tobyaw | Life Protect Bureau

Just had a cold call from “Life Protect Bureau”, a Swansea-based life insurance adviser. Apparently they wanted me to update my details for an 18-month review of my life insurance, despite me having no relationship with them.

The caller was dim, menacious, or both, insisting that she wasn’t trying to sell me anything, and telling me that since they were providing a free service, it couldn’t be a cold call. She used a “data protection” excuse to get past Kate answering my phone, and then implied that they were working on behalf of all UK insurers to update information in light of changed European regulations.

I hate lying salespeople, particularly when they claim not to be selling anything.

My phone numbers are on do-not-call lists, but I get an annoying number of calls, more often about PPI mis-selling. I’m pretty sure that the annoyance from PPI cold calls and TV adverts is worse than the original mis-selling scandal.

Years ago we used to regularly get door-to-door salesmen from Scottish Power, trying to get us to change gas and electricity supplier. They always claimed not to be selling anything, and were just providing information, and then usually came out with some tale about lots of our neighbours changing to Scottish Power. It just made the public face of the company appear to be lying toerags, arguing with me on my doorstep.

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I suspect I get a lot of cold calls.
Not sure cos I never answer the phone when it shows International, or Withheld. Or unless it's a number of someone on my directory.
Admittedly this is cos I want to run and hide half the time when the phone rings, but it weeds out nuisance calls almost totally. I just have to wipe messages from computer-generated calls that don't realise it's an answering machine.
I figure anyone who needs to talk to me will leave a message.
(Oh..I answer to mobile numbers when waiting on a delivery/tradesman cos i get a /lot/ of 'HOw do I find you?' calls from those.)

Edited 2013-11-11 16:13 (UTC)

I'm almost exactly the same as the above, even down to having to wipe automated messages that make it onto the answer machine. As a result we never speak to cold callers. We're on Telephone Preference Service, but I think it's next to useless. A caller ID display + ignoring numbers we not recognise including obviously dodgy ones works a treat.

The do not call list does work, but it's notas good as it used to be. The thing that changed was when bulk-purchase of international telephone calls came down to be much less per minute that the cost of a person to make the calls. Then overseas call centres could compete with UK-based call centres for the sales business. International enforcement of DNC is justabout impossible. UK-based callcentres will lose their phone lines if there are enough complaints made aboutthem, but internationally that won't work. Any system like this needs maintenance to keep up with changes in technology as well as market changes, and while DNC was initially good, its utility is decaying, but is not yet zero.

Perhaps there needs to be a regulation that anyone empowered to sell anything has to have an ID which proclaims them to be a salesperson. It's abit difficult to claim "I'm not selling anything" when the ID they show you says at the top "I'm a salesperson here to r/a/p/e y/o/u/r/ w/a/l/l/e/t sell you something you don't want".

With The Bloke at LV these scams are even more of a concern as they give the whole industry a bad name.
LV bust their britches to help customers, they do not cold call and any miss representation will result in one more bunny Out The Door PDQ.
We have a system which you might like to try.
Automated calls to mobiles we just leave, they are paying and we are not going to reply to their crap.
Cold calls from anyone gets a very short, Anglo Saxon phrase, which as a polite Bear I will not repeat but it does the trick and the Bloke is so much more relaxed. afterwards.
If he is particularly wound up he will let lose a rant which, while temporarily raising his blood pressure, has a truly cathartic effect afterwards.
He has been known to be, almost, nice to people for hours afterwards.

I have been known to put the phone down next to one of Eve's mobiles after asking them to hold. Sadly, they'd hung up before I got back from making tea to say, "Your call is important to me. Please hold."

They are infuriating, and the TPS (no-call list) doesn't seem to deter the worst of them - many of mine are automated calls with the origin concealed, which is apparently illegal whether you're TPS listed or not.

I haven't had a PPI one lately, but dozens of vaguely-named solar energy vendors who refuse to disclose their identity when asked (usually hanging up on me when asked).

The ISP we both use now, Andrews and Arnold, does VoIP with free blocking of anonymous calls (both "withheld" and "unavailable"); sadly, BT are a bit behind the times there, and mobile companies further still (anonymous call blocking facilities have been legally required for over a decade now, but O2 and co have simply ignored that requirement so far). At some point soon, I plan to connect an Asterisk setup to the landline, scripted to answer and disconnect any anonymous calls.

Usefully, A&A also set up a tarpit for such nuisance calls: over a million different landline numbers, all routed to an answering script. I'd like to think that inconvenienced phone spammers significantly.

Interesting post. I just had a call from "Life Protect Bureau" asking about life insurance. They told me there had been a change in the law and that they were obliged to contact all life insurance policy holders to check that they were on the best deal. The girl on the phone started asking detailed questions about my mortgage, and other financial details. Now I know they are a scam, I will hang up next time they ring. How can they do this when I am TPS registered?

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Infuriating phonespam

Life Protect Bureau