Following an unwanted call this afternoon from a faked 028 Northern Ireland CLI (in fact from a call centre in either India or the Philippinnes flagrantly violating both TPS and Silent Call rules) I have made the below post on the www.whocallsme.com website at http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/02814767868 and would be very grateful for any other comments from knowledgeable forum members as to whether the number block that contains 028 1476 7868 has ever so far been issued to a Communications Provider by Ofcom.   This matter may also interest SilentCallsVictim since it also involves the large scale recent making of Silent Calls to the UK by a single overseas call centre.

To add further irony to the matter I happen to know that until about 20 years ago 02814 was actually the area code for the Farnham Common exchange where one of my relatives lives.  Unfortunately at that time it was then given the same area code as Slough (01753) even though the Farnham Common exchange continues to physically exist and all numbers starting 01753 64 are served by the Farnham Common exchange building.


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From http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/02814767868 I got a call from this Northern Irish CLI (02814767868) today - Monday 9th March 2009 at 4.25pm It was from an outfit calling itself The Consumer Research Centre who wanted to ask me a load of questions to confirm I lived at this address and postcode, whether I was a property owner or not and also my age group and income.  They also asked when various insurance policies were due for renewal. After this they then proceeded to ask a load of very specific questions including if would I be interested in joining the RSPB bird protection charity and would I be prepared to make a donation to pay for the training of a new guide dog for the blind (i.e. they were clearly getting the data to supply to RNIB) as well as whether I had any loans or not and whether I had a will or not at present (they named a will writing company they wanted to contact me). As a campaigner against TPS abuse I played along with all this to try and find out what their game was but when I asked at the end of her questions (I said no to being contacted for various further sales activities throughout) to speak to a supervisor about their deliberate abuse of my TPS registration the lady calling cut me off.  The lady calling spoke with a combination of Far East and strong American accent (the Phililippines was run by the USA for the first half of this century and everyone speaks some English there like India) and when I asked if she was based there she admitted she was. Three or four months ago I also got a load of calls that when I picked up that initially sounded like a real person who said they were calling from The Consumer Research Centre but then at this point each time the line went dead.  So they were in fact Silent Calls where the equipment could not field a call centre person with an automated announcement on the front.  All those calls three or four months ago came up Number Unavailable but today they used a fake Northern Irish CLI of 02814767868, presumably to get round services like "Choose To Refuse" and people who block calls without a CLI.  So they seem hell bent on deliberately breaking TPS rules and contacting everyone who will object to hearing from them.  This shows a very abusive mentality by the people runing this call centre operation.  Yet they are collecting the data for sales operations by apparently respectable UK based bodies like the RSPB and RNIB. You should report calls from this number to Ofcom on their website section for reporting Silent Calls at www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/landline/silent/?itemid=284912 and if you are TPS registed you should also log a complaint with the Telephone Preference Service at http://complaints.tpsonline.org.uk/Consumer/ You may also want to try and file a complaint with the Information Commissioner at www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/privacy_and_electronic_communications.aspx although they may not accept it if they argue the call was from overseas, although the fact that a UK CLI was used and the call was clearly made on behalf of UK based companies makes it more difficult for them to argue this.

Finally I know this isn't strictly the place to make such a post but it was the most appropriate forum section I could find in the absence of an Off Topic forum section.  However I do feel that the issue of which telecoms provider may own the number block in which 02814767868 is located is one to which a member of this forum (such as Tanllan) is quite likely to know the answer.

Yes, I am interested, and perhaps able to help, although the OP shows a solid grasp of the issues.

I must first comment that however unwelcome this call my have been, the distress caused cannot have been on anything like the scale of annoyance suffered by the famously well-heeled (and many of them famous) residents of Farnham Common on being associated with Slough.

Silent Calls are handled under Ofcom's powers to address cases of "persistent misuse of a telecommunications network or service". Its published policy on use of these powers cites use of fake CLI as an example of misuse. Although the call was not "silent" it is quite correct to report cases such as this to Ofcom in the same way.

