Over the last few weeks, I have fielded several cold calls from people (different voices) who want to give me unsolicited advice on insulating my house. They imply (without explicitly making the claim) that they represent some kind of official energy advisory body. They know my name (which they can get from the electoral regfister) and the fact that I have existing roof insulation; presumably there is a council database that includes energy ratings for the local domestic housing stock. Or maybe they are just assuming the existance of roof insulation because everyone has that now.

This morning I received another call from a woman with a very "trustworthy" voice, who claimed to be an energy support officer or something like that. So I asked her who she worked for and she pretended she didn't understand what I meant. I asked again and she wouldn't answer, so I hung up.

I was curious by now, so I DDG'd "insulation scam" and it turns out that this is a well-known scam which has been going around different parts of the UK since at least December 2023. If you swallow the bait, they come around, tell you that your existing insulation is toast, and sell you spray-on insulation at a hugely inflated prices. To add insult to injury, this kind of insulation destroys the sale value of your house by rendering it unmortgageable.

Anyone in the UK who reads this, beware!

There are forms of "spray on" insulation that are extremely good but one must know the formulation to get decent R Factor per expenditure. Nevertheless, despite that I might miss out on some good deals, I think it is far safer to reject any sales calls I didn't initiate. Most truly reputable outfits need not resort to "cold canvas".

I get scam calls all the time. Long ago I abandoned the ordinary rules of politeness in dealing with these people. The best tactics are to waste the callers time. If the caller has an Indian accent I ask where they are calling from. They will say "New York" or "San Francisco". I then ask them what time is it in New York and without thinking they will invariably reply with New Delhi time. When I point out the discrepancy they will hang up.

I get phone calls for Iris. As far as I can tell Iris died about 6 or 8 years ago in a house about a mile away from where I now live. When I moved in my current house the phone company gave me Iris's old number. So when a caller asks for Iris I say, "She's in the garden. I'll dig her up". Then I set the phone down without hanging up and go about my business. The frustrated scammer will eventually hang up. Use your imagination as to what you can say that will leave a scammer waiting on a open line. Wasting their time like that will often cause them to take your number off the calling list.

I have a cheap phone plan with no Voice Message. I add all unsollicited call numbers to a contact named something like Spam1. Next time they call, I won’t answer - and they cannot leave a voice mail.

I never answer calls not in my contact list. If they don't leave a voicemail I block them.
Added later: I never pick up my landline as the calls are always rubbish. My cheap answering machine fields calls.

Not only a Cold call but it's cold of them to scam you.

Here in the states, phone carriers finally cracked down the bogus car warranty scam calls, so a few of the scammers are now actually sending letters through the mail.

On the bright side, sending letters costs more than making phone calls, so we have only gotten a few of the letters, as opposed to hundreds of phone calls.

To go back to the original post, any time some one claiming to represent a company won't tell you what company that represent, that's a massive red flag.

Yup.

Like this one, or others:
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com....rin.blacklist/

I will answer calls not in my contact list if the caller ID looks legit. On the land line (yes, we still have a land line for that 911 call we hope never to have to make in the middle of a hurricane), we get a lot of calls for a local radio station because our number is one digit off from theirs. They are the nicest wrong numbers I've ever answered. So nice, in fact, I've started listening the radio station from time to time.

Depending on how legit it looks, sometimes I will answer and say nothing. Calls that are not legit will usually hang up after 11 seconds. If I hear background noise that sounds like a call center, I don't wait the 11 seconds.

At the end of life we expect lot of calls from hospitals. Yep they can make you wait for hours, but god forbids if you miss an appointment.
The other day my wife went to Emergency and had to wait 20 hours (we live in Quebec).

leclerc78, I hope and trust she's okay.