Nuisance phone calls killed my husband

A GRIEVING grandmother claims nuisance calls drove her husband to an early grave.

Barbara Gray, 61, and her other half Albert, known as Ala, were hounded every day by firms desperate to make money from them.

She says the plague became so severe it left Albert, who was fighting cancer, stressed out and anxiety ridden.

The gran-of-six, who was married to her late husband for 43 years, said: “My Ala was already very ill but I believe these calls hastened his death.

“It was incredibly stressful for him.

“He would be waiting to hear from the hospital and then the phone would ring and it would be a company trying to sell him something.

“It exhausted him. In my mind these companies have a lot to answer for.”

Former cleaner Barbara mother to two grown-up daughters, Kerry-ann and Caroline, says the menace of cold calls started more than 10 years ago.

But the problem got worse in 2010.

In the last few years she and Albert would get on average of eight cold calls a day, but sometimes there were more than a dozen.

She says the majority were from firms carrying out surveys.

Astonishingly, however, they were also bombarded by companies trying to sell them equipment to prevent nuisance calls.

Barbara, of Amble in Northumberland, said: “I always remember a firm called and said they could sell me a cold call blocker.

“Ala was in hospital at the time and was dozing.

“I was telling a relative over his bed that I’d bought this equipment for £86.

“When he heard me say it he opened his eyes and sat upright. It really upset him that they were even selling us stuff like this.

“It didn’t work, of course the calls just kept coming.”

Albert, a former hod carrier, was diagnosed with lung cancer in January 2014.

He had been a smoker in his younger days but had given up cigarettes nine years prior to his death in March.

The family were told Sunderland-mad fan Ala may survive the disease with a course of radiotherapy.

Nine months later, doctors thought he had won his battle only for the cancer to reappear in his liver.

He died at the age of just 66.

Barbara said: “The worst time he had was when I was in hospital last summer.

“I broke my leg in two places and was in hospital for seven weeks.

“That’s when he got really upset and stressed about the number of cold calls we were getting.

“I have no doubt it made things worse and affected his health.

“He had cancer, but without the stress of all the calls I’m sure he’d have lived longer.”

Barbara, who is disabled, suffers chronic obstructive pulmonary disease following the breast cancer she had in 2003 and has severe back problems.

She said: “I’m still getting calls every day.

“Most are from overseas and involve me doing a survey.

“But what’s more distressing is when they phone up and ask for Albert.

“It stops me in my tracks and I have to tell them he passed away.

“Sometimes it feels like they don’t believe me.

“Then a few days later they phone and ask for him again.

“It drives me to tears.”

The UK Government promised a crackdown on cold calling just three months ago.

It came in the face of growing public anger and a demand from readers of this newspaper for action.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport the Westminster department that looks after the issue promised to make nuisance call firms pay for making people’s lives a misery.

They claimed fines of up to £500,000 on the companies behind cold calls and nuisance text messages would become easier under changes to the law rolled out in April.

Until then firms could only be punished if the Information Commissioner, the government regulator for nuisance calls, could prove a call caused “substantial damage or substantial distress”.

However, campaigners say little has

since changed since the new laws were introduced.

Richard Hermann, a campaigner who won praise after forcing a cold-calling firm to pay him compensation, said “nothing” had changed since April.

He added: “People are still contacting me with the same complaints as before.”

David Hickson, of the Fair Telecoms Campaign, berated the new laws as all spin and little substance.

He said: “They made a lot of fuss over some very small, albeit needed, changes.

“We need major reform on nuisance calls.

“It’s horrific when you hear cases like this.

“For most, cold calls are a nuisance.

“But for some of our most vulnerable they become a real menace.”

Earlier this month it was reported a record 180,188 complaints were made about nuisance phone calls and spam text messages in the last year to the Information Commissioners Office.

Yet just five fines were issued against the companies responsible.

The Sunday Post has learned several Scottish firms are now firmly in the sights of the ICO.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said: “Nuisance calls have plagued consumers for far too long which is why we recently changed the law, making it easier to take action against offenders, and we’re now looking at making it illegal for marketing companies to withhold their number.

“We also have a £3.5 million package in place to explore ways of protecting people from nuisance calls, including trialling the development of new call blocking technology.”

In June we reported how the elderly were to be given free nuisance calls blockers as part of a £3.5 million Government package.