I’m posting here because I wonder whether others have had the same call.
Normally I don’t pick up 097 incoming calls, but we’ve decided our new tactic is to answer and then just put the phone down and walk away while they go through their spiel - tough on the person in the call centre, but it’s the only way we feel we can have any impact at all on the companies doing it.
Anyway, I picked up the call to hear someone talking about an irregularity on our health insurance - so that made me pay attention.
She told me that the Minister of Health is introducing a new law whereby hospitalisation for accidents is to be treated differently from hospitalisation for medical reasons and that in the former case (accidents) our top-up insurance will not fully cover the charges and that therefore we need effectively a top up on our top up to guarantee full cover. The additional amount each month will be a total of 28€ for the two of us, as we are retired.
Is all of this correct? Needless to say, I said I would be contacting our insurance broker about this @fabien. But, as I said above thought I would post on the forum, in case this affects others.
Was it your existing insurance provider that called you Sue?
I don’t know - she was talking too fast.
Sounds awfully like a scam to me… Fabian will know though!
(I had two 097 calls today but I didn’t answer either of them - never do - one of them could have been the same I suppose…)
scam written all over it.
Unless it was your existing company then they have no way of knowing what cover you have. I’d say it is a “legitimate” hard sell of something you don’t need.
ISTR posting something about this last year. IIRC it concerned whether or not you are admitted to hospital after an emergency and the charges that followed.
The link to the topic is below:
Hi Sue, automatically a scam. If it was “us” (insurers) we would be legally obliged to introduce ourselves when “cold calling” and if there is no introduction that means you’ve made a request to be called back.
And usually, anything that involves a call and some type of “threat” can be quickly tagged as a scam in my opinion 
I never, ever, answer the landline at all, don’t even look at the screen anymore, just check the missed calls next time I am passing it. And I am right to do so, the last time there was a call from someone I knew, or wanted to talk to, was about 6 months ago I think, and that was only because a friend could not get through on my mobile for some reason. She resorted to 3 rapid short calls which made me suspect something out of the ordinary and I went to look at the screen.
097 is a call from a VoIP (Internet phone) and almost certainly an autodialler waiting for someone to pick and then play an automated message at you.
I’m afraid I don’t completely agree with you there @NotALot . My partner’s (Orange) phone, which is VOIP as so many of them are, starts 097. Good job he’s not likely to ring you… 
Not automated - very often a person on the other end - I feel sorry for them, but not the organisations they work for.
Sadly, that’s a real problem these days because we (normally) only answer when the phone is clearly a landline or a 06 or 07 number (even then quite often is a nuisance call).
We were very fortunate when we shifted from a separate landline to our phone via the livebox. Orange said we could keep our old landline number. 
So no need for friends to learn a new number and they even pick up occasionally when we ring them!
He’d enjoy my bilingual answerphone message if he did.
I’ve got one of those too!
I never answer a call unless my contacts directory flashes up who is calling me. If they really want to talk to me they can leave a message which I will return if I can be bothered.
I take the same approach @scoutdubna I have never yet had anyone apart from friends leave a message…
The only reason we have a fixed line is bizarre. First got the line in 2006. There followed 12 years of poor internet speed. Admittedly, until maybe 2012 or so that wasn’t unusual. But in 2017 fibre was bought as far as the village so we thought we would be ok. But it was over 18 months before Orange or whoever actally connected people to the fibre connection point. During those 18 months I got fed up and stopped the line and went 4g with Bouygue. Great - €5 a month for 20Gb @ 15+Mb/sec instead of €35 a month for 2Mb/sec. But around 8 months later the Bouygue 4g signal vanished. No choice but to go back to Orange. Even more strange Bouygue signal is now ok again. Particularly galling was the €50 charge that orange make to ‘disconnect’ you, even customers of 10 years’ standing.