Countering cold calls

SIR – The Government’s plan to make cold-calling illegal will be futile unless it also makes it illegal for British companies to employ foreign call centres.

Call centres based in India and the Philippines can ignore British laws and will continue to pass information on to the companies that have commissioned the nuisance calls.

Additionally, criminals based in India in particular are responsible for a huge number of computer-based telephone scams involving Microsoft computers.

The Indian authorities must be aware of their activities, but choose not to close them down.

Surely the remedy is for all calls from call centres involved in crime to be blocked by our own telecommunications agencies.

If the criminals persist, I am sure the equivalent of pulling the plug on them could be achieved by disconnecting the countries involved from the international telephone network. Rob Mannion

Bournemouth, Dorset