The FINANCIAL — Vulnerable people should be given free call blocking equipment to stop nuisance calls that could be potential financial scams, says a researcher from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Claire Milne, an independent telecommunications consultant and Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE, says vulnerable elderly people in particular need to be protected from the increasing number of nuisance and scam calls in the UK, which can result in the loss of life savings.
Every year, more than three million people in the UK fall victim to scams, losing hundreds and even thousands of pounds.
Legislation to deal with illegal nuisance calls is proving inadequate, with the onus falling back on individuals and telephone companies to take action.
Ms Milne says companies are undeterred by the prospect of fines, taking advantage of low call costs and cheap overseas labour to increase sales of products and services.
“Customers will continue to suffer – particularly vulnerable people – unless the Government takes urgent action,” she said.
A lack of co-ordinated action involving both regulatory bodies and telephone companies is making it too easy for telemarketers to call people in their own homes. Some of these are from legitimate companies but many are targeted scams, according to LSE.
Despite the fact that two-thirds of UK residential lines are now ex-directory, often to avoid marketing calls, and landlines are increasingly being replaced by mobiles, complaints regarding nuisance calls have risen.
“Part of the problem is the difficulty in classifying nuisance calls because many of the calls that annoy people are actually legal. For most of us they are simply a nuisance and we can deal with them fairly efficiently, but for others the calls can be very stressful and in the case of scams, the repercussions can be extremely serious,” Ms Milne said.
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