Clampdown on cold call companies unveiled by government

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31616523

by edward • 11 years ago

26 48 11 years ago

bbc.co.uk

ring ring

"Hello?"

[recording plays:] "Due to a change to the rules introduced by the government, you may be entitled to compensation for nuisance calls"

(stolen from https://twitter.com/rablivingstone/status/570496682829451264)

lylebarrere2• 11 years ago

The Do Not Call database in the US has never been effective because the type of company making these spammy calls doesn't care if they are breaking the law. There is no enforcement effort to track them down.

SmellyGeekBoy2• 11 years ago

It's exactly the same situation with the Telephone Preference Service in the UK in my experience. The only way I've managed to get these calls to stop is to get withheld numbers (ie callers with no or blocked Call ID) blocked at the phone company level - which usually incurs a monthly fee, of course...

rayiner• 11 years ago

Do you remember what things were like before the Do Not Call database? We would get one or more marketing calls a day on our home phone (landline). These days, maybe once a month.

lylebarrere2• 11 years ago

I've been on it for years as well as the DNC database for caregivers of elderly patients with diminished capacity and I receive more than 5 calls per day.

eli• 11 years ago

It stopped the vast majority of cold calls from legitimate companies. So all that's left is people running scams who don't care about the law.

DanBC2• 11 years ago

This article does not mention the Telephone Preference Service. It's a useful step to take.

The article doesn't mention the fact that most mobile providers in the UK have free numbers that you can forward spam texts to.

There's also a problem with a gap in the law that allows "genuine market researcher" to contact you to -- this loophole is used by some companies as lead generation.

ColinWright3• 11 years ago

I belong to the TPS, and I still get a dozen cold calls a day. When I ask where they got my details from they simply say it came up on their system. When I ask for their details they hang up. When I call 1471 it's an unlisted number.

Currently there is no viable way to prevent these calls, or to get off their lists.

mike-cardwell• 11 years ago

Block withheld numbers?

desas• 11 years ago

Even if they don't hang up it's usually something like "your details were passed on from xyz corp and that's all we know". xyz corp is never anyone I've heard of, I'm assuming fictitious or xyz corp acquired my details from someone else.

Silhouette3• 11 years ago

I've seen plenty of reports suggesting that being on the TPS can actually increase the volume of nuisance calls you get (though so far never with solid, public data to support the claim).

I do know for a fact that although adding a number to the TPS is supposed to be permanent, I have reregistered the same number multiple times after being told that it was not currently registered.

Given that the phone companies seem remarkably inept at cracking down on this problem in any practically useful way and to accept no responsibility for it, we are looking at other solutions. For example, there's a device called trueCall that we've been thinking of buying -- the irony being that while it looks quite promising, we wanted to ask a couple of questions about the different models before spending that much money, and no-one answered their phone. :-)

DanBC2• 11 years ago

You ask them for their business name. You then report them to TPS.

Silhouette3• 11 years ago

There's also a problem with a gap in the law that allows "genuine market researcher" to contact you to -- this loophole is used by some companies as lead generation.

It's funny how political parties always seem to wind up exempt in election season, too.

Ensorceled• 11 years ago

The article actually mentions the TPS in the case study:

"But it was after he [Martin Shelley] registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) – a list of people who have indicated they do not wish to receive sales and marketing calls – that the number of unwanted calls increased."

Apparently it's not working as expected ...

dcminter• 11 years ago

We don't have a legitimate direct marketing industry. We just have a direct marketing lobby, hence the verbiage appeasing them.

arethuza• 11 years ago

I had a call from someone claiming to be investigating nuisance calls, as we get a lot of nuisance calls I was quite happy to chat to them - then I realised they were actually selling a service that claims to cut down on nuisance calls... so I gave up at that point.

choffee• 11 years ago

Is it election time already?

jblok• 11 years ago

My method is as follows:

- I don't have a landline phone

- If someone calls my mobile and they aren't in my address book, I just don't answer.

- If that number is withheld I especially don't answer

- If they leave a message I will listen to it and respond if necessary

- If the number is not whitheld but not in my phone book, I google it, and if it is a legitimate business, it will usually show a match on the company website. If I need to I'll call them back e.g. today I had the estate agent ring, but I didn't have their number saved so I didn't answer. I rang them back once I had googled their number

easytiger• 11 years ago

Lot of people get a lot of calls from abroad which come up as private number etc. Depends on your incoming call profile.

KhalPanda• 11 years ago

Same here. I love the Android feature that will display the company name (if it can find it/it's linked to a Google business listing) of whichever number is calling. Saves me Googling at least half the time.

eitally• 11 years ago

This is my method, too. The only problem I have is that it seems about half the companies who cold call sales leads use some software that spoofs a local exchange, and I do generally answer the phone -- even when it's not one of my known contacts -- when it originates from my home area code. Not doing so risks missing calls from contractors, schools, kids' friends, my friends, etc.

kodis2• 11 years ago

It seems as though at least for smart phones this could be easily solved through technological means similar to those used for screening email, something along the lines of a spam classification system.

I envision my phone having a white list of known good numbers, which would be allowed to cause my phone to ring like it does now; a black list of known bad numbers, which would be immediately dropped; and a catch-all handler for all other numbers, which would send the call to voice mail for easy manual classification into either of the other categories.

bkor• 11 years ago

Why go for the technical option is the legal one is far more effective?

In my country hospitals (and so on call) from an "unknown" number. So blocking that is a bit dangerous. There's a general "do not cold call" list and if you get a cold call while being on that the company behind it can get a hefty fine per call that they make.

