Wednesday 11 February 2015

That Was Quick

Unfortunately on Sunday, our car was hit, and significantly damaged, in a car park while parked for about half an hour. It's more an inconvenience than anything else to get it fixed and unsurprisingly no note etc was left on the windscreen as to details regarding the driver who damaged our car. This always somewhat annoys me but I accept it happens.

However four days later (today) my mobile has been inundated with copious calls from an 0843 number which when answered begins with a recorded message that announced they had details of an accident I’d been involved in the last couple of days, and they would apparently like to help me gain compensation. The details seem rather specific to be merely a random call, especially as my mobile is registered with TPS.

We're insured with RSA, who via their website apparently take privacy seriously, and so they should as it has to fulfill EU related data protection requirements. Given that RSA are the only ones who have been officially informed of said incident perhaps they'd like to explain how such details have made their way to an "ambulance chasing" firm.

6 comments:

  1. It seems to me, given your experience and mine for that matter concerning registration with the TPS, that the numbers on the TPS list comprise a useful compendium of "live" numbers for miscellaneous ambulance chasers and fraudsters. Of course, there is a large number of "respectable" potential cold callers who avoid TPS registered numbers. OTOH, AFAIAA, "bona fide" pollsters are exempt from the cold calling prohibitions of TPS and, probably, use the TPS lists to fillet out "dead" numbers.

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  2. All our data is being stolen or hacked on a daily basis.
    Set your browser to delete history and all cookies whenever you close it.

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  3. I've seen reports that some police and breakdown/recovery workers are in on "the game", and pass on details to various ambulance chasing lawyers. And I now realise that the TPS are worse than useless.

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  4. I have had a few of these too, but I have not been involved in any RTC or accident since i was hit by a car as a pedestrian on a zebra in 2000, This was cleared years ago. so I think they are just trying their luck on random people, rather then actually having the data on you. Best way to test this is just answer with no, then they sort of start clutching at staws with things like, well it may be another type of accident, or it may be one of your family members? etc.

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  5. As someone whose mobile number is also a 24/7 emergency number for a chemical distribution company, I'm not at liberty to just ignore the nuisance calls. As others have pointed out, the TPS is useless, largely because its terms of reference seem to be limited to the prevention of "sales calls", meaning that almost all the nuisance calls purport to have other purposes. It strikes me that I should investigate the possibility of claiming that the calls (particularly the pointless automated message ones) infringe my right to privacy or (in my particular case) are likely to result in stress. Does anyone know whether this is already been pursued elsewhere?

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