A guest post by Valerie.

Valerie says she got fed up with cold callers years ago and signed up for the Telephone Preference Service. This led to a big reduction in the number of calls but she still does receive them.

They seem to call her mostly around 6 pm – they wait till they think you’re home from work and some even call her around 8 am when she’s having breakfast. She had three callers in one afternoon.

Valerie pays the extra money each month for caller Id on her phone so she can see who’s calling.

For cold callers, she keeps a very loud whistle by the phone and if it’s a cold caller they get a good blast of that.

If the whistle isn’t to hand, then she simply says ‘I’ll just get Mrs J.. for you’ and leaves the phone off the hook so it continues to cost the caller.

Cold callers can be a real nuisance, but I bet Valerie doesn’t get the same caller twice.