New service aims to block out nuisance calls menace

AN 85-YEAR-OLD with Alzheimer's disease who was plagued by nuisance callers and sometimes left in tears isn’t any more after a call screening device was installed on her phone.

- RICHARD YOULE

The Carmarthenshire woman is one of many in the county who has had the call-blocking device fitted, and council chiefs said the initiative had stopped hundreds of thousands of nuisance calls and prevented vulnerable people from parting with a lot of money since it was introduced in 2014.

A report before a council scrutiny committee said the 85-year-old’s niece arrived at her home one day last year to find her “desperately looking” for her bank card while on the phone to a scam caller. The niece told the council's Trading Standards department that her aunt was receiving dozens of nuisance calls a day and that she'd find her distressed and in tears unable to understand why she was receiving so many.