London Hosts the Most Nuisance Callers by Percentage of All UK Reports

A rather basic new study, which was conducted by tech refurbishment firm Back Market, has analysed the number of nuisance call reports coming from 752 area codes across the UK – as reported on who-called.co.uk – to see which ones receive the highest percentage of reports nationally. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its size, London was found to be the area most exploited by cold callers.

The researchers also analysed the most recent comments left while making these reports to determine what people had to say about the most common scams nationally. Overall, London took the top spot for the area where the most nuisance calls (numbers) originate from in the UK. A total of 3.58 million reports of nuisance phone numbers have been made against 020 area code numbers on who-called.co.uk, making up 20.14% of the UK’s 17.77 million reports.

Naturally, Manchester was the second-hardest hit by nuisance callers, with 3.44% of all reports filed nationally against 0161 area code numbers. In total, Manchester numbers have had 611,150 nuisance caller reports. But this is where things take an unexpected turn, with the relatively small market town of Blandford Forum in Dorset somehow managing to come third in the table (2.86%).

The 01258 area code for Blandford Forum received 508,653 nuisance call reports in total, which is very unusual for a location with a population of just 11,796. But it also received significantly fewer look-ups (1,218,237) by visitors of the related website, which suggests to us that the data should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt (they also fail to specify what time period the data covers)

The study also found that scammers routinely impersonate trusted institutions like banks, Amazon, and broadband ISPs such as BT. Banks were the most frequent institution scammers impersonated, with 587 out of 1,168 reports (50%) they looked at mentioning matters relating to bank accounts.

Top UK Area Codes Used by Nuisance Callers (% of National Reports)

Most of the United Kingdom’s major broadband, phone and mobile network providers have already implemented various technical measures to tackle Nuisance Calls and Scam Calls. But these aren’t always 100% effective, although the industry and Ofcom are constantly working to improve the situation (here).