0141 236 2790 - We've had multiple calls once or twice a day from this number. This seems to be Kwik Fit Insurance trying to sell car insurance. They apparently got our number after performing an annual service on our car.

How to stop getting nuisance calls:

The first step is to register your phone and mobile phone numbers with the Telephone Preference Service. The service is free. Register online at www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps

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Calling from: 01254 355535 (Number Withheld)

Representing company: 247 Home Rescue – (247homerescue.co.uk)

Details of the call:

This company is trying to flog boiler breakdown cover, and were fairly pushy – they’re keen to find out how much we pay for boiler care, so they can better it. They apparently work like British Gas – They have over 4000 gas safe registered engineers who aim to get to us within 4 hours. It seems they have their own engineers, but also outsource work to other engineers. Details were sketchy, but they were keen to offer a free quotation. A rather unprofessional exchange then occured, but at the request of 247 Home Rescue on the 19th of March 2014, we have removed details of this exchange. After this exchange, we were cut off, only to be called back by another representative from 247 Home Rescue.

The representative from 247 Home Rescue very helpfully told us that their cold calling team operate from different parts of the country, but they were calling today from a location in Petre Court, Clayton-le-Moors, Lancashire. The representative from 247 Home Rescue was keen to tell me that they work on Christmas Day – but he was less clear on whether that means they cold call on Christmas Day, or fix boilers on Christmas Day.

Whilst chatting away to the representative from 247 Home Rescue, we looked up 247 Home Rescue, to see lots and lots of complaints about their cold calling techniques. This was news to Connor, so we pointed him at 247 Home Rescue on nuisancecalls.org.uk

It’s always nice to find out how these telemarketing firms get your number, so we asked. He reply was surprising. “It comes up on the professional data, sir”. This made no sense, so I pushed: Apparently they get the numbers from “someone who we buy the data off, who’s got all the names and all the numbers”. I asked who this was that was selling my number, but apparently that’s confidential. When I asked why, the representative from 247 Home Rescue helpfully told me that :

“We’re not allowed to disclose over the phone who that company is. If we tell you that company name , you could go and get them in trouble.”

So, it appears to us that 247 Home Rescue may buy phone numbers from a third party but they won’t say who supplies this list – From the complaints identified on other sites, and our own experiences, some of the numbers on the list have been registered with TPS (Telephone Preference Service) as not interested in receiving unsolicited cold calls.

As 247 Home Home Rescue don’t want to disclose who sold them our number, we asked for contact details for someone who could help. We were given the following:

Imram Seth, 247 Home Rescue, 3 Petre Court, Clayton-le-Moors, Lancashire BB5 5HY

After pushing the point, the representative from 247 Home Rescue bounced me to his supervisor. He seemed interested to hear that there are lots of sites out there highlighting 247 Home Rescue as an apparent cold-calling company. I read him a few of the quotes, which made him chuckle.

Now, I feel sorry for these poor telemarketing lads and lasses, sitting in their cold calling suite phoning people like me who don’t give them an easy ride. They’re only doing a job – and speaking to people like us at ConsumerDeals is wasting both their time and mine. As the representative from 247 Home Rescue says:

“What makes my job very difficulty sir, is people asking me questions that I honestly can’t answer”

I replied that I did try to terminate the call initially, but the pushy sales girl engaged me in a conversation that I didn’t want to have. I also pointed out, that them calling people who’ve asked not to be called as a bigger waste of time. If someone asks not to be cold called, and that request is ignored, what’s the point of cold calling them? It shows that 247 Home Rescue are paying for a list of numbers that’s wasting their time, and the poor folk they’re calling. He saw the point, but apparently the representative from 247 Home Rescue felt as follows:

“That’s the nature of the job. He wouldn’t be good at his job if he didn’t push people”

The supervisor from 247 Home Rescue is going to escalate this to his superiors, as he agrees that calling people that don’t want to be called is a waste of his team’s time.

It’s also, apparently, worth reporting these guys to the regular, which you can do here: http://www.ico.org.uk/complaints/marketing/21

Had a call from these good folk? Add a comment below.

