Most Britons with a landline telephone now receive more calls from scammers than they do from their loved ones, a Money Mail poll reveals.
The steady rise in fraudulent calls now means that, for most of us, the majority of calls we receive on our landline telephones are from scammers, our survey found.
The Money Mail research, conducted by Consumer Intelligence, found that one person in four had given up using a landline. We also found that 60 per cent of those who still use a traditional telephone receive a scam call at least once a week.
Frustration: The steady rise in fraudulent calls now means that, for most of us, the majority of calls we receive on our landline telephones are from scammers
Three in five said that most calls they received on their landlines were suspected scam calls, with 8 per cent stating that nuisance calls were the only ones they received on their landline.
David Hickson, of the Fair Telecoms Campaign, says technology is available that could prevent any scam calls getting through to landline customers.
He says: ‘We have been pestering the regulators and government to do something effective against the nuisance and criminality of these calls. If something had been done in the early days of campaigning, we would be in a much happier place.’
The Fair Telecoms Campaign wants landline firms to provide customers with technology that screens all calls and connects only those that have been approved by the homeowner. Many of the UK’s phone providers have the technology to screen and block automated scam calls, but users must sign up to the services.
BT, which has more than 30 million customers, says more than three million landline customers use BT Call Protect.
A BT spokesman says: ‘We treat scam calls extremely seriously and are always looking for new ways in which we can protect our customers.’
