In Australia, the Do Not Call Register (and the associated Do Not Call Register Act – 2006) are there for the purpose of “upholding the public reputation of the telemarketing industry.”
If you’re an Australian, you’ve probably just spit your drink across your monitor. You might want to clean that up.
Recently I decided to get my phones actually listed in the Do Not Call Register. For several reasons, the most recent of which (but far from the only one) is Pulse Telecom.
Call, after call, every day with their automated dialling system (sometimes more than once per day). Their telephone lines are atrocious and the callers speak (and apparently understand) little English, which makes for both an awkward conversation and an active disincentive to use their services.
If their telephone service is so poor that I can barely make out the person at the other end, why should I choose them for my own use?
Oh, and rude. Occasionally actually insulting, but more generally abrupt and prone to hang-up (although perhaps that’s just poor telephone service).
Can I speak to a supervisor? No. They’re always “in a meeting” or “out” or unexpectedly dead or something. Can I file a complaint? No. Can I opt out of receiving further calls? No.
Well, technically, the answer to that last one is “yes”… but the actual result is “no” – Multiple times I’ve been assured that my number has been put on their opt-out list. That hasn’t stemmed the tide of calls. Nor does it seem to do so for any other telemarketer who calls.
So, how to complain? Let’s call their head office in Sydney! After all, you think there must be someone in marketing/sales who is interested in compliance problems on the part of their telemarketing service.
Like so many other businesses of late, however, you can’t get to anyone who might actually work on the premises (not even the receptionist on the switchboard). Instead you get routed to a call-centre, one which sounds suspiciously like the same call-centre that you’re calling to complain about.
Who can you speak to other than the operator who picks the phone up at the time? Nobody, apparently. Got a complaint? They’ll get someone to call you back. Incidentally, that has never yet happened. Are we surprised? No, I wasn’t either.
I’ve got dozens of similar stories (including one Australian company who claim that the telemarketers who are supposedly calling on their behalf are actually credit-card and identity-thieves. Actually, that could apply to pretty much any of the callers. How would you know?)
There’s penalties for getting all this stuff wrong. Your first step, if you haven’t already done so is to get on the Do Not Call Register. This is simple, and easy and takes about two minutes, during which you need never encounter a human being or need to explain yourself.
Call 1-300-792-958 from the number you want to place on the register (you can also register online, via the Web-site). Follow the prompts. When you’re done, the system will call you back and prompt you to confirm. You can also take a number off the system. It takes 30 days to be sure the number is on all the copies of the register, and it lasts 3 years, unless you cancel it early. You can register land-lines or mobile phones.
In 30 days, we’ll see just how effective that is. Considering that nearly every telemarketer who calls has about the comparative regulatory compliance of a dead weevil, I’m not holding out high hopes. However, penalties may apply to everyone whose compliance is rubbish, and to the people on whose behalf they are calling.
So what are the penalties for non-compliance? If there are any penalties.
Is there any meat to these penalties? How will these penalties enable
observable change in the activities of telemarketers AND, more important imo, the
activities of fraudulent marketers?
I’m in the US and we have similar Laws in place.
The one thing NOT to do is put yourself on a No-Call List.
All you accomplish is putting a name to number. The reality for
many, so I’m told, is that the volume of Unsolicited Calls to
Sell You Something will increase many times over. After all,
what you did is submit your name and a valid phone number
to a list that is readily available to those who would like to sell
you things over the phone.
Sure sure, legitimate sales outlets may use the list as intended.
But those are the outfits that stop calling after the first time you tell
them to not contact you again. The people you don’t want calling
are the very orgs that will be abusing this list.
Gosh, I so wish this would be available world-wide. Australia leads the world
Aye, I understood that it might not be effective, but I can imagine that at least you’d have somewhere to complain, and get those pesky telemarketeers fined heavilly. Granted, some might think it’s still worthy to pay the fines and continue to pester people (like Microsoft did for years, paying their one-million-USD-day fines for not being compliant with a judicial order not to include IE with Windows, since it was better than losing browser market share
)
It’s called “Robinson List” in my country and doesn’t work either.
We have this in Canada and it does not work at all. The marketers who use the list re-sold it. Something that does work quite nicely is using something like this http://www.trixbox.com/ or just about any VOIP service for your home phone, and to screen all unknown callers.
I’m registered. Haven’t had any such calls for ages. Not that I had too many of them to begin with.
What also helps is using the old dial-up modem for internet all day. %)
If only there was a way for door-knocking, too…
PocoLoco: “those are the outfits that stop calling after the first time you tell them to not contact you again.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been called by one of those.
I’m assured that there are penalties – though I have not dug through the act to determine exactly what they are. I seem to recall hearing that they are somewhat softer than the general public expressed a preference for. But it’s nice to have a lawful option to unlawful behavior than to rely on a technological solution (like screening) for unlawful behavior.
However, the ACMA is apparently taking onboard concerns that the list may be misused and is surveying how many calls come in before listing compared to after. It seems difficult to think we might get more than we do. I’m tired of getting telemarketing calls as late as 3am.
Owww!!
(That’s the sound of your post, touching a raw nerve.)
good luck there
Hee hee, I hear ya Tateru — hmmmm, a company that stops calling when you ask them too, that would be a nice invention. I said that merely to demonstrate a logical conclusion. This is a Law that won’t render affect on those who don’t subscribe to it’s intended outcome.
I have cut the SPAM/UCE coming in to my home over telephones by actively screening for years, moving, and changing numbers a few times. As luck with have it shortly after the time I finally got a cell phone the rules in that industry got changed and phone #’s for cell’s were no longer by default unlisted. At least by default my cell service provider does still provide reverse ID service for incoming calls so I can actively screen incoming calls on it.
But I do attribute this lack in being a marketing target greatly to not volunteering my contact info to large aggregators such as these supposed “Do Not Call” lists. I have no doubt it took moments from implementation of such programs for some groups to decide to “qualify” for access to the list and wholesale copy it merely for the opportunity to sell valid numbers to other less reputable companies.
We have the same law here here in the UK, and supposededly the fines are quite high, but it only covers UK companies, so then they started to use Indian call centres.
So I now have all my calls go to the answering machine.
I sometimes get recorded calls from the US, but these days the machine making the calls seems to know when it gets an answering and then it will then hang up.
But yes, as Chaddington said, routing your calls to a Asterisk or Freepbx server can stop or slow down these calls.
For example Asterisk can ask the caller to press phone keys eg 5-6-3-8 and that will put them through. Or it can reject all calls with no number being displayed.
Does any of you got any experience with Google voice in regards to this topic?