Caller:Robert Oliver

Calling from: 0203 006 6551

Representing company: Cohen Stones -(cohenstones.com)

Details of the call:

The caller, from a busy call centre, seemed interested in the level of investment that we have with our ISAs, and letting us know that Cohen Stones is showing “a result of 8% to 15%”, apparently, whilst our ISA is losing money to inflation.

The poor caller worked very hard, despite a nagging cough, and read very well from his script whilst we looked him up online.

We’ve been trained to do a quick check on any company offering investment advice to see if they are regulated by the Financial Services Authority. We checked “Cohen Stones”, but they’re not on the list. We queried this with the caller, to be told the following:

“We did work alongside the FSA. We was working alongside James Fredericks, they are an FSA-regulated company. We now work alongside our in-house solicitors who are Laker Goodwin and Partners Ltd, and they are a regulating body that are governed by the Government, and that’s who people’s money goes to when they invest”

Mr Oliver went on: They source their diamonds from a mine in Australia, called the Argo mine, apparently the biggest producer of coloured diamonds in the world. At the end of 2013, the mine is due to close down, because the owners of the Argo mine, Rio Tinto are changing the mine from a pit mine to a tunnel mine.Whatever that means. It’ll take ten years, apparently, which will make their diamonds more valuable, so the caller told us.

The script continues:

“If you invest £5000, you’re always going to have that £5000. The reason this is true is that the governing body called the GIA. They are the Gemological Institute of America, and they valuate the diamond at its true market value” – We can get some “solid diversification into our portfolio”. Saucy.

Should we decide to invest – our diamond would be house in “a facility house in Geneva” (cost of £150 a year) – or we can have it sent to our home address.

They’re sending us a brochure, to help us understand how this will “give us a serious return and make some serious money”. We watch with bated breath.

The caller confirmed that as they are covered by two governing bodies, the Gemological Institute of America and Laker Goodwin – We were told that “that’s two regulating bodies that we work alongside for ultimate protection”. From our Googling, that’s a non-profit diamond laboratory in the USA, and a small accountancy firm in Essex. Not exactly the UK Government or the FSA…

Who is Cohen Stones?

To see how long they’ve been in business, we looked online.

• A check on Companies House shows them as forming in December 2012
• A check on their web domain shows that the address was created with 1 & 1 Internet by Charlie Sewell in South East London using a hotmail address in December 2012

They get a mention on WhoCallsMe.com as a possible scammer

Had a call from Cohen Stones Ltd? Please add a comment below.[Our Ref: LS100725]

Pretext: Reducing my direct debit for Sky Protect

Number: 0845 241 0885
Call informationToday’s fascinating cold call was from a cunning company called Sat Assist.

The caller came from 08452410885 and was to inform me that they were able to reduce my Sky satellite maintenance contract from £9.50 a month and to give me a new number to call for future maintenance and support calls about my Sky box. The number given was 0845 241 0885.

I was given every impression that the caller was my existing provider, and that this was a simple price reduction. It transpired that I would need to complete a new direct debit authority and cancel the old one. When I explained that my existing supplier had a direct debit mandate and could alter my amount without intervention from me, I was pushed to the caller’s supervisor, “Callum”

Callum from Sat Assist’s position was that they were able to reduce my direct debit payments to a lower amount. The reason for needing to cancel the existing direct debit and set up a direct debit to a debit card was apparently “to stop customers getting overdrawn in future, as there will be no bank charge if the payment is declined”.  Callum then informed me that “It’s a subtly different way of making the payment, due to high customer demand”

The special line of the call for us was: “You’re not opposed to a cheaper plan are you?”

After a few more minutes of evasive and defensive arguments,  Sat Assist finally admitted that they were not my existing supplier, and that this was in fact, a cold call.

When asked where Sat Assist got my data, the blunt and unhelpful reply was simply “Market research”. When pushed, he claimed that someone in the house must have filled in a survey. he couldn’t tell me who, or how he’d got so much information about me. “I’m just the Call Centre manager”

The team at Sat Assist are clearly very experienced at deflecting questions and not making it clear that their unsolicited calls are touting for business. If you receive a call from Sat Assist, take care!

