Warning: Nicola Lloyd Williams was pestered by a car dealer
There
is no cast-iron way to stop all nuisance calls from getting through –
bar pulling out the phone line from the socket in the wall – but there
are measures you can take to make it difficult.
The
Telephone Preference Service pledges to stop many sales calls. It is
run by the Direct Marketing Association, which has more than 950
members.
Nicola Lloyd
Williams, 44, from Chester, Cheshire, says: 'I signed up to the
Telephone Preference Service for my home phone and it has certainly made
a difference. Only the occasional payment protection insurance company
now sneaks through.
'But
my mobile number was not included and I was pestered on a fortnightly
basis last year by a local car dealership that wanted to sell me
services I did not want.
'Despite
politely declining their offers and asking them never to bother me
again, it made no difference. Last month I got angry with the company
boss and said I would report it to a regulator unless the firm stopped
hounding me. This warning did the trick.'
Nicola,
who runs children's clothes shop Chateau de Sable in Chester, adds:
'What would happen if every trader I dealt with treated me this way? Any
service I used – from buying bananas to knickers – would be
cold-calling me. Life would be intolerable.'
Telecoms
watchdog Ofcom regulates silent calls while the Information
Commissioner's Office regulates most other calls. But both struggle to
act against foreign-based marketing firms that often hide their number.
An
Ofcom spokesman says: 'We are working on how to crack down on nuisance
calls from abroad. We urge people buying goods, especially online, to
ensure they do not give their consent to any follow-up marketing by
ticking – or failing to tick – a permission box when making the
purchase.'
Recorded
messages make up almost a fifth of nuisance calls, while live marketing
calls make up more than a third. The equally infuriating silent call
treatment also makes up a third.
Nuisance calls: The Telephone Preference Service pledges to stop many sales calls
Silent
calls occur when automatic dialler systems used by call centres make
more calls than they have people available to take them – and you are
greeted with silence before the line cuts off. An abandoned call is when
a company calls – either in person or through a recorded message – but
when you answer they then might just hang up.
Last
year Ofcom fined two firms – home efficiency provider Green Deal
Savings and MYIML, a firm that makes marketing calls on behalf of others
– £20,000 each for making thousands of abandoned and silent calls.
The
record fine imposed by Ofcom was £750,000, handed out to home insurer
HomeServe in 2012 for abandoning calls. Telecoms provider TalkTalk
received an identical penalty in 2011 for similar practices.
Ofcom
received 40,000 complaints about silent or abandoned calls last year
while the ICO received 175,000 complaints about nuisance calls and
texts. An ICO spokesperson says: 'The law change gives consumers a
chance to fight back.'
Contact:
Telephone Preference Service, 0845 070 0707, tpsonline.org.uk; ICO,
0303 123 1113, ico.org.uk; Ofcom, 0300 123 3333, Ofcom.org.uk.
Chapisha Maoni