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Ofcom and Silent Calls (Read 76,752 times)
Dave
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #60 - Apr 19th, 2012 at 5:04pm
 
The topic of the HomeServe fine for silent calls will be covered on Radio 5 Live at 18:20 this evening. A representative of the Fair Telecoms Campaign will commenting.

See also the story from the Telegraph:

Homeserve fined £750,000 for silent calls
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sherbert
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #61 - Jul 2nd, 2012 at 11:30am
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2167553/Thousands-hassled-unwanted...

Thousands still hassled by unwanted cold callers... despite Government scheme to block them

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 08:39, 2 July 2012 | UPDATED: 09:50, 2 July 2012


The Information Commissioner is receiving thousands of complaints a month about telemarketing calls

Thousands of households are still being hassled by unwanted cold callers, despite signing up to a new Government scheme designed to stop them.

Telemarketing firms are flouting the service designed to allow the public to block cold calls, an inquiry has revealed.

Not a single fine has been imposed on an offending company for at least 18 months, it found. This is despite thousands of complaints being lodged with the Information Commissioner each month.

Around 17.5 million phone numbers are registered with the Telephone Preference Service – a scheme designed to prevent UK-based companies from making unwanted cold calls.

Industry rules say telemarketing firms should crosscheck their database to ensure those who have asked not to be cold called are left in peace.

But Mike Lordan at the Direct Marketing Association, which runs the TPS, told a Panorama investigation to be broadcast tonight on BBC1 that some companies were ignoring the rules.



He said: ‘Companies are not abiding by legislation and we should be seeing enforcement against those companies who are persistently breaching legislation.’

Richard Lloyd from Which? also told the programme: ‘Even if you have signed up to the telephone preference service now, it won’t make a jot of difference to those companies that are buying and selling that information you gave to that website maybe years ago.’

Panorama says the UK public receive up to three billion marketing calls a year.

One of its undercover reporters secretly filmed staff at Central Claims Group, based in Bury, near Manchester, allegedly tearing pages out of the phone book and calling people at random.

In a statement to Panorama, Central Claims Group said it took its legal and regulatory obligations very seriously and did not condone any lapses.

It said it had ‘informed all employees that using the ordinary telephone directory or introducing themselves as anything other than Central Claims Group will be regarded as gross misconduct warranting summary dismissal’.

A spokesman for the Information Commissioner’s office said that until  this year, it did not have suitable legal powers to act.

Although it now has the power to impose fines of up to £500,000, it said that enforcing the rules was not easy given the vast amounts of money that companies which flout the rules stand to make.


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catj
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #62 - Jul 2nd, 2012 at 9:45pm
 
The DMA have produced a 'toolkit' to help marketers respond to criticisms...
http://www.dma.org.uk/toolkit/panorama-cold-calling-undercover-pr-toolkit
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sherbert
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #63 - Jul 3rd, 2012 at 8:37am
 
Watching the Panorama programme last night, it could have been a repeat from five years ago and no doubt the programme will be much the same if they do another one in five years time. Same old problems are still going on, nothing has been done or will be done to stop these outrageous practices. Angry
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sherbert
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #64 - Jul 3rd, 2012 at 12:05pm
 
This is the sort of nonsensical reply when you complain to The Information Commissioner’s Office........

Dear **************

Thank you for your correspondence about unsolicited automated direct marketing phone regarding PPI claims.

What we do
The Information Commissioner’s Office regulates the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR).  The PECR are concerned with the way organisations send marketing material by fax, text, email and telephone.  Marketing can include the promotion of goods, services, aims or ideals.

Automated direct marketing calls
Regulation 19 of the PECR says that automated direct marketing calls cannot be made without prior consent.   Automated calls usually take the form of a pre-recorded message.

Regulation 24 says that the caller must identify themselves when making automated marketing calls and must provide a valid business address or freephone number.

In most cases our approach to complaints is to educate organisations to help them understand what the PECR require.  We will also advise them to take any steps necessary to comply with the PECR in future.

Next steps
Where we receive a valid complaint about an identifiable organisation, we will raise a written complaint with the organisation in question, reminding them of their obligations under the PECR and asking them to suppress the complainant’s contact details. Please note that we are not able to physically prevent or ‘block’ any organisation from calling a particular number as it is not within the Commissioner’s powers to do so. 

Using the systems/databases available to us, we have unfortunately on this occasion been unable to identify the organisation that has called you.

The Information Commissioner’s Office is aware of a number of organisations making these types of calls.  Regrettably they can provide difficult to identify and take action against.

We will, however, keep a record of your complaint as these records may assist us in identifying organisations breaching the PECR in the future.

