New free app that lets you block and report nuisance calls for good
Register your number on the UK's official no-call list and get ratings on incoming calls to judge whether you can trust them
BRITS can easily block and report nuisance calls from scammers, sales teams and advertisers with a new app.
Hundreds of thousands of nuisance calls are officially recorded ever year - but many more don't ever get reported.
Many Brits don't know that you can officially register your mobile number as well as your landline onto the Telephone Preference Service - a list of people who don't want to receive marketing calls.
The TPS Protect app goes even further, by allowing the user to easily send off a report about the scam caller from your phone itself.
It also allows you to search numbers on its database and rate incoming calls to judge whether you can trust them before you pick up.
For every call that comes in, the app rates it from one to five - and you can choose which levels of calls you want to receive.
And every call that is blocked or reported helps determine the trust score for that number in future.
The app is free to download but you'll have to pay 99p after the first 60 days to unlock additional features, such as the ability to automatically divert nuisance calls to voicemail or set up a personalised block and approved list.
And then you can also block calls by sector, such as accident claims, or allow ones from companies you'd like to hear from such as charities.
John Mitchison, Head of TPS at the DMA, said: "When scam calls get reported, their trust score drops. So your voice matters.”
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How you can block nuisance calls
1. Register your phone with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), which adds your number to a list that don’t want to receive sales and marketing calls
2. Buy a call-blocking product from your phone provider or install one yourself
3. To stop nuisance texts, forward it to 7726 – this spells “SPAM” on your phone keypad. This will report the sender to your mobile network company
4. Always make sure you report the calls to the Telephone Preference Service or the Information Commissioners’ Office so the company can hopefully be fined.
Last year just 22 penalties were issued to firms who repeatedly targeted people with cold calling and texts in 2016.
And only four paid them – the rest dodged the fines by shutting down the firms and opening new ones.
Keurboom Communications were recently fined £400,000 for making 100 MILLION calls to irritated customers.
From January to December 2016, the ICO recorded a whopping 134,828 calls in total – 70,000 of which were automated messages.
BT has a similar service which blocks the calls before their reach your phone.
It works by using live data to identify rogue numbers and blacklists them - and customers can also add numbers to their own barred list.
But that's only for landlines.
Despite tough warnings from ministers – not one business was fined the maximum penalty of half a million pounds last year.
And there are millions more calls every year which go unreported.
The TPS Protect app will register illegal and nuisance calls and aims to help catch and fine individuals and companies.
It can be downloaded and
Scanning system lets customers make the call over unknown numbers
TPS's new app takes some of the worry out of that moment when you're wondering whether to answer a call from an unknown number, writes Natasha Clark.
That voice inside your head says 'but what if it's from someone important?' drives us to pick up only to find out that it's someone selling PPI, or checking to see if you've had a road accident that's not your fault.
The app scans calls as they come in using a database of numbers - and gives the incoming call a rating based on whether they think it's likely to be a scammer or not.
During the few days I tested it out I was able to answer a call from Virgin, a company I use, because it gave it a 3/5 rating, enough for me to be satisfied it probably would not be a scammer.
But this rating system doesn't work for all numbers that call a phone - I still received some unknown ones without a grade.
However, the app also takes the faff right out of sending off a report about a nuisance call.
At the moment you can do it online by answering a number of questions about the type of call and what happened, which will then be officially reported.
This lets you do it within a few taps - for any number the comes in on your phone - and your details are all stored on the app already.
Easy as 123.
But critics say that while protecting consumers is welcome and should praised, the app will not target scam callers who will regularly change their numbers.
"Call blocking bad numbers is an ineffective approach," David Hickson of the Fair Telecoms Campaign told The Sun Online.
"A wise cold caller keeps changing their number."
He also raised questions over the app - developed with First Orion - and where the data will be stored and collected.
"Anything that works for people and delivers value must be celebrated. But there are better approaches which have been shown to be extremely effective, such as the true call device."
This challenges numbers ringing you to say who they are in a recorded message, giving customers the choice to pick up the phone.
The system isprovided for some Sky and BT customers already, but is only available on a network-by-network basis.