Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 02:03 pm

My partner set up a new business less than a year ago and the whole exercise has opened my eyes to just what new businesses have to put up with nowdays – Forest Software has been trading for over 30 years and I am sure that all that time ago there were not so many pitfalls for the unwary new business owner.

These dangers include :-

• “Energy brokers” that trick small businesses into changing power suppliers and entering into contracts that can leave the businesses a lot worse off than they would have been.
• SEO firms that ring up out of the blue and tell businesses that they have a special relationship with Google and promise to get websites to the top of the search engines (despite Google telling you themselves that this is not possible).
• “telecoms consultants” who ring and tell you that BT is a lot more expensive than you need pay.
• Firms offering unsolicited loans to small businesses, seemingly without needing to put up any security.
• Credit card processing firms that promise you that their rates are less than all their competitors

Interestingly, all of these firms seem to ignore the fact that telephone numbers are TPS (telephone preference service) registered and they all with-hold their phone numbers so that people can’t report the calls to the correct person.  Another common theme is that none of them will willingly give the correct company name which makes it even more difficult to report them.

There is, I believe, a scheme that you can sign up for with BT to block calls from with-held numbers, but the problem with that is that many big firms and organisations like doctors surgeries will with-hold their numbers so you may end up blocking calls from clients and prospective clients or other important calls that you want to receive.

The only thing that you can really do is to set up some sort of phone screening service, maybe by using an answer-phone to intercept the calls – just be aware that you may get dozens of calls a day when you move into new business premises.

Personally I think it is time for the government to look at the problem and see what protection can be given to micro and small businesses – at the moment there is very little and they don;t even have the protection of having a cool-off period under distance selling regulations.