Hi..I keep getting nuisance junk or courtesy calls and are very annoying..Is there any chance i can change my phone number or go ex directory..And how do you go about it ?..I have been getting these calls just recently and its bugging me , and i want it stopped? Any ideas, ta ..Two people have called today and its so annoying

Start by signing up with the Telephone Preference Service at http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/index.html or check if your phone company has some options that include that (BT does, for example).

It won't work for those businesses who call from abroad, or use random dialling, but a new or ex-directory number won't stop them either.

Other options are to get caller ID so you can see who's calling and ignore the "anonymous" calls, and/or an answering machine with "call screening" so that you can let it answer and you can then listen to the caller's message. You can pick up if you actually want to talk to the caller.

There's no guaranteed solution, it's just a plague that affects modern communications, like email spam.

There is only one way to stop these calls that is absolutely 100% guaranteed to work.

Rip the master phone socket off the wall and pull the wires that are now hanging loose back through the wall and all the way back to the BT telegraph pole or roadside cabinet.

Then never ever get the phone replaced.

It matters not how many times you change your number, whether you go ex-directory or not and if you keep the number completely secret and never tell anyone what it is. If you have a phone line that works eventually you WILL get unwanted sales calls on it.

You can invest in devices such as TrueCall which sit on your line screening calls automatically for you. Won't stop the calls occurring but with TrueCall you may never know they happened as it intercepts the calls before your phone rings and only passes on the call if they bother to respond to the message it plays to the caller.

Though at 99 quid or so not a cheap option. But unfortunately there are few options open short of never having a phone line. You can register with TPS which will stop a proportion of these calls from legitimate companies. But not everybody plays by the rules and many just ignore TPS. And TPS won't necessarily stop calls from overseas (only if they are on behalf of a UK company).

If one of these call centres is using random number dialling kit then they don't even need to know your number. They just dial a random block of numbers and hope to land on a real line. Not much you can do about that sort of thing.