The installation of more than 250 call blocking devices to prevent phone scams is helping to protect people in Shetland from financial harm.
Shetland Islands Council’s Trading Standards team was first able to offer over 200 of the trueCall devices to islanders as part of a national scheme launched back in 2023.
It teamed up with the local Citizens Advice Bureau this summer to offer a further 25 call blockers free of charge to people at risk of financial harm. It has since received another 25 call blockers from the National Scams team to support the continuing roll-out of this protection for people in their own homes.
Trading Standards team leader David Marsh says the devices “work quietly and unnoticed in the background to block over 90 per cent of scam and nuisance calls so the phone won’t even ring, preventing the anxiety, worry and risk of fraud associated with such calls getting through”.
“A large proportion of the scams that people are faced with come through the phone,” David explains. “What a lot of us who are out at work or not working from home aren’t so aware of is just how many calls are coming in to folk who are at home all day.”
Many scams start with automated computer dialling, essentially trying numbers at random until the scammers find someone who answers.
“If somebody does answer and they get into conversation, we will all give away information to callers without really realising it,” David continues, “which is why we strongly advise that people just hang up and don’t engage.”
“But that’s easy to say and often hard to do. If they start to get information about us, such as do we live on our own, what sort of age are we, are we a pensioner, do we have small children, do we own our own home or are we a tenant, they can build up a picture about us, and then share and sell that information with their friends in the criminal world.
“Then you might start to get more targeted calls where people are phoning up and they’ve got certain amounts of information about you already, and can be really convincing, claiming to have had contact with you before.”
David says there has been a recent shift in particular with banking scams, where the callers “have Scottish voices, sound really plausible, just like you might expect someone from the bank to sound”.
“In the majority of cases the banks will reimburse scam victims, but not always, and maybe not all of the money that’s been stolen from them. But the stress you go through creates real trauma for folk. We’ve had people who’ve been on the phone virtually the whole day with the scam caller.”
The trueCall devices go between your phone socket (or the back of your router if you’ve been switched over to digital) and your phone and use caller display technology to read the number that is calling. People can programme trusted numbers of friends, family, doctors, local shops, etc. into the unit so that incoming calls from those individuals come through as normal.
Nationally the devices are estimated to block over 90 per cent of scam calls, but David says that for a lot of units in operation in Shetland the proportion can be as high as 95-99 per cent.
· To request a free call blocker, for yourself or for someone else, email trading.standards@shetland.gov.uk or phone (01595) 744887.