More nuisance calling companies to face prosecution

Thanks for the continuing efforts from Richard and his colleagues. I’ve just posted on another Convo that I have had about one nuisance call per week in the past three months, whereas it was up to ten a day at times a year or two ago. Others are still having problems, so we need to keep up the efforts.

I am still in favour unsolicited calls to be opt-in rather than having to opt out via the TPS. What right has anyone to make phone calls to people in their homes or on their mobiles?

Despite literally millions of complaints about nuisance calls, the ICO has penalised less than a dozen companies so far. They are the wrong regulator for the job, especially since any penalties they issue are not allowed to cause financial distress or harm to the company concerned. The ICO does not have the power to close a rogue company down.

One company appealed the decision, and won on the basis that “substantial” harm or annoyance hadn’t been proven. The ICO itself asked for this loophole to be removed almost two years ago, but there has been a long delay. Now, just before the election, there is to be a minor amendment to the regulations.

Anyone that thinks this minor change to the wording of regulation that has been seen to fail for the last decade or more is some sort of “magic bullet” is delusional. This will have minimal effect. The ICO is badly under resourced and has limited powers. They are not likely to suddenly start dishing out hundreds of penalties.

Individual sector regulators hold the power to suspend or revoke licenses to trade. In those sectors where nuisance calls are a problem, a simple regulation banning the use of leads collected by telephone would bring most nuisance calls to a rapid end. Critically, it would also remove the market for selling in this country any leads collected by overseas call centres.

The changes announced today do need to be made. They are, however, just minor tweaks to flawed regulation and will have little effect in the grand scheme of things. Do we really have to wait several more years before proper action is taken? Presumably this topic won’t be revisited until just before the elections in 2020.

Since the news broke, I’ve had 9 calls from withheld numbers and 2 international.

My wife was at home today on leave and had 6 phone calls from these nuisance callers. I had 3 on my mobile whilst at work. So in one day 9 calls and not one from somebody I wanted to talk to.
These companies and callers are literally stalkers making life hell. The Government needs to do more than fine these people. Instead lock them up and throw away the key.

Nuisance callers are now, instead of withholding their number, supplying a number which can look genuine but cannot be recognized if you call back. 002071234567 is one such number;the number is one digit too long but if you phone this number, omitting the first digit you will hear a message that they are sorry but this service is no longer available, or in other words number withheld.

This past week I have had calls on Solar panels ,Alarm systems ,and Research.How many times do you have to tell these people you don’t want solar panels, how many times do you have to tell them you already have an adequate alarm system and that your daughter has her own research company and that you dont answer questions for other firms .It will be the same next week and the house calling for new windows has not stopped either .3 called recently .but worst of all is if my dog doesn’t recognize the callers scent he rips a lump from my front door mat .and it’s getting expensive .perhap I should sue for replacements .

Just experienced today what could be a disturbing new sales tactic by these people. Woken up by phone ringing 7.15AM Saturday morning – coming too and having elderly parents and 18yr old who was sleeping over at friends I assumed must be genuine call and answered. Silent call. I did a 1471 thinking one of them not in a position to speak or battery died -. number starting 001. So reassured and assumed someone at call centre had turned their automatic dialler on at ridiculous and I assume illegal hour (what are the regulations) Didn’t have a pen paper to hand in dark so went back to sleep thinking would repeat 1471 later and report to appropriate people. 15 minutes later woken up again by phone ringing. again silent call. did 1471 – but this time no caller number (and now original 7.15am number lost) By this time very annoyed at lack of sleep!! and inability to report anyone specific. Bad enough BUT then at 10.30am received a call from (number withheld) clearly offshore eastern based marketing company masquerading as TPS (had them call before and they are quite good at pretending to be “official” ) saying they “understand that I am still being troubled by unsolicited marketing calls etc etc.” By this time exceptionally annoyed and told the woman in no uncertain terms that as sales tactic of making 7am nuisance calls and then trying to sell useless solution was completely unacceptable. Very concerned that this sort of tactic used on more vulnerable recipients likely to both result in purchases of useless services and very worried people.

My worst source of nuisance calls (texts) was my ISP (vodafone) – up to 6 a day. I hope they’ve at last stopped.

i get them on my landline and mobile and I live in France!

For any legislation to be effective it needs to make the organisation on whose behalf a call is being made responsible for any transgressions. This would get us away from the tendency to use agencies to make calls from overseas in order to escape legislation. Most of the calls that I get these days show up as International on my caller display.