Tough to stop scam callers

QI HAVE a broadband deal with TalkTalk. I’ve had it for years and although friends tell me I should shop around, it works well, and the pricing is reasonable, so I have stuck with it, paying monthly by direct debit.

But now I get recorded messages on my landline saying my TalkTalk broadband will be disconnected that day unless I press 1 to contact TalkTalk and 2 to deal with the matter.

I sometimes receive up to five such messages a day. As I am fully paid-up, and the service does not stop, this is an obvious scam.

It’s annoying, however. How do I stop this, and what about last year’s data protection law? Ayesha K

AYOU should report this to Action Fraud, which passes on cases to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB).

This is run by the City of London police service. But as you did not lose money, only suffering annoyance, your problem will just add to the huge number on their database.

The calls are obvious nonsense, but as long as a few fall for this, the fraudsters make their money.

This scam is difficult to combat. Dialling 1471 either produces “number withheld” or a meaningless number. Even if you get a real number, scammers use multiple phones, constantly changing numbers.

Signing up with the Telephone Preference Service will help block calls from legitimate UK organisations but criminals behind the TalkTalk racket (BT, Sky, Virgin and other companies are also hit) work from abroad and ignore this.

As a TalkTalk customer, try signing up for CallSafe – it’s free. You dial 1472 and then press 1. This divides calls into three categories.

Those on your approved list – friends, family and any number you have dialled over the past 35 days – get through as normal.

Unknown callers are blocked. They are asked to say who they are and why they are ringing.

A third category – numbers which have been blocked or are on the CallSafe list of unwelcome callers – never get through. Other companies have similar schemes.

New data protection laws last May – GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) – in theory give more protection. Lawful firms obey these rules. Unsurprisingly, scam ones don’t.