The end of the line for cold-calling menaces

THE accent of the voice on the phone seemed Indian and the news was deeply troubling: ‘Your computer is full of virus!’ My father listened carefully. The man said he was from Microsoft and promised that, in a few simple steps, he could sweep the infestation from the hard drive.

It was a scam and my father knew it – he doesn’t own a computer.

He has, as a merchant navy engineer, been to India and suspected the caller was schooled the old-fashioned way. India’s democracy, civil service and education system are all the fruits of the British Empire.

‘You are a very naughty boy,’ he chided in best Raj headmaster tones.

‘I am not naughty! I am a good boy!’ came the plaintive response down the crackly line from the sub-continent.

All a bit of a laugh, yet thousands are taken in and have a fortune plundered from their accounts. It means our telephones are the enemy within our own homes when they ought to be a boon.

These days I don’t bother answering my landline and I bet most of you reading this are the same. If it’s not a PPI claim farmer, it’s: ‘We have a salesman in your area and wondered if 7.30 would suit for him to drop by?’

I’ve had people ‘carrying out a survey’ when really they were touting first aid kits – and if I hear one more time that I qualify for a free boiler from the Government, I’ll scream.

I’ve had my own bank on trying to flog me a loan and firms want to fill my walls with insulating foam and the loft with ‘loose-fill’ – whatever that is.

My double glazing is old hat, I’m told, and I need Scandi triple glazing to get with the times…

And I do wonder where they get the numbers from. I’m ex-directory and registered with the Telephone Preference Service, which is supposed to cut the number of cold-callers. And yet there they are on the line morning, noon and night.

The accident-that-wasn’t-your-fault scam is ubiquitous. There can’t be a person in the land that hasn’t had a call, as though the roads are jammed with blameless motorists who somehow still ended up in a smash.

As it happens, my car was struck while parked and the swine who hit me drove off. I had to claim on my insurance and suddenly I was inundated with firms offering to represent me.

So did the insurance company or their body shop sell on my number? Both denied that, but the suspicion lingers.

Cold calling has become the bane of modern life and we Scots suffer most – more of the nuisance calls are made here than anywhere else in the UK and many are from domestic firms.

Just one un-named firm based in Clydebank was allegedly responsible for a terrifying 200million calls.

FINALLY Holyrood has taken five minutes out from its usual asinine constitutional waffle to tackle a real-world issue. Its Nuisance Calls Commission has suggested a raft of measures to crack down.

Among them is a one-stop service that would allow you to report rogue callers and would seek to prosecute offenders.

I recall my grandfather answering the phone in solemn Post Office-approved manner – exchange name, phone number and then his name.

Phones rarely rang in those days and when they did, it mattered.

Holyrood might not be able to do a great deal about my father’s ‘naughty boy’ scammer calling from abroad, but not being able to do everything is never an excuse to do nothing.

If it’s the end of the line for the coldcall cowboys at least, that’s good news.