There's an government organization which checks if companies abide to this (and a few other things). They seem to enjoy going after companies and fining them. Which is probably why I don't get any cold calls.

Note: Obviously there are all kinds of rules, etc. E.g. once you add yourself to the cold call list, there's 6 week grace period (as companies are allowed to only update their do-not-call list every so often). Though at the same time, even if you're not on the country's do not call list you can still ask to be put on the list for the company calling you. It is mandatory for a company to do that. Else the company will get a fine. There's different rules for companies which have or had a business relationship with you.

kodis2• 11 years ago

While this will vary from country to country, at least here in the US there are several situations where the legal means are not more effective. The main one is scammers who just don't care, either because they're running a "hit and run" type of operation or because they're operating from overseas. Then there are classes of phone calls which are (again, at least in the US) exempt from the legal "do not call" rules: politicians making campaign calls, and survey firms, which the politicians use to determine who to bother calling. It's a nice loophole that they've constructed for themselves. Luckily it's only a problem for a few month every other year.

alex8022• 11 years ago

I use Mr Number Blocker for this on android. You can whitelist / blacklist specific numbers, and set it to hang up or go to voicemail. There's also a crowdsourcing aspect, where after a certain number of people flag a number as spam, it shows up as "likely spam" when the phone rings. I believe you can have those go straight to voicemail as well.

pzxc• 11 years ago

You don't need an app. Just add a contact called "SPAM", and set it to go straight to voicemail. Then any spam numbers who call you, just add their number to your SPAM contact.

bediger40002• 11 years ago

The US Do Not Call list seemed pretty good at cutting the number of cold calls substantially. The remaining cold calls are clearly illegal (in the US). This situation seems vaguely like the Tragedy of the Commons to me. I've decided to listen all the way through the recording speech - these evil psychos can only have a finite number of interactive response units, so monopolizing one of the for as long as possible cuts down on the number of calls they can make. I also attempt to engage the human operators for as long as possible. The evil psychos making these calls clearly have a smallish number of human operators. Wasting their time is even more important. I've actually been able to transport my cell phone to the restroom and flush the toilet in a human operato's ear several time.

No, I don't think that the human operators deserve civility, manners or any kind of polite treatment. They know that what they do is at best marginally legal, and very probably illegal, yet the keep doing it. They've violated the social contract, not me. They can suffer through whatever they can tolerate.

wpietri5• 11 years ago

I have been there, but I decided that the human operators were still human. So now rather than turning rage-monster at them, I take up their time trying to persuade them that they deserve a better job, that they don't have to waste their lives working as a criminal who lies to people for a living.

bediger40002• 11 years ago

They're still human, but they also resist all attempts at my communicating anything other than "I'm a dope, and I'm falling for your scam." I've tried asking to be put on no-call lists, asking to be referred to supervisors, and telling them to quit before they're indicted. I mostly got instant hang ups. A few times, I got laughter. Now, I waste their time. I keep an expired Visa-brand gift card in my wallet so I can give them a credit card number that passes cursory checks.

Everyone should be wasting "Anne from Cardholder Services" time. The victim of the tragedy should be their commons, not ours. They are the lawbreakers, they are the deliberate bad actors.

mootothemax• 11 years ago

Is the only real solution to only accept calls from a phone number whitelist?

The regulatory problem I can't work out how to solve is that of foreign companies attempting to scam people, e.g. the variations on "I'm calling from Microsoft, your computer has a virus..."

If you can only take action against companies based in your country, what's the next step?

Hates_• 11 years ago

So when does a "customer development call" become a cold call? As a small startup trying to talk to potential customers how does this affect me? All these books on startups talk about picking up the phone and talking to people.

mhurron• 11 years ago

Did you have a prior relationship with these people? Did they somehow indicate they would be involved in your marketing actions?

No? Then it's probably a cold call and you're just annoying people.

AndrewKemendo3• 11 years ago

No? Then it's probably a cold call and you're just annoying people.

Sorry but this is naiive. Cold calling works, and not because you are bugging people. You know that "prior relationship" you mention? Well it has to start somewhere and a call is as good as any.

dazc2• 11 years ago

If your call starts:

"Hello Mr Smith and how are you today?" or "...just a quick call" or "...just a courtesy call"

You are annoying people and should stop doing it.

AndrewKemendo3• 11 years ago

What if it starts with something like?:

"Hi I am the founder of a company in your area which has a service that I think might fit your needs..."

"I sent you an email recently and wanted to see if you had a chance to look at it..." (assuming you sent them an email)

I feel like there is a way to cold call effectively by picking groups of people who you think would be more receptive and then approaching them as yourself. Aside from that I can't tell you how many first customers I have heard say something like: "they just kept bugging us, so eventually I just had to listen to what they had to say...and we loved it!"

Even if that is 1/50 it's still a huge win.

wpietri5• 11 years ago

Not sure where you got the idea that customer development calls should be cold calls.

When I teach this stuff, I encourage people to start with their social network and industry events so they can meet people in their target market. Then after you do a solid interview with them, it's pretty easy to say, "Who else in [target market description] should I talk to learn more? Will you introduce us?"

Customer development interviews go way better with an intro from a trusted source who has already vetted you.

(And for those not familiar with Lean Startup jargon, "customer development" is the process by which you figure out both who your market really is and what product will serve them. It is not a synonym for sales.)

Clampdown on cold call companies unveiled by government

Related Stories