A COMPANY has axed all telephone canvassing amid claims from a man that he was harassed by sales staff for almost a year, despite asking for his number to be barred.

Robert Robinson says he has been plagued by phone calls and door-to-door callers from window manufacturer Safestyle UK and been on the receiving end of an abusive conversation.

He said: "I had someone from the company knocking on my door trying to sell me windows in April last year and received a first phone call around the same time and it led me to register my phone number with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS).

"This is a list of telephone numbers which are kept from marketing companies who are trying to sell their goods and once you are on it, which I have been since May, they are not supposed to contact you.

"But since then I have received about five or six phone calls from people saying they are from the company - the latest one was three weeks ago," said Mr Robinson, of of Rylands Street, Burnley.

"I asked the man for his name and told him I was on TPS and that I had told the company I didn't want any more calls from them.

"He started insulting me and the number he gave me to ring for complaints was one of those play-a-trick-on-your-friends numbers.

"When I came off the telephone I was shaking I was that angry."

Mr Robinson also claimed that his father-in-law, Ken Lovett, and father, Robert Robinson, had also received phone calls from the company and had one salesman arguing on the doorstep. He said: "I have spoken to someone at Safestyle UK and told them about the abusive call.

"Someone has to make a stand."

Customer services manager for Safestyle UK, Keith Watson, said: "I will do my best to track down who rang Mr Robinson. If this call was from someone from our company I do apologise and I will put a stop to it.

"Because of the growing number of people on the preference service we have dramatically reduced our telephone canvassing and during the last two weeks we have actually stopped it.

"We are now only calling our customers and people who have contacted us.

"I will see what I can do about Mr Robinson's complaint and will certainly put a bar on his phone number anyway."

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