been trying to find out what I can do about it and the answer, after a lot of frustrating calls to my phone company appears to be - "not a damned thing".

They first started by suggesting the Telephone Preference Service. I then pointed out that a) I am already registered and b) the TPS has no power and no sanction outside the UK, which is where 99% of these calls originate.

They then suggested changing my number. I pointed out that a) this would be extremely inconvenient and b) it would have no effect because these calls usually come from random or sequential auto-dialers which will find me anyway.

They then suggested caller ID. I repeated that I have caller ID already and that this is how I know who these calls are from.

I also pointed out that there are tens of thousands of complaints on the internet about these numbers. They agreed that they were aware of them but that they could only give the advice that they had given.

They suggested barring ananymous calls. I pointed out AGAIN that they calls are not anonymous. The ID displays so this would have no effect.

They suggested the TPS.

I told them that they were no help at all and hung up.

So, while I am an atheist, I can only hope that I am wrong and that the people who ring me from these numbers half a dozen times a day will burn in Hell for eternity. If I ever meet them I'll have to hope that I'm right though because I shall certainly be committing a sin that will get me condemned when I insert the telephone sideways into one of their orifices.

*We don't actually have any family silver, but the principle still holds.