It’s time to hang up on these cold call pests
THE voice on the end of the phone was sympathetic. ‘I understand you’ve recently been in a car accident that’s not your fault,’ it said soothingly. ‘We’d like to help you make a claim.’
I have not recently been in a car accident that was not my fault. I have never been in a car accident. I have, however, been on the receiving end of enough cold calls to clock them a mile off, and swiftly informed the voice just what it could do with its claim before blocking the number on my smartphone so they could never contact me again.
Aged 92, Olive Cooke, pictured, never had that chance. Instead, Britain’s longest-serving poppy seller was often taken in by the callers who rang her at all hours of the day, particularly the charities who phoned with sob stories.
She was so moved that by last year she had set up monthly direct debits to 27 charitable organisations.
She had other calls too, from salesmen flogging double glazing, computers and solar panels. Then there were the letters. A whopping 260 per month would come clattering through her letterbox from a wide variety of charities, most of them asking for money.
Finally, Mrs Cooke had enough. Last week, she was found near the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol in an apparent suicide after saying she had lost ‘her faith in people’.
It is difficult to think of a more distressing example of the damage cold calls can do to the elderly than Mrs Cooke. She was a model citizen who lost her husband in the war, donated to charity and every November would brave the cold and the wet to stand outside Bristol Cathedral for six hours a day selling poppies.
That she was driven to her death in such a cold and calculating manner is deeply shameful.
Alarmingly, everyone I spoke to about her this week had a story about cold callers and the elderly. The parent persuaded into purchasing needless electrical equipment insurance, the old man who picked up the phone every time it rang because his wife was in hospital, even though he was receiving upwards of ten cold calls a day, the beloved grandmother scammed into upgrading a TV package she did not want.
Many companies target the old deliberately. They know they are more likely to live on their own, and are more easily conned and confused.
Last month, the law was changed to make it easier to prosecute cold- call firms, yet it is unlikely to make much of a dent when it comes to the charities and companies pestering the elderly and then selling on their numbers in the hopes of making a fast buck.
More than 175,000 complaints were made to the Information Commissioner’s Office last year about nuisance calls and text messages.
This is a problem that is rapidly on the rise and more must be done to address it. Companies should not be allowed to share details, and there should be a limit on how many times a month a company can telephone a particular number.
Because who knows how many other Olive Cookes are out there right now – being driven to their death by the cold callers?
Emma Cowing