The fact of matched CLI with a Silent Call, should be helpful to Ofcom. Better evidence is obtained if one can persuade one's telephone company to enable the trace facility on the line, as this enables an objective record to be kept and the possibility of matching with other victims. This is how the first Ofcom investigation of a Silent Caller was achieved.

The breach of regulation 21 of the Privacy and Communications Regulations, a direct marketing call to a number registered with the TPS, should be reported to the Information Commissioners Office, not to TPS Ltd, the branch of the Direct Marketing Association which administers the register. Only the ICO has the powers to enforce the regulations, TPS Ltd simply provides the ICO with quarterly reports summarising complaints. (This subcontract relationship is unlike that between Ofcom and PhonePayPlus, where Ofcom subcontracts enforcement activities.)

As the call pretended to be a survey, rather than a lead generation exercise for insurance companies, it is quite possible that the references to charities are simply a bluff to engage the sympathy of victims. It may be worth alerting the RSPB and the RNIB to the fact that their names are being used in this way, although there may be little that they can do about it. Any company with a UK presence that can be found to have engaged whoever made this call is liable for the breach of UK regulations, even if the call was made from overseas.

The Phillippines has a major call centre industry, having long been the source of most cold calling into the USA. As India develops and becomes more expensive, it is likely that it will lose more UK business in this direction, as it has already to South Africa and Eastern Europe. The recession will cause more business to come back to the UK.

The admitted source of the call suggests to me that it was most likely made on behalf of a US-owned insurance company with a (contract with) a Phillippines call centre.


I hope these comments are helpful to all members and that the moderators will not think that two particular members are exploiting their seniority by engaging in discussion of topics that are not strictly within the scope of "SayNo". I fear that two "Newbies" would have been dealt with most unsympathetically for raising and responding to an irrelevant topic.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Mar 10^th, 2009 at 12:07am:

I must first comment that however unwelcome this call my have been, the distress caused cannot have been on anything like the scale of annoyance suffered by the famously well-heeled (and many of them famous) residents of Farnham Common on being associated with Slough.

I believe it was equally distressing to the residents of Stoke Poges (of both Gray's Elegy and the eponymously named golf club featured in the James Bond Goldfinger movie fame) who also account for about 50% of the lines on this exchange.  There was a compromise in that at the time exchange code lists (since in those days there were still local short dialling codes along with Regional call rate if you can remember those dim and distant days) still listed Farnham Common, even though its code (01753) was still the same as Slough.  BT's policy on physical exchanges having their own codes does not seem to have been at all logical or consistent as the local exchange here providing my 7.5Mbps connection is less than a mile away but phone numbers have always been given the initial code digits of the town 7 miles to the North and unlike Farnham Common BT has never even admitted to the existence of my local exchange in terms of the telephone exchange name which is instead that of the large near by town.  Yet the document showing old exchange codes (including the now sadly demised Farnham Common 02814) at http://foldoc.org/pub/misc/STD_Codes shows that my local exchange never had its own dialling code identity even in those days (even though it did exist) and yet the neighbouring tiny village exchange to this one with only 200 lines (an eighth of the number of lines on my local exchange) is separately identified in this document.


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The fact of matched CLI with a Silent Call, should be helpful to Ofcom. Better evidence is obtained if one can persuade one's telephone company to enable the trace facility on the line, as this enables an objective record to be kept and the possibility of matching with other victims. This is how the first Ofcom investigation of a Silent Caller was achieved.

If one's telecoms company is one of the new profit hungry non ex GPO monopoly firms the chances of success in persuading them they can do this seem very small.  They will normally only enable such a trace in the event of a suspicion of a serious criminal offence being perpetrated via the phone.


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The breach of regulation 21 of the Privacy and Communications Regulations, a direct marketing call to a number registered with the TPS, should be reported to the Information Commissioners Office, not to TPS Ltd, the branch of the Direct Marketing Association which administers the register. Only the ICO has the powers to enforce the regulations, TPS Ltd simply provides the ICO with quarterly reports summarising complaints. (This subcontract relationship is unlike that between Ofcom and PhonePayPlus, where Ofcom subcontracts enforcement activities.)

