In the last year, the charity has witnessed a 72 per cent increase in the number of cases relating to the ‘bogus selling’ of cold call blocking services. Common complaints include aggressive selling tactics, receiving faulty goods and being unable to cancel contracts.

Citizens Advice said people receive these calls despite being registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), a free service that blocks unsolicited sales or marketing calls. Contacting individuals registered with the TPS is illegal, meaning offending companies are ignoring UK law. Calls also come from abroad.

Consumers have also complained about cold callers misleading them into believing their friends and family have already purchased blocking devices, falsely claiming to be from the TPS, or working with Trading Standards. Some complainants have even continued receiving calls after purchasing a cold call blocker from a caller.

Others have discovered money has been debited from their accounts by call blocking services, without their permission. In these cases customers were informed the cold call blocking service would cost just £2 a month for five years but once signed up, the money for the entire contract was debited from their account.

Stop the Calls, a company offering a nuisance call blocking service, was fined £50,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in August this year. The ICO found the company had called people registered with the TPS, made repeated calls, sometimes several on the same day, and ignored consumer requests to stop calling.

Last year, Citizens Advice dealt with around 2,500 call blocking service issues overall. The organisation is calling on the ICO and Trading Standards to continue to clamp down on companies that harass and mislead customers.

Citizens Advice says some companies offer a legitimate and often valuable service that eases problems with cold calling without pestering people over the phone but is concerned ‘rogue’ outfits are exploiting the market. The charity adds legitimate companies offering blockers do not cold call.

If consumers are being harassed by cold call blocking companies, they can register their number with the Telephone Preference Service (0845 070 0707), report unsolicited marketing calls to the ICO (0303 123 1113) or visit their local Citizens Advice Bureau (03454 04 05 06)

“Citizens Advice helps increasing numbers of people with nuisance calls from services claiming to fight cold callers,” said Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice.

“In some cases people have been bullied into buying blocking devices while others have been charged an upfront annual fee instead of the monthly instalments they had been expecting to pay.

“The ICO should continue to take enforcement action against cold call companies that flout the law. Trading Standards need to take enforcement action against companies using aggressive and misleading sales tactics, which can force people into buying a product that either doesn’t work or they don’t want.”

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