At the time Maureen Lipman appeared in TV adverts in the late 1980s encouraging us to use the telephone to stay in touch a ringing telephone often created a sense of excitement as to who the caller might be As Virginia Woolf had observed much earlier
Now fast forward to 2013. Nowadays a phone call has every chance of being an unwanted sales call or a recorded voice offering the opportunity to make easy money. Your phone company will have procedures in place for dealing with threatening, obscene or malicious calls. If you’re fed up with getting other nuisance calls or texts, while there are things you can do about it the organisation to which the complaint should be made does vary.
Which? the consumer organisation has found that less than a fifth of consumers officially complain about nuisance calls. This is because people don’t know how to complain and to whom they should direct their complaint. Which? has introduced a new on line tool to make it easier to complain. If nuisance calls are to be reduced it is important that consumers complain so that where appropriate enforcement action can be brought against companies which break the rules.
Which? has recently introduced an on line tool which simplifies the process of making a complaint against unwanted calls and texts as part of a campaign to call time on nuisance calls and texts. The on line tool can be found at
http://www.which.co.uk/campaigns/nuisance-calls-and-texts/
When you get a marketing call or text you have not requested, gather as much relevant information as you cab, including the name of the company, the number from which the call or text came, the type of product being marketed and the date and time the call or text was received. Then simply tick the appropriate boxes on the tool and it will direct you to the organisation to which the complaint should be made
Which? wants
– a tough new approach from Government to give people power over their personal data
– regulators to have new powers to police and punish companies that break the rules
– industry to provide technical fixes to filter out unwanted calls and texts.
Remember also
- it is unlawful to send unsolicited direct marketing e-mails or text messages to you, unless you have previously agreed that it is ok to do so. If there is an existing customer relationship between you and a company, It can send you unsolicited messages about similar products and services, as long as you are given the option to refuse it
- don’t reply to unsolicited texts as the reply confirms that the mobile number is in use and could be used to send further spam texts. Instead you should forward spam texts to your mobile provider (for Everything Everywhere and 02 text 7726, for Vodafone text 8772, for 3 text 37726)
- silent calls are normally caused by automated caller systems used in call centres. The automated system dials a number but if there aren’t enough call centre staff to take all the calls, you may end up with silence on the end of the phone.
