Last night I received a call from a very insistent saleswoman who asked whether we were getting lots of nuisance calls from abroad. We have – so I listened to her pitch. She said that there had been lots of sales-calls complaints registered to our postcode and went on to say that for £89 she could send us a box that would plug into the back of our phone, to prevent these calls. We would also have to pay a monthly fee of £1.90 for three years. She was very persuasive, but something about it didn’t quite ring true.
Is this a scam? SB, Royston, Herts
If you take a look at the free-to-use Telephone Preference Service website you will see a warning about exactly this issue – chancer firms trying to persuade people to buy “boxes” or offering an enhanced TPS service that will block foreign calls – all for a fee.
“If you do receive a call from someone claiming to be from the TPS or a similar-sounding organisation, asking for personal information or charging you for this service, our advice is not to pay or give any personal details, as it is most likely a scam,” it says.
It goes on to list firms that have been reported to it – and it’s a long list.
The TPS is offered entirely free, and lets you opt out of marketing calls. It won’t stop unscrupulous sales calls from abroad, but then neither would the box that you’d have received if you’d sent your £89.
Lots of readers tell us they like a product call trueCall, which costs around £100, but does block calls from all unregistered numbers.
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