A 53-year-old man has successfully sued a cold calling firm for "wasting his time" by calling him again and again, winning a case in a small claims court this week.
Richard Herman, from Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, billed marketing company AAC £10 for each minute he was forced to spend on the phone with the company.
After AAC refused to pay up, he sued them in the small claims court and came away with £195 pounds for just under 20mins of calls, as well as the £25 court fee.
"I was feeling oppressed that I was getting called by these companies," Herman told the Daily Mail.
"Once I sent the company the invoice, I felt as though the boot was on the other foot. I wasn’t the victim any more."
Herman felt the phone calls were a nuisance, as he or his wife Ruth would always rush to the phone in case it was one of their three adult children trying to call.
Each call was an attempt to sell PPI compensation.
"Once I was out in the garden eating and picking raspberries and had the telephone with me in case the children called," he said.
"I was sat in the sun enjoying myself but one of these blasted companies called me – it was infuriating."
Herman has opened a website to help others bothered by the nuisance, saynotocoldcalls.com, and hopes his case will be cause for thought for the cold calling industry.