Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Beware of National Accident Helpline Imposters
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThere have been a string of recent complaints from consumers receiving cold calls, some of which have been abusive, from scammers pretending to be from the National Accident Helpline.
Yep, another cold calling scam!
The National Accident Helpline is committed to never making cold calls and has set up its own ‘Stop Nuisance Calls’ campaign to help clamp down on unsolicited calls.
However, less scrupulous companies are using the National Accident Helpline name as a way of convincing consumers they are talking to the personal injury organisation – in fact recently a cold caller even phoned in to the National Accidedent Helpline contact centre claiming to be them!
Beth Powell, Marketing Director at National Accident Helpline said “We are very concerned by the trend of rogue companies misusing our name with the aim of tricking consumers. We want to make it absolutely clear that National Accident Helpline never cold calls or texts. Many of the people who are bombarded with these cold calls haven’t even had an accident, but for those that have it is important that, should they be considering making a claim, they choose a reputable company to talk to.
“If these companies are willing to market to consumers in such an unethical manner, then it may be that the standard of their service is equally poor. We’d urge people to exercise extreme caution when thinking about using them for their personal injury claim.”
Have you been contacted by one of these cold callers? Let us know in the comments below.
I don’t remember how many times I received these kind of calls, but all I do now is just ignoring calls from numbers I don’t recognize. This is the best thing I could do, because most of those calls are coming from scammers and telemarketers. Almost everyday I could read reports and warnings filed online, like at whycall.me and another similar websites about these scam calls. Beware of such scams, folks. Keep spreading the word.
got called today from number 020 81331861 claiming to be from National accident helpline saying that they understood I had been in an accident and could claim £3000, & they wanted details of when the accident took place and what happened.
I live in an apartment block with an intercom to my flat accessed by my flat number. I have received several calls of late on the intercom from National Accident Helpline saying someone on that number had had an accident.
I find it very disconcerting that an outside company can access my intercom and do not understand how they do this.
When I asked what number were they ringing, the phone went dead. I would appreciate any advice on how they are managing to get through to my intercom by telephone as it should be impossible.
Hi Kathleen.
I asked Actionfraud about this but sadly they didn’t have anything particularly helpful to say. This is what they replied: “I’m afraid your enquiry does not sound like a fraud or cyber crime from the details you have given. It is therefore difficult to provide any advice.”
So ti sounds like you’re doing the right thing – asking who they are and how they are getting in touch. Being suspicious like that is clearly putting them off. I hope they get bored of it and stop bugging you!