Just give me the long number from your bank card

My mother makes notes. Not always, just when there's something to tell me. Her latest contains a name (Natalie) and a telephone number (0800 0119290), along with the words 'stop all calls' and 'pay with Visa, give a password'. Apparently Natalie had phoned and had offered to help protect mum against unwanted sales calls. The irony of Natalie herself being an unwanted sales call was apparently never addressed.

"Just give me the long number from your card" was one of Natalie's preferred phrases, mum tells me. Given that mum treats her bank card as being more precious than the money it offers access to, that was never going to happen. Besides, she's already registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), which is (a) a free service and (b) the official opt-out list for avoiding unsolicited sales or marketing calls.

So what exactly was Natalie offering? Well, it seems she was promising to sign mum up to some kind of minimum-term contract deal. For a recurring fee, Nuisance Protect Ltd would register mum with the Telephone Preference Service and the Mail Preference Service (which is free if you do it yourself) and would contact companies that ignore the TPS or MPS regulations (although there was no explanation of how they'd find contact details for these errant organisations).

And - according to their website - "if a company contacts you and asks you for banking information over the phone", they will "search government websites and do as much research as possible on these companies to ensure that you are not going to fall victim to fraud and they are safe and reputable to be dealing with".

So I imagine it would tell me that Nuisance Protect Limited was incorporated on 18th June 2014 and the registered office appears to be a terraced house at 29 Nimbus Close, Littlehampton, BN17 6RX. It would also point out that Nuisance Protect had the status of 'dormant' when it published its last set of accounts (30th June 2015), with company director Mark Strange noting the business had assets of just £1. I don't think mum's going to help them increase that figure.