If we collate information from a number of different complaints we are much more likely to be able to identify those responsible with a view to taking further action against them.  Going forward, you can report any further automated calls which you receive via our website at: Receiving unwanted marketing texts or calls? Please use this link to report any further automated calls which you receive. 

Any action which we take as a result of these reports will be available on our website, www.ico.gov.uk. 

I am sorry we were unable to be of assistance on this occasion.

Yours sincerely
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« Last Edit: Jul 3rd, 2012 at 12:06pm by sherbert »  
 
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CJT-80
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #65 - Jul 3rd, 2012 at 2:14pm
 
Good Afternoon,

This may or may not be appropriate to post here, however after I did a Wikipedia search for the ICO, I found a link for the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), and this link has a petition to the Government - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/34069 regarding the effectiveness of the TPS. I for one will be signing it.

Smiley
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CJT-80

Any comments made are my own and are not those of SayNoTo0870.com
 
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Barbara
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #66 - Jul 3rd, 2012 at 7:35pm
 
CJT-80, thanks for the tip, two more signatures just added (subject to receiving the confirming email)
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sherbert
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #67 - Jul 3rd, 2012 at 8:02pm
 
Barbara wrote on Jul 3rd, 2012 at 7:35pm:
CJT-80, thanks for the tip, two more signatures just added (subject to receiving the confirming email)


.....and moi! For all the difference it will make  Roll Eyes (My confirming email has been received.)

Total signatures at the moment is 193
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« Last Edit: Jul 3rd, 2012 at 8:49pm by sherbert »  
 
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #68 - Jul 6th, 2012 at 3:40am
 
sherbert wrote on Jul 3rd, 2012 at 12:05pm:
This is the sort of nonsensical reply when you complain to The Information Commissioner’s Office........

Dear **************

Thank you for your correspondence about unsolicited automated direct marketing phone regarding PPI claims.

[...]

I am sorry we were unable to be of assistance on this occasion.

Yours sincerely
As with almost any telephony or numbering abuse in the UK, enforcement action appears to be at a minimum, whether the abuse relates to 0844 numbers within the NHS, PRS and MT SMS text scams, or unsolicited calls. The onus is always on the customer to clear many hurdles to achieve what should be a simple resolution. The feckless regulator maneuvers such that it can absolve itself from getting involved in any activity that may assist the consumer.

A possible solution, that would soon stop much of the cold-calling activity would be to impose a fine, say 100 pounds, for each verifiable call made by a telemarketer to someone who has requested not to receive such calls. The money would be split between the victim and the body overseeing such a scheme. There's little point in threatening half a million pound fines where, realistically, they will never be collected. One hundred quid a pop will hit them where it hurts.

Additionally, telemarketers must be mandated to provide valid caller ID information. Here, federal law requires all telemarketers to transmit CID data. CID spoofing is also in violation of federal law, and whilst these measures do not eliminate junk and silent calls, they certainly help.
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As from November 21, 2013, I no longer participate in the forum and am unable to receive private messages.
 
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #69 - Jul 7th, 2012 at 1:15am
 
Have just added my name to the petition, now 224

I have recently started getting Reclaim PPI calls coming up as International - previously it was only Compuuter Scam calls - now the Scam calls are after Account Details PPI - the last Computer Scam was With-held so are these still coming from India and China - I thought With-held was only this Country.
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SilentCallsVictim
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #70 - Sep 3rd, 2012 at 12:58am
 
This issue is now being heavily pushed in Scotland.

See this article in the Sunday Post and the campaign being run in conjunction with Mike Crockart MP.



I believe that the photo used by the Sunday Post is not of Debbie Harry.
...

Blondie could however provide a most suitable theme song for some aspects of our campaigns.
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sherbert
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #71 - Jun 18th, 2013 at 2:30pm
 
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Re: Ofcom and Silent Calls
Reply #72 - Jul 30th, 2013 at 2:54pm
 
speedy wrote on Jul 7th, 2012 at 1:15am:
I have recently started getting Reclaim PPI calls coming up as International - previously it was only Compuuter Scam calls - now the Scam calls are after Account Details PPI - the last Computer Scam was With-held so are these still coming from India and China - I thought With-held was only this Country.


International can come up even if people who are UK based use a cheap Voip or other similar service to connect to the call to UK.  PPI chasing call centres are normally UK based in my experience.

The position on International CLI's seems to have been changing lately as BT never provided them on my rural exchange but I nearly always got International CLI of the caller on my mobile.  But I now generally also get the CLI on my BT line.

Perhaps someone has finally got the OFT or Ofcom to do something about BT Openreach having the nerve to charge for a CLI service that is actually worse than the free equivalent service offered to all mobile phone users.
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