The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is a scheme whereby those who are
plagued by unwanted sales calls can reduce them by requesting a registration
form from their telephone service provider. Once registered, telephone marketing
companies who belong to the scheme have undertaken not to call any numbers which
are registered.
The scheme is voluntary and not all telemarketing companies belong to it. It is usually the small local ones which do not belong and they can be a considerable nuisance. Now, at last, we can obtain some protection from these pests. The Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 1999, which came into effect in March, makes it illegal for any company to make an unsolicited call for the purpose of direct marketing to any subscriber who has previously registered an unwillingness to receive such calls.
Thus anyone who receives unwanted sales calls from a firm which is not participating in the TPS can write to the firm saying that they do not wish to receive any more calls. The company is then required to keep the request on record and if they still make calls we can protest to either OFTEL or the Data Protection Registrar who may be able to help.
There is a difficulty which the legislators may not have thought about, which illustrates the importance of consultation with real consumers. Have you ever tried to obtain a phone number from the firm making a telephone sales call, let alone an address? The sales staff, in the Editor's experience (but see the correspondence page) are instructed not to reveal either. You may be lucky and find the name and address in the phone book, but then you might not, as the name given on the phone may not be the one used by the firm for other purposes.
That apart, what this new legislation means is that the Director General of Telecommunications will keep an up to date record of those subscribers who have given notice that they do not want to receive unsolicited direct sales calls. If a subscriber then receives another call, an offence has been committed and the subscriber can claim compensation. These new regulations also apply to communications faxed to an individual. If you have a fax machine you will have noticed that sometimes unsolicited faxes have a message in small letters telling you what to do if you do riot wish to receive any more.
Thanks to Croydon Council's Consumer Advisory Service for this information.
The above rather prosaic title hides a mystery solved. Have you ever
wondered why, when a caller o
n your phone hangs up or does not leave a message
on your answerphone, you cannot, by dialling the appropriate code (in my case
1471), find out who it was? The caller did not wish to be identified. I have
always assumed that such callers are sales people trying to interest me in
double glazing, patio doors, kitchens and the like and their system cannot cope
with people phoning them. My assumption has been strengthened when I answer the
phone to such people because I usually say that I am busy and will phone them
back. They are not usually prepared to give me a number to call.
A press release from OFTEL tells a slightly different story. Calling Line Identification (CLl) is the service which displays the caller's number to the customer at the other end of the line and is provided so that the customer can easily the caller. The current rules only allow this practice if the caller's number can be verified by the network. This was a safeguard introduced that the number really did refer to the telephone from which the call was made.
The difficulty which has now appeared is that some large organisations have their own private telephone networks and are forced to withhold their numbers when making calls because the number verification system does not work with private networks and could lead to misrouting return calls or incorrect numbers. Perhaps, therefore, this explains the withholding of the caller's number when the person receiving, but not being able to answer, the call uses the 1471 service.
However, from 1st March a new EU law (the Telecoms Data Protection Directive 97/66/EC) gives the customer the right to reject any calls where the CLI is withheld. This law is designed to protect people from unsolicited marketing calls and nuisance calls and is to be welcomed. But it also means that the genuine calls from reputable organisations will also be rejected if they are prevented from providing an acceptable CLI for technical reasons.
To get over this difficulty OFTEL has agreed to amend licences to require callers to provide an authentic CLI number which will be inserted into the call when it breaks out onto the public network, rather than having the telephone company look for one. Companies who misuse their CLI will risk having it withdrawn and also risk prosecution under the Data Protection and Telecommunications Law. Does this weaken the protection attempted by the EU Directive?
David Edmonds, Director General of Communications, does not think so. "I believe that this solution gives customers a strong measure of protection. They will be able to identify the CLI of the many reputable organisations wanting to provide a useful number for their customers, while rejecting the calls they do not want to receive. It is now up to organisations and companies to ensure that they use these numbers in a responsible manner. There are serious penalties if they don't."
While businesses are increasingly installing caller identification telephones, they are still not common in ordinary households.
To register your number online, contact www.dma.org.uk, (the Direct Marketing Association) who administer the Telephone and Fax Preferences Service. There are online forms for each achievable from their web site.
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