"The Secured by Design logo flags to the public that a product has security front and centre of its design”

UK households are bombarded with up to 15 billion unwanted calls a year, with many households receiving more than 30 a week. Ofcom estimates that 40% of these calls are scam attempts. For many people these are just a nuisance or irritant, but they can have a big impact on the lives of older and vulnerable people causing anxiety, confusion, and stress, and putting them at financial risk. Scarcely a day goes by without a story in the media of an elderly or vulnerable person being scammed out of their life savings after falling victim to phone fraud.

The trueCall call blocker is a device that plugs in between the user’s phone socket and their phone. It checks every call received before it allows it to ring the phone. Calls from trusted callers are let straight through, calls from known nuisance callers are blocked, and all other callers are intercepted and checked before they are allowed through. There are two main settings – one for vulnerable people that blocks 95%+ of unwanted calls, and one for those with dementia which offers 100% protection.

Since 2014 33 Police forces have installed 2,320 trueCall units, and these are each getting on average 20 nuisance and scam calls per month. A million of these calls have already been blocked – 99% of all the nuisance and scam calls received. trueCall estimate that over the 5-year life of these units they will have prevented 3,513 scams, leading to project benefits of over £30m.

See how trueCall works to block nuisance callers here.

Find out more about trueCall and their range of Secured by Design accredited products here.

Steve Smith, MD of trueCall, said:­­ "The Secured by Design logo flags to the public that a product has security front and centre of its design. We are proud to be associated with this scheme and the huge range of other products that are protecting people every day”.

Lyn Poole, Secured by Design, said: "trueCall is an innovative concept that really works, stopping and blocking nuisance calls. Even in this age of mobile phones, many people still rely on landlines and trueCall can give people peace of mind. We are very pleased they have renewed their membership with us, as the Police Service and local authorities look to SBD for products and services which have reached the required security standards and can be trusted to do what they say they do". 

Fraud blogs & guides

Police CPI have produced a series of blogs and guides to increase awareness of the ever-changing landscape when it comes to various types of fraud and highlight how both individuals, businesses and organisations can best protect themselves from fraudsters. The guides offer practical crime prevention advice to follow in order to help you stay safe. You can view these here.

trueCall

trueCall was designed by Steve Smith and John Price who have each worked in the call centre industry for over 20 years. They have both been advocates of responsible telemarketing within the industry, and have helped to shape the legislation that now controls it. They published research in 2005 that for the first time showed the level of distress that nuisance calls were causing many people.

Steve & John were concerned that the number of nuisance calls was bound to increase with the introduction of new cheap technologies that were unregulated. They felt that the only solution was to give people control over all the calls they were receiving. They knew how call centres worked, so designed and patented a new approach to blocking unwanted calls. In 2008 trueCall was launched, and proved hugely effective, with independent trials reporting that it blocked over 95% of unwelcome calls. Steve successfully presented the trueCall unit on the BBC TV programme ‘Dragons’ Den’.

Steve has been a consultant to the Telephone Preference Service and has provided advice to Ofcom on issues relating to nuisance calls. He has been a member of the Unsolicited Voice and SMS Working Party since its inception, and advises the All Party Parliamentary Group on Nuisance Calls. He is currently working with over 100 Trading Standards teams around the country on projects to protect older and vulnerable adults from nuisance calls, along with the National Scams Team.