Group Utilities: Taking the nuisance out of calls

We live in an age of global communications, where information is accessible and people are contactable at all times. Technology has advanced so far that we can be in touch with people around the world and around the clock, in an instant, allowing both personal and business communication to take place with ease.

However, in contrast to the advantages of being able to be so easily in touch with loved ones or conduct business dealings with the companies we trust, the sharing of personal information between businesses in recent years has led to a large rise in companies cold-calling with sales and marketing pitches. These are often unwanted by the recipients and can lead to people feeling harassed and distressed in their own homes.

Cold-calling: a real problem

We are all familiar with the feeling of dashing to the phone in the middle of preparing a meal, or having a favourite TV show interrupted by the phone ringing, only to find out that the person on the other end is a cold caller, and this is annoying enough, but there are also many elderly and vulnerable people who are scammed out of large sums of money thinking that the person calling is a legitimate charity or business, which is not always the case.

Taking steps like withholding your phone number from the directory or being careful about who your number is given out to can help to a point, but from time to time it is necessary to give out contact details when dealing with companies, and occasionally these details are passed on. Once they have been sold on it’s almost impossible to make your contact details private again. As the BBC reported recently over 120,000 complaints were made about nuisance calls in a six month period of 2013 and there is currently little comeback against companies who use cold-calling marketing techniques.

Finding a solution

There is a solution available for those wishing to put an end to incessant nuisance calls. Community CallBlocker from http://www.grouputilities.com uses a straightforward teamwork principle to block nuisance and unwanted callers and international sales numbers while automatically allowing calls from friends and family as well as friendly international numbers. Withheld numbers are interrogated and the community work as a whole to protect each other from the intrusion of unwanted calls, which gives an additional advantage of enabling the block list to grow quickly. The Group Utilities service works in collaboration with the Telephone Preference Service, Ofcom and the police to ensure the security and safety of its users.

While few would deny that the telephone is one of technology’s greatest inventions, taking a stand against those who misuse its benefits to the detriment of others is not only possible, it’s also necessary. Community CallBlocker is the next step in ensuring that you’re no longer plagued with cold calls and can begin to appreciate the phone as an asset to be used on your own terms, and not a nuisance that you’d sooner unplug from the wall.