A couple of years ago, when I still had the misfortune to work for Ryanair, I was called about an hour before an 0500 standby twice within a week.
On the first occasion I just assumed that the call had been at the correct time and had already showered and dressed before I realised that the company was yet again taking the p*ss. When I phoned crewing back to ask why she had called me and had disturbed my rest, she pretended that she had made a mistake. I was not happy but, as I was now awake and not in breach of FTLs, went in anyway.
On the second occasion a few days later, again about an hour before the start of my standby, I advised crewing that they had disturbed my rest, I would be turning my phone off and would call them back later. When I woke up at about 8, my wife told me that crewing had phoned back on the landline asking for me and asking who I thought I was to be telling the company when I would be available. She asked crewing who the hell they thought they were for calling my household at 4 in the morning when I was not on duty.
When I checked in with crewing, her initial gambit was to try and get aggressive. When I challenged her about disturbed rest and FTL's etc, she immediately became defensive and admitted that they would 'chance their arm' with calls before official standby because most pilots would come in early.
I was not called again before any standbys.
The trouble with ignoring such practices, as MH152 is happy to do, is that it only serves to further validate the abuse of terms and conditions. Being called at 0400 is not the company doing you favour by giving you a heads-up. It is the company trying to see if you are compliant enough to ignore legislation and help them out of a problem created by their inability to adequately cover the schedule. Slippery slope.
Remind me to tell you the one about refusing to go into discretion....