Teahot

I’m one of those people who is ultra careful about opting out of marketing whenever I sign-up for anything. I am also registered with the Telephone Preference Service and the Mail Preference Service. Unfortunately when your phone number gets misused it is almost impossible to find out who sold your customer data to pesky cold calling marketeers.

I was phoned today by a auto-dialler for a telemarketer and was amazed that when I tried dialling back on the caller-id (above) the number did not exist (I thought that faking the caller-id was illegal in the UK).

A little research and I found that you can use the number 01709 763849 for the same people where their voice mail will give you the option to opt out of the telemarketing calls. I also discovered the free silentguard register who also help to opt-out your number from silent calls from auto-diallers, though you have to re-register every 12 months.

It seems to be the pattern in the UK that Ofcom are toothless and absolutely useless when it comes to avoiding the abuse of customer information.