Sat Assist Summary

This call was a truly shocking of a cold caller masquerading as an existing supplier, and the complaints on whocallsme seems to bear out that their tactics are fooling people. In our case, they ignored the fact that we are on the Telephone Preference exclusion list.

If you’ve received a call from Sat Assist, and are as shocked as we were, feel free to complain online to the Information Commissioner here: ICO Nuisance Calls Form

Any experiences of this firm? Please let us know

This unwanted marketing call came from a writemyessayservice.co.uk company that claims to stop unwanted marketing calls… an irony in itself. I’m still not sure quite what to make of this one.

The company called with number withheld, and identified themselves as StopComm Ltd. They apparently are offering a system to reduce nuisance calls, and are nothing to do with TPS (Telephone Preference Service). They were trying to sell me a “box system” costing £74.99 that stops unwanted sales calls. The box, called the “Stop Box”, this appears to be a home landline blocking system that uses CLID Caller Display.

What’s interesting, is that the cold caller had my name, home phone number and postcode. When I asked where they’d got my details, I was told the following:

“obviously, when people have phoned you, you said something like ‘not interested… no thanks’ or words to that effect, and they have reported that to ourselves”

Still unclear, I asked again, to be told:

“I’ll terminate the call  as you’re not happy”

The representative confirmed the following:

• Company name: Stopcomm Ltd
• Phone number: 0845 463 8584
• Website: www.stopcomm.com

Interestingly, the box system that they are trying to sell me, called the Stop-box, is priced £64.99 on their website, not the £74.99 I was quoted, and the “order now” box returns a “coming soon” message. The phone number given to me by the cold caller doesn’t seem to match the number on their website. Their site also contains a number of spelling mistakes and typos.

The same product appears to be on a similar sounding site, stop-box.co.uk, listing what looks like the same essay product for £49.99

Still not quite sure what to make of this call and how they got my details, and can;t find a lot online about this firm. Anyone else had contact?

The caller told me that I was due for an upgrade on my o2 contract. When I pointed out that I was on a SIM-only contract, and therefore not due a handset upgrade, he asked to confirm how much I was spending on the contract per month.

Alarm bells started at this point. I was receiving a cold call from a withheld number from someone claiming to be from o2. This person had no knowledge of what account type I had, what contract I was on, or how much I was spending a month.

After querying this, the gentleman told me that has acting on behalf of o2 from a call centre, and had no access to my account details. When I asked for the company name, I was told “3D Tel“, which he later corrected to “3D Telecom“. A Google reveals this to be a small shop in Oldham.

The caller denied working for a small shop in Oldham, but claimed he was unable to give me his company’s web address as it was his first day, and refused to give me the company’s phone number as they were “an outgoing call centre”.

As the caller could give me no information about the company he worked for, or about me or my contract, the call was ended rather quickly.

We’ve no idea if the call was legit or not, and we’d be interested to hear from anyone with any knowledge or experience of 3D Telecom, o2’s call centre in Manchester.

Follow-on call from 3D-Tel

Another call from 3D Tel in Manchester today. Again claiming to have got my number from o2 and being from “the upgrade team” and claiming to be the official licensors of o2. The caller refused to give me his name but confirmed that they are in some way connected to Carphone Warehouse and e2save.com, but the caller was vague about this.

Comment from o2?

We had an online chat with o2 to see if this was legit, or a scam. Here’s what we were told:

Ravinder: Thanks for waiting. I see that it is a scam. We have not tried to call you at all. So, please never give out any personal details.

Ravinder: I will get this escalated to the relevant team as well.

Troubling. Anyone else had a call like this? Let us know…

“Here at We Fight Any Claim we have acknowledged that there were some issues in past practices and we have now moved on and remedied any customer service issues regards sales calls.”

They go on to state that they believe the thread is misleading because “it represents an old and outdated representation of our business practice, it s also now inaccurate as we no longer operate the way we re portrayed within the thread.”

Original Story (2012)

Another call received be one of our team today from “We Fight Any Claim”.