Whilst I agree in principle my own efforts in this regard show that the ICO refuses to properly investigate complaints made to it directly by just one individual.  Instead they only like to investigate individual complaints where they are backed up by a large number of calls reported to the DMA/TPS as still being made despite TPS registration.  An individual complaint to the ICO only therefore helps when lots of customers have taken the less formal route of logging a complaint with the TPS complaints system.   Hence complaints made to the TPS do achieve more than you may believe, even though I agree that they are not the enforcment body for breaches of the rules.


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As the call pretended to be a survey, rather than a lead generation exercise for insurance companies, it is quite possible that the references to charities are simply a bluff to engage the sympathy of victims.

I don't think so since star billing in the call actually occurred for an orthopaedic bed selling company where the young Filipino lady was very keen indee to send me their catalogue when I foolishly admitted to back problems in the past.  Also heavy prominence was given to trying to get me to give permission to a will writing company contacting me about a will when I admitted not having one.  It struck me very much as an omnibus survey where a number of parties were getting different aspects of the data.  The questions about the RSPB membership and the guide dogs for the blind matters and my agreeing to allow follow up calls or otherwise on those were phrased in such a way that I do not believe they were decoys.  The purpose of the survey was in fact deliberately to circumvent TPS for the 60% or so of UK households now registered with the TPS.

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It may be worth alerting the RSPB and the RNIB to the fact that their names are being used in this way, although there may be little that they can do about it. Any company with a UK presence that can be found to have engaged whoever made this call is liable for the breach of UK regulations, even if the call was made from overseas.

I have already done so by copying in all of their senior executives in my email to the DMA/TPS's Director of Compliance, Consumer Services and Accreditation (Mike Lordan) expressing my concern that anyone working on behalf of the respectable bodies referred to during the sales call I received would be ignoring the restrictions on calling those in the UK who are TPS registered.  I also drew attention to the deliberate termination of my call when I asked to speak to a senior manager.


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The Phillippines has a major call centre industry, having long been the source of most cold calling into the USA. As India develops and becomes more expensive, it is likely that it will lose more UK business in this direction, as it has already to South Africa and Eastern Europe. The recession will cause more business to come back to the UK.

As you say the Phillippinnes is normally assigned to US calls and India to those in the UK.  Linksys for instance have call centres in both places and normally handle UK calls in India in the main UK business day but redirect to the Philippinnes during off peak UK hours.  It should be noted that other indiviudals posting at www.whocallsme.com report Indian accents from this number but that could be based on a mistaken assumption that any foreign voice speaking unfamiliar and relatively uneducated English voice is based in India.  However as one who has visited the Phillippinnes I could not make such an error, especially as the Filipino call centre workers are usually relatively more upbeat and their English a good deal more intelligible to my ears than the metallic dalek like and frequently utterly emotionless twang of call centre workers in Bangalor or Chennai.


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The admitted source of the call suggests to me that it was most likely made on behalf of a US-owned insurance company with a (contract with) a Phillippines call centre.

Given the current economic downturn it could be any overseas English speaking call centre working for a major client that has now gone bust and is now desperately pitching around for other stuff to keep them busy.  I have nothing personal against the lady who called me who clearly took on board several points in my feedback more readily than some of her Indian counterparts.  It was the rule breaking mission she had been given by her bosses I objected to.


