Cold Callers Pester Residents Yet Again!As is now well known, disreputable outfits are trying to circumvent British laws on what is termed “cold calling”—that is, speculatively intruding on potential customers by telephone or on the doorstep. It is similar to junk mail, junk faxes and junk email.
Some of these pests will telephone every possible telephone number in an area (thus overcoming ex-directory and Telephone Preference Service exclusions) from abroad, so that they do not have to comply with the laws of this country. They will try calling every number in an exchange area from 000001 to 999999. Desperate or what? Certainly dodgy, as clearly no reputable organisation would even consider stooping to such depths.
Because there are legitimate reasons for knocking on doors (even I do this for perfectly valid purposes, though I hate intruding on people) this is not outlawed. However it is obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a moment that, as above, decent companies would never need or wish to resort to such tactics.
The latest instance is the predictable “saving you money” energy sales people. Funny how every one of them is cheaper than everyone else, isn't it? They are working the Davis Estate at the moment, and no doubt will be operating elsewhere in the ward shortly, if they have not already done so.
We've seen all this before, of course, including numerous scams, and the best plan is to completely discourage all such practices. I take a fairly robust stand against all examples of cold calling in any form, including letting the perpetrators know what scanctions I am taking to publicise their activities wherever I can.
Therefore, be on your guard, and never deal with any kind of cold caller. The only way to stamp it out is to show them that it is unprofitable. Get the outfit's name and tell them that you will warn all your friends, family and work colleagues of their practices and to effectively “black-list” them, showing them that one pestering call can lose them dozens if not hundreds of potential customers. Eventually the message will sink in, and the whole dubious practice will hopefully, at last, fade away.