We’re sure everyone hates being cold called as much as the next person, after all most of the time it’s for products or services we really don’t need! Well a man in the UK by the name of Lee Beaumont has decided to turn the tables on telemarketers by getting himself a premium-rate phone number in which he actually ends up making money from cold calls! This started back in 2011 when he paid £10 to setup a personal premium-rate line, and what this means is that if you were to call him, it would cost you 10p from which Beaumont would then receive 7p.
To date it seems that Beaumont has managed to rack up about £300 from his premium-line which does not seem like much, but we guess it’s still something. The premium-rate number is being used by Beaumont when he fills in application forms, and when asked why he decided to do something like this, he responded by saying, “Because I’m getting annoyed with PPI phone calls when I’m trying to watch Coronation Street so I’d rather make 10p a minute.” It has proved to be pretty effective as cold calls received by Beaumont has reportedly fallen to about 13 calls a month, down from 20-30 calls a month.
Of course this should not be attempted by everyone as you could be fined as it is considered an abuse of the system. Regulators Phone Pay Plus was quoted as saying, “Premium-rate numbers are not designed to be used in this way and we would strongly discourage any listeners from adopting this idea, as they will be liable under our code for any breaches and subsequent fines that result.” Admittedly it is still pretty clever.
Filed in . Read more about Legal.