I am a retired Christian minister who is receiving abusive text messages from a man I got to know in church circles. The latest woke me at 5.41am.
I do not have a smartphone but a little Nokia and my provider, O2, tells me there is nothing I can do to block his number. I phoned the police, who told me it was not a police matter.
Please help those of us who are public figures and so are vulnerable to such “stalking”. AR Southport, Merseyside
O2 confirms that it does not offer a service to block specific numbers.
Why? Because, according to a spokesperson: “We’ve found that through our nuisance call team, we’re able to support customers who are unable to block numbers through their smartphone and resolve the problem when they experience abusive calls. We would offer a customer the option to change their number if they prefer.”
The sort of nuisance calls O2’s team deals with tend to be from marketing companies that withold their numbers rather than malicious calls from a known individual, and this may be why it failed to tell you about the service.
Understandably you do not want to suffer the hassle of changing your number or the expense of upgrading to a smartphone that has this facility.
O2 is one of 10 signatories to a memo of understanding drawn up by the regulator, Ofcom, to find technical solutions to the problem of unlawful nuisance calls, but again the focus of this is unwanted marketing messages.
Some network providers have already introduced call blocking under the agreement and O2 would be wise to do the same for all its customers.
Happily, your local police have since decided they will investigate if the abuse continues
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
