Nuisance callers: How to waste their time and cost them money

Sean O'Grady has prepared a special guide to confounding cold callers

If you can prove you've kept a cold caller on the phone for an hour or more, you will receive special praise, possible fame and the thanks of a nation (Corbis)

So popular have my columns about nuisance calls been that I thought I would prepare a special guide to confounding them.

I noticed this week that an outfit named, or misnamed, "National Advice Clinic" had been fined £850,000 for troubling people with its calls about noise-induced hearing loss claims. As it happens, I was one of the people they rang, and was able to keep them on the line for at least a quarter of an hour.

You see, that way I waste their time, cost them money, and prevent them from calling someone more gullible. It's become a bit of a hobby of mine, in fact, and I am aiming to break the one-hour barrier soon; 47 minutes or so is my current personal best.

So here are my tips to confounding the annoying nuisance callers.

Find out where they're calling from

Many boiler-rooms use phone numbers that begin with British-looking prefixes such as 0161. In one case I found out they were in fact based in the Philippines, not Salford, and so I did hang up, as I don't want to pay for half of an international call. I admit, though, that the mischief value does make it tempting to prolong the conversation.

Set some ground rules

I was once accused by a cold caller of attempting to "exercise power" over him, just because I wanted to get answers to certain questions before I went on to the "questionnaire". I wasted 11 minutes of his time.

Check the company's website

Having a website means nothing, but many of these bogus outfits don't even bother with a token one. It's an excellent opportunity to embarrass your persecutor by taking the mickey out of their rubbish digital presence.

Take on the persona of a comedy character

My favourite is Donald Donaldson, a character invented by the brilliant Kayvan Novak, in his all-too-short-lived Fonejacker TV show. Donald is an old pervert who propositions random people, asking them up to his hotel room and offering to soap them down and the like. The guy from "Fresh Contacts" was certainly discombobulated by this offer. Also try Alan Partridge or Chris Eubank.

Say you have to get off the line so you can answer another nuisance call

I actually had to do this last week, for real.

Logical trap

Ask: "If the insurance company gave you my details, why do you want me to tell you the details of the accident, which presumably they already have?"

If you can prove you've kept a cold caller on the phone for an hour or more, you will receive special praise, possible fame and the thanks of a nation. Tell me how you get on. My email is S.O'Grady@independent.co.uk.