Victory! Government announces a Nuisance Calls Action Plan

“a task force reviewing how people consent to receive marketing calls” or in layman’s terms a delaying tactic kicking it into the long grass. Especially in light of this action plan task force coming out of a initiative set up in Jan 2013 according to the ICO press release

Surely all they need to do is publish the following action plan:

1) Wording for opting in MUST use the SAME wording. e.g.. Click to opt in to receiving …

2) that wording to only be on one screen ( for internet opt-ins) where you specify name and address/ email etc and not in the case of some companies here there and everywhere with the wording AND meaning changing everytime.

3) The default is always blank.

Just those steps should slow some of these people down.

I’d also like to see a restriction on companies passing on details. If someone wants my details then sure if they pay me enough to change my identify and go into hiding afterwards. Otherwise no, it shouldn’t be allowed. The direct marketing organisation has due to lack of its own initiative brought these draconian measures on themselves.

On the subject of consent, there should be a time limit placed on it of at most 6 months but ideally 3 months; this would prevent the “old” consents still be used, as well as preventing “recycled” numbers being used. For example, in February this year, I was phoned by a company based on a March 2008 website consent form for an entirely different company; YES 6 years ago and it was not even my phone number in March 2008.

Furthermore, if your details are to be passed on, then the names of all the companies must be made available to you before you consent. No more use of the phrases “carefully selected companies” or “our partners”, and of course it would take the “data suppliers” out of the chain.

Surely if companies what to share my details then let them provide links to those companies where I can specifically request it per partner company.

I know I won’t be clicking on them.

Sharing data should be illegal, I should have to sign up for each company. should I wish.

Hmmm . . . the words ‘too little too late’ come to mind. Faffing about with the channels then leaving it to our flabby regulators will result in very little.

As always, follow the money! Spam email was ‘shrunk’ substantially by actions of the honest ISPs who began to recognise that their real customers were not the spammers but the subscribers and then started offering filters.

Also, the simple practice of attacking the ultimate beneficiaries, those who commission the anti-social practices. This was also the tactic to drastically cut fly posting in the UK, go after the people who commission and make money from the practices.

The Data Commissioner should get a grip and stop the sale and resale of OUR information unless positive rather than default authority has been given. In this matter our own public authorities should be made to stop selling and to recall all misuse of our Electoral Roll information.

I’m told that the latest dodge is to harvest those who opted out of the free access version by claiming access for credit enquiries! Now the NHS would like to sell our data . . . It is interesting looking on such databases as 192.com to see how intimate details have been cross referenced and made available for sale. The whole lot should be stopped.

Half measures with telcos who make money from nuisance calls and flabby regulators will simply prolong the problem. The job should be done once, immediately and thoroughly.

Well if we needed any more proof of just how many of these irritating calls we get, we are just back from a 2-week holiday, before which I had set our answering machine to cut in after only 4 rings, and forgot to inactivate it before going away: 42 “messages” of which only 2 were genuine ones from friends. Average of 3 a day. 5 today.

The ability to block caller ID was useful when the only possible ID was the calling number. Today it would be possible, and not very expensive, to have mandatory caller ID which identifies a calling phone with a unique account name or number which is not the number of the calling phone. Users should no longer be able to block such a caller ID, but would be able choose whether to allow or prevent their actual telephone number being sent with it.”Which?” should campaign for such a change to the system.

I’m fed up with receiving calls inviting me to replace my heating boiler, under some sort of “scrappage” scheme. Allegations that British Gas have sent customer details to a marketing firm, who have been bombarding me with calls.But I already have the latest condensing boiler….!
The UK call no appears on my phone but when I ring it back I get “unobtainable”. I’ve reported what I know to the TPS & ICO.

I’ll start heaping praise and congratulations when these calls stop coming in. Unitl then, what ever has been done, has obviously not been effective….yet. I AM grateful for the efforts, and hard work that Which and the politicians are doing. The determination to cold call seems to be a stubborn crusade to continue this evil. No one can now possibly have any doubt as to the depth of feeling against this trade. As I’ve said before, there’s money to be made somewhere and that’s where the problem lies.

Whatever is being done, clearly needs to happen sooner rather than later. So far today I’ve had 4 nuisance calls, 3 of which were silent and all 4 calls there was no return number or it was withheld.

From the comments here and elsewhere on the topic of nuisance calls I think there is an expectation that the Action Plan will remove all nuisance calls. This will require sensitive expectation management. Short of running a closed society (a la N Korea) the Action Plan can only hope to reduce the number of nuisance calls not eliminate them.

I would also add to some of the above good ideas, that for people who are in fear of there life, legislation should be added so they can withhold there number, one easy way, would be for an authority british home office to make a list available to police, and any one on list can get withheld number, while everyone in normal circumstances is not allowed to have number with held, also add to the list annoying STM messages, which are computer operated, they should be banned, as well.

I am coming late to this conversation, but would like to report the following problems:

(1) I too have been getting nuisance calls about boilers which imply that my house must be compulsorily inspected to see whether I must have a new boiler by a date in 2016.

(2) I have been using the Talktalk call blocking service and find that somehow I have blocked calls from a hospital about my treatment. The hospital could only reach me by alerting my local surgery. So I have now had to unblock everything.

(3) Hospital and doctors’ calls are always “withheld”, so you cannot distinguish them from nuisance calls. Hence we now find that we must answer all such calls just in case. Can’t this anomaly be sorted out?

Mike, I too have had the same phone call re boilers needing changing in 2016. I have bought a call blocking phone BT! But have found that if I change my settings to DO NOT DISTURB and allow VIP’s (such as family friends doctor’s etc. the call will get through. But and this is a big but, if your hospital uses withheld numbers then it won’t get through. Hope this helps.