Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, DrPsych  +, writes (13 August 2010):
 I get those sort of blocked numbers all the time...always ends up to be double glazing salesmen, insurance vultures or 'congratulations you have won a holiday' scammers. Basically if the phone rings and you have an answermachine then anyone important would just leave a message. A lot of call centres ring hundreds of numbers at the same time hoping to get lucky with a few people picking up. You may pick up and find no-one there as the calls are automated.
If it is really itching you to find out, pick up the call and don't say anything...you will hear all the noise of these call centre rooms. If it really bothers you then call your phone provider as there are lots of things they can do to block numbers and trace nuisance calls. Incidentally, if you want to stop annoying unwelcome marketing calls to your phone then register with this organisation (www.tpsonline.org.uk).
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (13 August 2010): First off, your provider will not provide the information to you on a private number, it's a violation of the caller's privacy. IF it's harrassing, log the times/frequency of the calls and report it to phone company. They will give you instructions on how to induce a trace request on your line. They then will instruct you to file a police report at which then the police and the phone company will take care of it, protecting the caller's privacy whilst ending the calls.
That is of course if you believe these calls are harrasment.
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female
reader, blue_eyes1981 +, writes (13 August 2010):
 Answer the phone. I can't understand why you would come to a website like this with this question.
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male
reader, LazyGuy  +, writes (13 August 2010):
 You can on most phones/accounts disable those type of calls.
If it is a harrasment thing, you can file a complaint with the police and they can request the records to find out who the caller is.
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female
reader, Elydiese +, writes (13 August 2010):
It could be a cold caller but what you can do is call your phone provider and tell them there is a withheld number calling you and tell the the times and they can tell you who that number belongs to and they can block it for you
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female
reader, Honeypie  +, writes (13 August 2010):
 Just answer the phone and PRESTO you might find out!
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male
reader, Kenj +, writes (13 August 2010):
 Theres no way you can find out apart from answer it.
Records are kept of withheld callers but they are not made available to protect privacy.
Get a friend to answer your phone next time if possible or set up voice mail and put the calls to that.
Some samsung mobile handsets allow you to reject withheld calls.
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reader, anonymous, writes (13 August 2010): when you get calls from abroad you get "unknown number" as the caller id.. thats all i can say..
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male
reader, Cloverfield +, writes (13 August 2010):
 Have you tried googling the number. Often these are automated numbers, or it could be people trying to contact the last person who had that number. Happened to me with my new phone. Dont call or text back though incase its some kind of scam.
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female
reader, Morrissey-fan +, writes (13 August 2010):
How on earth do you suppose anyone on here would be able to help tell you who it is?!?! How would we posibly know!!!
The only way you can find out is by picking up the phone and saying hi.
Seriously did you expect someone to tell you who was ringing you???!!!
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