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I hope these comments are helpful to all members and that the moderators will not think that two particular members are exploiting their seniority by engaging in discussion of topics that are not strictly within the scope of "SayNo". I fear that two "Newbies" would have been dealt with most unsympathetically for raising and responding to an irrelevant topic

This is a forum primarily specialising in telephony related issues and the consequences of the failure of Ofcom and its lickspittles (such as PhonePayPlus) to fulfil their principal duty to UK citizen consumers under Section 3(i) of the Communications Act 2003.  That being so I do not think we are very far away from the main purpose of this forum.  The need to post in this section is created by the failure of the forum management to create any other forums section more approriate.  You will also notice that we are even discussiing a call with a CLI from a "Geographical Number" ;) :-X

NGMsGhost wrote on Mar 10^th, 2009 at 12:56am:

The questions about the RSPB membership and the guide dogs for the blind matters and my agreeing to allow follow up calls or otherwise on those were phrased in such a way that I do not believe they were decoys.

Fair enough. It may still be worth having a word with these bodies, as they would doubtless wish to express discontent at being promoted in this way. There is the possibility that this company is not directly engaged, but will sell on any valuable names it collects through other agencies.

Marketing can be a very grubby business, and charity fund-raising, which is nothing but an offshoot, has little hesitation in getting in amongst the dirt, justifying this on the basis of the results it achieves. That is however not to say that reputable charities themselves would not be keen to dis-associate themselves from much that may be done in their name.


The point about the ICO and DMA/TPS is well made and totally valid on pragmatic grounds. Both Ofcom and the ICO should however be encouraged to take a less consumerist approach to the work they carry out in the public interest.

The actual reality is however perhaps different again.

I could think myself exceptionally fortunate in being able to have Ofcom launch its first investigation into a Silent Caller on the basis of only two Silent Calls reported to Ofcom. This was supported by about a dozen or so logged by BT with reports to it by others, and incidental concern about abuse of the TPS by the same company, which was never actually formally investigated.

The volume of complaints against particular callers is not reported. I am sure that it is used, but only to provide some flimsy justification for action against those who are picked on as targets. If everyone who breached the regulation about use of recorded messages for marketing purposes was handled in the same way as the Lib Dems, then the daily papers would invariably be filled with cases. Action was rightly taken in this case, but only on the basis of the absolute minimum number of complaints. I would assume that the ICO gets this number of complaints about each of the many habitual recorded message marketers every day.

Whilst investigation on the basis of the number of complaints is improperly consumerist, this is not even what actually happens. I would suggest that investigation and action is actually taken on the basis of the interests of the regulatory body itself and its perception of how best to cultivate the public reputation that it wishes to have. In the present political climate, consumerism is seen as a good thing. The interests of the citizen is seen as being something to do with allowing terrorists, muggers and other undesireables out on the streets.

(I can offer other examples).

I had a call today with Number Unavailable shown from a male Indian call centre worker who asked for me by name and then said he was doing a "UK State of The Nation Survey" and would I mind answering a few questions.  I said what were the questions about and he wouldn't tell me.  Then when I said I might consider answering them he said was I agreeable to being called back by their marketing partners about any service that I said I was interested in.  I said I was not.  

When I asked where he was calling from he said London but when I then said that no one from his country who had spent any time in the UK had the metallic Indian accent he did or used the odd expressions he did (which are normal colloquial Indian English as spoken between Indians but not how even Indians who live here and have any experience of working here speak it) he then gave up the pretence that he was in London at all. At this point I demanded to speak to his supervisor and he cut me off.

From the whole style of the call and the attempt to say they were representing numerous different UK companies I am sure this is precisely the same Indian call centre outfit that also goes by the name of Consumer Research Centre and Lifestyle Research Centre.  But presumably due to the mountain of complaints now building up against them they have changed names again and found a way to withhold CLI to avoid any danger of the normally highly complacent and incompetent TPS and ICO being prepared to take action against them.

If you can't provide a phone number or address the TPS Complaint website and ICO helpline always maintains there is nothing they can do about the company.

Can these jokers really not afford to have their phone number compared with the TPS so that they only call willing victims.  Surely with even half the UK's phone lines registered for TPS there are still enough lines to call and most of these people are likely to far more readily go along with the scam (given that they have still not registered with the TPS despite all the active promotion of it over the last few years).

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 12:34pm:

If you can't provide a phone number or address the TPS Complaint website and ICO helpline always maintains there is nothing they can do about the company.

