MUM Samantha Wallis was shocked on Monday May 5 when she received a cold call from a tele-salesman who refused to take no for an answer.

Mrs Wallis, of Oak Lane, Easterton, was shaken up by the tactics used by the caller, who claimed to be ringing on behalf of a company called Catch Easterton Home Security Services.

She said: "He told me that representatives of the company were going to be in our area and asked if one of them could call on me to show me their products.

"When I said I was perfectly happy with the service provided by the police and didn't want anyone calling on me, he went completely mad.

"He said they were going to call on me anyway and that there would be more than one of them.

"He said it in such an unpleasant and aggressive way, I was very frightened by it. I was shaking when I put the phone down."

Mrs Wallis, who has three young children, called the police and reported the incident.

Wiltshire County Council's Trading Standards department said that about 40 per cent of their workload at the moment is taking calls complaining about aggressive techniques used by salesmen from home security companies.

Senior officer Sue Wilkin said: "We get hundreds of calls each week about security companies in general and their aggressive sales techniques, not taking no for an answer. These salesman are working on commission and are desperate to make a sale, but that is no excuse for it.

"There are a number of firms selling alarm systems who use this kind of sales technique and Trading Standards departments across the country are building up a dossier of cases to use against them."

Under current legislation Trading Standards can apply to have a "stop now" order made against a company, banning them from using hard-sell techniques.

Ms Wilkin said: "The best thing to do is to have nothing to do with them. There are a lot of good, reputable home security firms in the local area."

Earlier this year, Devizes police warned people about another home security firm using aggressive selling techniques European Environmental Controls Ltd.

Sgt Guy Williams at Devizes police station said: "Elderly and vulnerable people are very much at risk from this kind of selling and we would advise everyone to have nothing to do with them."

Ms Wilkin said: "The trouble with buying these people's products is that they come along, do a dozen houses in the area and then disappear. If anything goes wrong it is very difficult to get them back to sort it.

"It is much better to get a reputable local firm to do the work. They have a reputation to protect."