Telephone spam

There’s been a serious increase in what I call “telephone spam”, at least in our neck of the woods. Telesales have been on the rise over the last few years, with increasing numbers of Companies turning to this intrusive form of cold calling. Anything from telephone services to double glazing and much, much more is being promoted by means of telesales. Call centres set up in low wage countries like India have made this form of product promotion lower in cost and affordable to even more businesses.

But I wasn’t even referring to cold calling. What I call telephone spam is literally just that: less than scrupulous operators using auto-dialling and pre-recorded messages to invite you to call a premium rate 0900 number to “claim your prize” or “claim your holiday”. It’s rapidly becoming the offline equivalent of email spam. And it has another thing in common with spam: it’s mainly used by scam artists.

Is there anything you can do to avoid receiving these intrusive calls? I’m not sure. I’m not even sure whether the practice is actually illegal. There may not be any legislation pertaining to it at all.

Keywords: telephone spam, telephone scam, cold calling