ER – hello? This is me somewhat cautiously answering the telephone at home. Is that Mrs Nelson? asks an apparently vacuous twenty-something year-old with a just-detectable hint of boredom. Who wants to know? you ask suspiciously because you suspect that this is yet Another One.

This is the Energy Savings something-or-other-service and could you confirm that you are in fact the householder and confirm your address for me? comes back the response. The answer is no to both questions, you say, because I want to know what you’re selling first.

I’m not trying to sell you anything, reads the dull witted airhead from her call-centre script, I just want to give you a quote about how you can save energy in your home…

This, you tell her indignantly, is a cold call, as I haven’t invited you to phone me, and you are clearly trying to sell something. And, you go on, your own ‘script’ at the ready, this number is registered with the Telephone Preference Service, which means it’s a legal requirement that you don’t call… Clunk!

The line goes dead because they’ve pulled the plug on you. Incensed at the rudeness of the vacant one you stab 1471 into your handset only to find the number they’re calling you from has been withheld.

Which makes you completely impotent and powerless to take any further action. You can’t stop calls from this outfit because you can’t phone them to tell them to desist. Which is exactly where they want you.

Because they know they can call you again and again with impunity in the hope that some hapless person (maybe a pensioner perhaps – now, they’re good game.) will be worn down and agree to anything to get these telephone stalkers – because let’s face it, that’s exactly what they are – off their backs.

I’ve ranted about telephone cold calling in this column before and if anything, it’s now worse then ever. We’re still getting up to 20 calls a week from thick-skinned chancers many of whom, frankly, are irascible and bloody rude.

We’ve even had some stroppy and insistent jerk on the line who accused me of lying when I insisted that no, I most definitely had not been involved in a road accident in the previous 18 months because after all, I would remember wouldn’t I, and why would I report it to my insurance company just for my premiums to go up, or the police to run the risk of being reported for an offence of wasting police time, if I hadn’t?

And when you do tell them your number is registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and can you speak to their supervisor so you can register a complaint about their tactics, you just know as certain as night follows day that they’re laughing at you on the other end of the line as they pull off their headsets, roll their eyes and ask their mate to play the boss for a minute to two to see us off…

As for the wonderfully toothless TPS, it’s a complete joke. It’s website tells you to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, an independent quango set up to “uphold information rights in the public interest”, which in turn passes the buck back to the TPS. Talk about stalemate.

But what they do have in common is that if you do decide to complain, both want you to produce a complaint report for every single telesales call you get. Like we’ve all got time to fill in online questionnaires every time the phone rings? Get real, please…

All this means is that unscrupulous cold callers are getting away with it in spades. They must be laughing teacakes into their headsets. It beats me why it’s not illegal for telesales outfits to withhold their telephone number, but there again, if they’re already breaking the law by calling TPS-registered numbers they’re hardly going to take any notice of legislation telling them their number has to be traceable are they?

I even looked into setting up a government e-petition with the aim of getting legislation against cold callers strengthened, but discovered there are already five petitions targeting cold calls in existence. And guess what? Collectively the grand total of 89 people has signed them.

So is it just me who gets incensed by cold calling? Or is it that everyone – the Government included, because if no one’s making a fuss it clearly won’t do anything – knows there’s damn all we can do about it?