Cold call crusade

In response to Barbara Wilson’s letter, “Cold call hell” (7 April), may I suggest that she – and countless other readers – do what I did last year and purchase a call blocker.

It is a module which is linked between the phone socket and the phone base and was probably the best £100 I have spent in many years.

Once it is set up, all incoming calls pass through a screening process before the phone rings.

If the caller is a friend or a “genuine caller” they give their name or company and you can choose whether to accept or reject the call.

If rejected, that number is “zapped” and any further calls from that number will be blocked.

If the caller is a regular friend or family member, there is a facility for further calls from their number to be “starred” and they will not be screened in future. A genuine caller who is ex-directory or uses their withheld facility will still be able to be screened.

In the nine months since I installed my call blocker, not one cold canvasser has left their name or company and asked to be put through. If they had I would have zapped them.

Peace reigns in the Walls’ household.

J Lindsay Walls

Buckstone Wood

Edinburgh

I completely sympathise with Barbara Wilson regarding cold calls, as I too was wakened at midnight by a phone call starting: “We are calling to advise you…”

I never did find out what the message was as I hung up immediately, both alarmed and angry.

Again, the details of the automated caller were “unavailable”.

Although I have been registered with BT for many years for its service which is supposed to block these calls, it doesn’t seem to have made the slightest difference.

Like your correspondent, I feel that daytime calls are a time-wasting nuisance, but midnight calls are very much worse and completely unacceptable. Surely with today’s technology these calls can be monitored and stopped.

Carol McNeill

Kirkcaldy