News - Ofcom: complaints falling but telcos still a problem

[HEXUS]

Broadband speeds, silent calling and mis-selling are among the main complaints Ofcom still receives.

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[miniyazz]

Silent calls - Complaints about automated marketing calls and/or auto-diallers are rapidly increasing. Ofcom's answer is to rule that from February 2011 "...companies will no longer be able to call consumers without the guaranteed presence of a live operator more than once a day."

Just... lol.

[razer121]

Just... lol.

Why?

[aidanjt]

Why?

Because it's a pathetic half-hearted 'solution' to autodialers and other similar telemarketing annoyances.

[miniyazz]

Why?

Would you be happy to be called once per day by a machine trying to sell you stuff? And it's not even that - different companies can call you. And it's not even that - they can have machines call you as many tines per day as they want, as long as they have a guy in India there to speak to you in the unlikely event you don't hang up. I mean, seriously?

[razer121]

I get 5 plus calls a day from them anyway, silent "machines" plus the anoying indian chap/women trying to sell me something, then there is the debt collectors for a mr "carter" who died 5 odd years ago....so this would be good for me lol

[MonkeyL]

"Of course the fall could just as easily be due to people not believing Ofcom will act on them as any indication that things are getting better."

I believe this is more than likely true. The last time I complained to ofcom regarding BB speeds I was told they don't actively investigate anymore, and that there was little point complaining.

This from Ofcom themselves, so no surprise complaints have fallen.

[miniyazz]

I get 5 plus calls a day from them anyway, silent "machines" plus the anoying indian chap/women trying to sell me something, then there is the debt collectors for a mr "carter" who died 5 odd years ago....so this would be good for me lol

I would be changing my number and going ex-directory, tbh. This new regulation won't help you with the debt collectors, won't help you with the annoying indian chap/woman, and may or may not help with the machine calling. It is, IMO, useless.

[razer121]

Yes i figured that, i tend to just pick up put down and i tend to callt he debt collectors constantly on there freephone numbers (if they have one), BT refuse to change our number though

[deebee1970]

Hi - that's a common mis-conception about Ofcom, although they regulate they indutrsy they don't have a remit to deal with individual complaints. For those you need to go to one of the 2 Alternative Dispute Resolution bodies - all telecomms companies must belong to one of them, either OTELO or CISAS.

As to the wider point on sales calls from automated diallers - the best way to avoid it is to sign up to the Telephone Preference System. It's free and the sales companies are legally required to update their databases against it (although it can take 28 days to work through the system).