Anybody else had a call from them? The claimed they’d stop any nuisance phone calls, and were wanting me to confirm my address, credit card number etc. Gave me an address which appears to belong to DMA and an 0871 customer service number to call back (which they claimed was free – I queried this multiple times).

Surprisingly persistent – ignored my “like this one” when he asked if I got nuisance calls, and kept going despite me dragging them off their script and repeatedly asking for their DPA registration details etc. Was trying to get me to give a credit card number (he was quoting some totally made up number at me and saying that card might have expired) and presumably to phone their premium rate number. Unfortunately the landline phone battery is dodgy and gave out before I managed to get them to hang up on me!

Just wondering if there’s any way to report their abuse of a premium rate number by claiming that it’s free? The presumably breaks some telecoms regs.

Sounds like a straight up scam to me… This page mentions reporting to Trading Standards https://conversation.which.co.uk/technology/tps-scam-nuisance-cold-call-stop-the-calls/

Just wondering if there’s any way to report their abuse of a premium rate number by claiming that it’s free? The presumably breaks some telecoms regs.

0871 numbers can be free. It’s up to the organisation that uses them to set the fee, and it can be zero.

You don’t really know that this one isn’t free, as they said it was.

If it wasn’t free, and they told you that is was free, then that would be a breach of the regulations.

Oh OK. So how can you tell how much it costs to call such a number (I doubt very much that this one is free) without waiting for the bill to arrive?

I imagine its a scam, there’s no way the TPS would be ringing up and asking for Card details.

Register your number here for free
http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/number_type.html

Oh I know it’s a scam, I knew within 10s. We’re already registered with the TPS. It’s another of those like the Microsoft support scam where I’m happy enough to waste their time and stop them scamming somebody more gullible.

how can you tell how much it costs to call such a number

I don’t know as you can. I do know however that it’s “up to” 13p/min on top of whatever your provider’s cost of a normal call would be.

Ah, hang on. The regulator (for all 087x numbers over 7p/min) has a number checker.

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/

Having checked, Cougar, it’s up to 13p a minute service charge on top of whatever your service provided charges as a call charge for 087 numbers – which also having checked isn’t zero for either my landline or my mobile. Hence the claim of it being free is a lie even if the service charge is zero (and I’m betting it’s actually 13p/min).

edit: no info on the number they gave, but thanks for the help anyway