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How to avoid nuisance calls

Nuisance calls can include unwanted sales and marketing calls, abusive or threatening calls or silent calls.

Malicious or nuisance calls, whether from people you know or from strangers, are a criminal offence.If you receive such a call you should:

  • Tell your phone company as soon as you receive a malicious or nuisance call. It doesn't matter whether you know the caller's identity or not.
  • Phone the operator (100 from a BT line) and ask for the number of your phone company's nuisance or malicious calls team. Then tell the team that you have received a malicious or nuisance call. Tell the team what the caller said.
  • In some cases, particularly if the caller is threatening, your phone company will advise you to call the police.
  • If the caller is making direct threats to you or your family and you believe those threats to be real and immediate, you must call 999 straightaway.
  • Silent calls are caused by automated calling systems known as diallers. These are often used in call centres to generate and attempt to connect calls. If there are not enough call centre agents available to handle all of the calls made, you may receive a silent call.
  • Try to identify the caller. All companies using automated diallers should present a Calling Line Identification number on your telephone's display and allow you to obtain the caller's telephone number by dialling 1471.

If you are unable to identify the caller you should contact your phone company. Most phone companies have a nuisance calls team, who can give you advice on what to do next. They may also be able to trace the caller's number.

If you don't want to get any calls from sales and marketing firms you can add your details to a list, run by the Telephone Preference Service, which makes it illegal for a company to call you for marketing purposes in the future.

The Telephone Preference Service can be contacted at: www.tpsonline.org.uk. Tel: 0845 0700707

It takes about 28 days after you've registered before the service takes effect. If you are still getting calls after 28 days, then you can complain to the Telephone Preference Service, using the contact details above.