Telesales calls. Everybody hates them. There's nothing worse than lying in the bath getting ready for a nice relaxing soak in your favourite smelly bubbles, hearing the phone, diving downstairs in a damp towel, only to find that the call wasn't the emergency you supposed it to be, but a really pointless one from a call centre up the other end of the country. They try to sell you windows. You already have windows, otherwise your house would be a very inhospitable place to live. You tell them this. They hang up on you midsentence. All is well until the very next day, when they work their way down the list to your name once again, and the whole process is repeated. They eat into your spare time, quality time in which you could be pampering yourself or your family. They interrupt you cooking, so the pan boils over and makes the kitchen stink. They suck.

The misery is over! The telephone preference scheme, run by those nice people at the Direct Marketing Association (don't let this put you off- it is a really good service!), will make sure that all your evenings are peaceful ones! I quote from their site: 'Under Government legislation introduced on 1 May 1999 It is unlawful to make unsolicited direct marketing calls to individuals who have indicated that they do not want to receive such calls'.
This basically means that once you've registered your objection to recieving further calls, its illegal for the companies to cold call you. Please note that if you have ever agreed to recieve new product information from any companies, it will not get rid of these calls, as they aren't considered to be cold calling.

The service is completely free of charge, and the way it works means that even if you're in the phone book, you don't have to change your directory entry to get rid of the calls. Regardless of whether your directory listing is available for general public use, telemarketing companies will not be allowed to use
it. Good innit?!

The one catch is that the registration process does take up to 28 days to go through. You get a letter once you're registered letting you know that the calls should now stop. As this is a free service, I was quite happy to wait for the process to go through, especially considering how effective a scheme it is. I haven't recieved any further calls since I registered, which I'm delighted about.

There are a number of different ways to register. I did it via the phone, but you can also write in, or just visit their website and click through to the registration section. I'll add the details at the bottom of the page. If you do it by phone as I did, the number goes straight through to a recorded message which will ask you to enter your telephone number, name and full address details. I've had a look at the site and the registration form basically mirros this, and is very easy to find and use. There's also a mailing preference scheme available, although not on the same site, a fax preference scheme, and an email preference scheme (although I'm not sure how well this would work- I have a feeling that it may only cover UK companies). So if you want to really clear all of the junk from your life- the means to do so is finally here!

Its very peaceful at my house these days.


CONTACT:

Telephone Preference Service

Phone: 0845 07 007 07
Website: http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tpsr/html/Register.asp
By post: Telephone Preference Service, DMA House, 70 Margaret Street, London.

Mailing Preference Service

Phone: Michele Taylor (Subscriptions - 020 7291 3319)
Website: http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/html/Reg_FormA.as p
By Post: As address above, but send to Mailing Preference rather than telephone.

Fax Preference

Phone: Chris Mason (Subscriptions - 020 7291 3326)
Website: http://www.fpsonline.org.uk/fpsr/html/Register.asp
Po
st: As above, but Fax Preference

Email Preference

Website: http://www.dmaconsumers.org/optoutform_emps.shtml
(couldn't find phone or address details, but would imagine they are quite similar to the above).