Elderly homeowners are being targeted by cold callers selling expensive gadgets that supposedly block cold callers.

Sometimes the scammers have no product and the whole thing is just a con to get the victim’s credit card details but there appear to be several companies actually selling products they claim can block cold callers.

But, they are contacting people registered on the Telephone Preference Service who should not be called so they are operating illegally. These companies sell expensive products that turn out to be cheap and ineffective – either stopping all calls or are incompatible with most people’s home phones or are too complicated for the end user to understand.

One such company was Telecom Protection Service which was stopped in 2017 after being found guilty of defrauding hundreds of people. Also, a company named  IT Protect Ltd was fined £400,000 for cold calling to sell call blockers more recently.

Other companies have since sprung up to continue this scam.

If you want a call blocking service, first try your phone provider as most have call blocking feature available and quite often these are free or at a modest charge.

If you do want or need a gadget to plug into your phone line for blocking callers then research what’s available and pick one that is recommended by experts and by its customers. Do not ever respond to cold callers trying to sell anything as it will never be value for money.

If you have any experiences with cold callers do let me know, by email.