UK households receive too many nuisance calls, says Ofcom

Nuisance calls are being clamped down on after Ofcom’s latest survey found UK households receive ‘too many’.

843 people were asked by the telecoms regulator to keep a four-week record of their unwanted calls, with 82% reporting nuisance calls within that time, on average receiving two a week.

Claudio Pollack, Ofcom’s consumer group director, said: ‘Two nuisance calls a week is too many and this detailed research will help us understand the root cause of the problem.’

In the first study of this kind, it was found that calls from PPI claims companies were the most annoying, with them providing over half of the recorded nuisance calls.

Ofcom has now promised to launch an investigation into PPI claims companies, specifically in relation to silent and abandoned calls.

‘We will use the full range of our powers to tackle abandoned and silent calls, but this is a complex area that requires joint action from a number of different agencies and government,’ said Mr Pollack.

These findings come just months after consumer association Which? launched a campaign against nuisance calls and texts when it was found that 70% of consumers had received an unwanted call in the past 3 months and 40% had received an unsolicited text.