Scam Alert service

How to block nuisance calls

The scourge of cold-calling scammers are forever doing the rounds – either interrupting our evenings or causing us anxiety so we don’t even want to pick up the phone. However, there is good news, most of the major landline phone providers now offer a free service to reduce the number of nuisance calls that you receive.

In this guide, we’ll look at how they work and what your options are.

Block cold-calls

Push payment scams

When a large sum of unsolicited money appeared in Oscar’s account, alarm bells started ringing. The money had come from a family member, but they did not make the transfer. After piecing together what happened, they believed scammers had gained access to the family member’s account, then selected an existing payee to transfer money out to. Their goal was for Oscar to follow instructions to send it on to the fraudster’s own account.

Here’s how the scam worked and how you can stop it.

Bank transfer scams

There’s now a much easier way to make us aware of scams directly with our scam sharer tool. Tell us your experiences of phishing emails, fake texts, cold calls and other types of fraud.

Stay safe,

Which? Scam Alert team