Beware of scam calls - "Government Grant Scheme"

I had a telephone call earlier today from what is almost certainly a scam outfit. I was asked initially if I was "William Cameron", I responded querying who was calling. The person (a Scottiah male voice, with a well-spoken Glasgow accent) said he was calling about/from the "Government Grant Scheme". As I invariably do, I then said quite politely "no thanks, goodbye" and hung up. I was in bed at the time, propped up with a laptop on my lap, but only looked at the caller number a little later, after having blocked future calls (I pay for a service called 'choose to refuse') and was a little surprised to see it was listed openly rather than being 'withheld' or from a foreign proxy, as is so often the case with these cold-call scams. In any case the number was a Glasgow number (0141 438 2187) and a quick Google search threw up this, with a number of the links confirming this is indeed a scam outfit.

I think most sensible people can recognise this kind of call for what it is almost immediately, but some more gullible folks or perhaps some elderly folks with poor hearing might be fooled by these con-artists. So this is a warning just to be careful and not to be drawn into a conversation with such people. I am never rude when I hang up, by the way, I always say something like "no thanks, goodbye" and hang up, then block future calls if possible with my 'choose to refuse' access code. Job done!

PS/ Like many others, I subscribe to the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) which theoretically should stop cold-calls, but as has been mentioned recently in the media the rules are being flouted by some less-reputable (and some otherwise seemingly pretty reputable) outfits; 'choose to refuse' is a second line of defence for me which I began to use over 10 years ago.