I went online to try to find out if the phone number was linked to a particular company and I discovered that it was one of many spam numbers used by an advertising/sales company. I also found out that I wasn't alone in my problem, and this company actually had been doing the same and similar things to many other people. Apparently, this particular company made record losses last year and was making up for these losses by spamming numerous people. Their plan of action is to phone you, then hang up; when you phone them back they ask you to phone a different number - this second number is a premium number, so when you phone it they actually charge you for them to give you an annoying sales call.
I looked into this further, but wasn't able to find out how to stop the nuisance calls, so I called my phone company. The pleasant young man on the line was able to tell me that these spam phone calls were becoming ever more common, and that I could go online and register my phone number with website to stop them calling me.
Breakthrough! He gave me the URL for the site that could help me: www.tpsonline.org.uk. They are an OFCOM accredited company that help to make sure that your telephone number is not available to sales organisations that will randomly phone you. The service is absolutely free of charge - all you need to do is register your phone number and the annoying sales calls will stop. I registered a couple of weeks ago and haven't received a nuisance call since.
This is another great example of the internet providing solutions to fight spam. Whether it's search engine spam, email spam or telephone spam the world is finally coming together to fight the spammers. It is only a matter of time until spam is a thing of the past - until then we must do all we can to fight it!
