Making a nuisance

I’ve been having problems with nuisance calls on my business line. They call, it rings, I pick up… *click*…. they hang up.

Ho hum. 1471. Telephone number: 0800 389 6818.

A quick Google search reveals that gazillions of people are having the same problem. This is a marketing company and they use a computer to dial zillions of numbers, including mine. It hangs up. You 1471erise the number and call back. They try to sell you something (mobile telephony, broadband, double glazing, whatever) – earning money as they go from their 0800 number (yes, they earn money from that).

But, the good news is that you can stop it. Well, in theory you can. There is a free service called SilentCallGard. You dial a number (0870 444 3969 – or go online), punch in your number and it subscribes you for two years (although the website says 12 months). It blocks all automated calls from these evil phone spammers, although be warned that it only blocks calls from companies that are signed up to its register and membership of the register is not obligatory.

So, we shall see if it works.

6 Replies to “Making a nuisance”

  1. Slight correction – 0800 numbers actually *cost* the company concerned, not you. And only the TPS is OFCOM recommended/regulated. I suspect the scheme you mention is run by a company that sells 0800- and other non-geographic numbers.

  2. OK, I’ve sussed it now – the TPS won the original contract for the opt-out of telemarketing scheme in 1999 (SCG even have trhis on teir webiste http://www.ukdatait.co.uk/regs.htm), and was the only service available until 2003, when the marketplace for this service was opened up (seemingly by another EU directive). SilentCallGard and other commercial providers then stepped onto the battlefield.

    TPS remains, IMHO, the original and best, and will cover more companies just because of that status.

  3. I had a call from this number. I found the number via 1741, but all the chat was in the call to me; I did not ring back the 0800 number. The caller, fast-talking, claimed to be investigating fraud of some sort and quoted (correctly) the last four numbers of my MasterCard. He was asking for personal information such as postcode and address. I refused to enter into any discussion, despite his attempts to burble on, since I knew my MasterCard company would not ring up in this way.
    I subsequently informed my MasterCard company of the call and as a result am being issued with a new card with new number and PIN.
    Looks very dodgy to me, maybe a bit more than a straightforward selling pitch?

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