Good evening madam, how are you today?.... (Telephone Preference Service)

Member Name: Sandra-M

Product:	Telephone Preference Service
Date:	28/06/05 (172 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: TAkes a minute or two to register., Freedom from telemarketing calls, It's free

Disadvantages: Need to re-register every year

You've just got back from work, struggling with the key in the front door, the phone is ringing, you just make it through the door to the phone only to hear 'Good evening madam, how are you today?'. The stranger on the end of the line is one of those cold calling telemarketing people trying to be your 'friend'. Sounds familiar?

A few weeks ago I'd reached the end of my limit with callers trying to sell me anything from credit cards to windows. I had the day off and I realised by checking the caller display just how many times the phone was ringing and showing 'number withheld' because of course these are calls from call centres who do not display their number. The phone was ringing literally every 15 minutes. I took the phone off the hook and thought long and hard about what I could do about getting rid of these callers.

In desperation I rang BT who told me about The Telephone Preference Service. The Operator gave me their number and said this was a free service and works by filtering out the calls which can take up to 4 weeks. The result is that a few weeks later I have peace and quiet.

You can register online (www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps) but I think it's even easier to do it by phone which is what I did. The TPS Registration Line is 0845 070 0707. You will hear a recorded message which asks you if this is the phone you want to register and then you will be asked if you want to stop telemarketing or silent calls (calls where there is no one on the line). I chose Option 1 since I have not had that many silent calls. I did that on 10th June and can happilly report that 17 days later I seem to be blissfully free of those nuisance calls.

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