They called from the number 0844 856 9007 this afternoon, having called us in the past. Here’s how the call went:

Them: “We’re calling from We Fight Any Claim…”

Us: “Let me stop you there. I’ve spoken to you before. I’m not interested.”

Them: “This isn’t a cold call, this is to help you”

Us: “No thank you. Please can you end the call and remove me from your database.”

Them: “We can help you with your PPI claim…”

Us: “Can I speak to your supervisor?”

Them: “No-one is available. Have you claimed  back your PPI yet?”

Us: “I am on the TPS register, why are you calling me?”

Them: “You opted in on a survey”

Us: “Which one?”

Them: “I don’t have that information.”

Us: “You’ve called before, and I have asked twice to end this call”

Them: “If you let me finish. Have you claimed back your PPI already?”

Us: “Why do I need to tell you three times that I don’t want to carry on with this call?”

Them: “I was trying to clarify whether you could be invited to get some money back”

Us: “I appreciate that, but when iI said no thank you, and asked to end the call, why did you carry on?”

Them: “I just asked you one more time”

Us: “Is it your company policy to keep asking until you get three “nos”

Them: “I apologise if you think I was being aggressive”

Us: “It’s interesting that it took three “nos” and asking for you supervisor to get you to stop”

Them: “Thanks for your time. Enjoy the rest of your day”

I find it amazing that asking for me details to be removed, and repeatedly saying “no” doesn’t seem to do the trick. I guess all the time they’re flogging a dead horse with us, stops them calling someone else.

From looking online “We Fight Any Claim” seems to have annoyed a few other people with their abrupt and aggressive cold-calling. Here’s an example: whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/08448569007

Wonder if we can expect another call from them tomorrow, or if we’ve finally got ourselves removed from their list?

We Fight Any Claim has been featured on BBC Watchdog twice… see: www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2011/09/ppi_claims.html and www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kppkb, and there are some unhappy customers over on the MoneySavingExpert: Don’t go near We Fight Any Claim

Any experiences of nuisance calls from We Fight Any Claim? Let us know…

07876 647087 24 Nov 2012 10:02
You have been pre-approved for a loan of up to £1000, to get it sent straight to you today just complete the form txtpayday dot com

07585 603598 20 Nov 2012 12:43
IMPORTANT! you are owed £4150 for the PPI you took out, time is running out to claim, please visit youhaveppi dot com to claim, thank you. To opt out reply STOP

07760 574449 08 Sep 2012 23:23
You may be eligible to lower your debt repayments & wipe up to 75% of your debt through current legislation. Reply DEBT for info, to opt out text stop. E Ltd

07548 775587 09 Jul 2012 11:40
Hi, there is £2612.84 waiting in your name, its compensation for the accident you had. To get this ASAP reply CLAIM to this message NOW

07767 098727 16 Dec 2012 17:21
FreeMsg: Win the iPad3 and the iPhone4s in AppleQuiz NOW. Click to play - firstlight dot mobi

How to report text spam to o2

If you’re with o2, forward all of your spam text messages to o2 on 7726 – Save this to your phone’s address book.

Any comments? Add a comment below…

A quick post to see if anyone out there has received an unusual text message from BT recently…

One of our team received an unexpected text message today:

The text came in from 28767 BTSMS

Our team member had not cancelled his direct debit, and checking with his Lloyds TSB bank account online, it appeared that the direct debit was still in place.

A call to BT seemed in order. After some frustration with the “press 1 for xxx, press 2 for yyy” system, we discovered that it’s best to ignore the “Press 3 for billing options” option and use “other” to get a human.

When we got through, we were told that they’ve had a lot of calls about this, and confirmed that our direct debit was still in place and all was well. The unexpected text was blamed on a system error.

We took a note of the BT representatives name, and the time of the call, just in case. If you get a similar message, it’s worth calling BT (free) to get someone’s name, as paying an extra £21.80 a year for not having a direct debit doesn’t sound very appealing!

If you’ve received a message about your direct debit for BT being cancelled, please get in touch to let us know by adding a comment below…