Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2013. The figures, an average of 30 calls a month falling to 10–13 and €500 earned “to date”, describe the situation at the time. UK rules on 0871 and other premium-rate numbers have changed since.
Most people know what it is like to get those annoying calls trying to sell you anything at any time of day, whether it is phone companies wanting you to switch provider, disguised surveys whose real aim is to sell you something, and so on.
Practically everyone wants to stop these calls, and some countries even let users sign up to a register to keep them from coming in (such as Spain’s Robinson List), which in many cases still fails to stop them. But Lee Beaumont, a man in Britain who was tired of receiving an average of 30 calls a month, found a way to make money from these calls. So far he has earned €500 by answering unwanted calls. How did he do it?
Lee Beaumont took out a premium-rate line, an 0871 number in Britain, whose equivalent in Spain would be an 803 line, the kind used by TV psychics. Every time he filled in a form online or signed a contract with a gas company, a phone company and so on, Mr Beaumont gave the premium-rate number, so when they called to offer him other products, he was earning money just by picking up the phone.
That said, many companies know what is going on with this number, so, as Mr Beaumont told the BBC, the nuisance calls have dropped from 30 a month to just 10 or 13. Of course, now, far from getting annoyed every time an unwanted call comes in, Lee answers politely and doesn’t mind spending as much time as necessary with the salesperson, since he is generating income.
This clever idea has certainly solved the problem. However, Britain’s premium-rate regulators have warned users not to use this method, as they could be breaching consumer protection rules, stressing that premium-rate numbers are not designed to be used this way and that people could face fines and penalties.
For now, while none of us welcome this kind of call, Mr Beaumont says he wants to receive lots of telemarketing calls, because they no longer bother him; quite the opposite.
Needless to say, Lee Beaumont is a businessman who works from home, so here we have another case of how an entrepreneurial mindset quickly turns a problem into a business.
Featured image: Mk2010, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