How do you suppose TPS and ICO could investigate with no information to go on?  :-?



NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 12:34pm:

Can these jokers really not afford to have their phone number compared with the TPS so that they only call willing victims.  Surely with even half the UK's phone lines registered for TPS there are still enough lines to call and most of these people are likely to far more readily go along with the scam (given that they have still not registered with the TPS despite all the active promotion of it over the last few years).

It is very judgmental to assert that those who choose not to register with TPS are more gullible ("far more readily go along with the scam") "victims".

If they are indeed "victims", then perhaps TPS registration should be compulsory for all UK telephone users. So how does this affect this case. Answer is, it doesn't.  ::)

Dave wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 6:49pm:

How do you suppose TPS and ICO could investigate with no information to go on? :-?

By insisting that the telephone company of the person called disclose the CLI of the calling party as part of their investigation in to these illegal calls to TPS registered lines.  Supposedly my telephone company should disclose the CLI to me if I maintain the caller was committing a crime when they called but they have always refused to do so.  Usually there is a CLI still available, even when the call is from overseas.  Although as we have seen some of those overseas call centres quite deliberately fake nonexistent UK number ranges such as 06.


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It is very judgmental to assert that those who choose not to register with TPS are more gullible ("far more readily go along with the scam") "victims".

Well in my experience receiving unwanted sales calls is extremely annoying so anyone who has not taken in that there is a TPS in all these years either likes the calls because they are lonely and of a gullible and naive personality (my mother has a widow friend of exactly this personality type who is prey to every scam promotion going and always surprised that anyone would be trying to scam her when they phone her) or they are sufficiently uneducated or unintelligent that they simply do not understand the concept or correct theoretical operation of a TPS database.

Oh and I am very judgemental by the way and make no apology for it.  I find that most of my snap judgements usually turn out to be correct when evidence to prove or disprove them eventually becomes available (as it does in some cases)


Quote:

If they are indeed "victims", then perhaps TPS registration should be compulsory for all UK telephone users.

Probably but more importantly the fines and penalties for deliberately breaching TPS registration should be made as large as those that can currently be imposed by Ofcom on unencrypted Sky channels in the 900 range who inadvertently manage to show their viewers parts of the female anatomy that the genuine viewers of those channels were undoubtedly hoping to see.  Ofcom acts similarly severely towards encrypted porn channels that show programs that might be defined as hard core instead of soft core porn, even though all the paying viewers (rather than those being paid to view it by rival porn channels hoping to catch one of their competitors out or those of a prurient religious persuasion with nothing better to do) undoubtedly wanted to see such broadcasts on these channels anyway.

Ofcom is very tough on breaches of its broadcasting code in terms of content because it ticks a different New Labour box (preventing the alleged exploitation of women by getting paid quite a lot to do something that New Labour regards as being morally degenerate rather than getting paid next to nothing to do a very boring job they would have to spend many hours per week doing) but it is weak as water on regulation of the telecoms industry because most of the principal scams generate profits for businesses that have important contacts in the right places with the New Labour hierarchy.

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 7:49pm:

Dave wrote on Apr 13th, 2010 at 6:49pm: How do you suppose TPS and ICO could investigate with no information to go on? :-? By insisting that the telephone company of the person called disclose the CLI of the calling party as part of their investigation in to these illegal calls to TPS registered lines.  Supposedly my telephone company should disclose the CLI to me if I maintain the caller was committing a crime when they called but they have always refused to do so.  Usually there is a CLI still available, even when the call is from overseas.  Although as we have seen some of those overseas call centres quite deliberately fake nonexistent UK number ranges such as 06.

I am not so sure that this would actually provide any real benefit, particularly as it may simply give rise to more spoofed and unavailable CLIs.


A quick explanation of CLIs will help readers understand my points:

CLI is "Calling Line Identification" and it is system that allows a number to be presented on caller displays and read out via 1471. Hence, a number on caller display is often referred to as "a CLI number" or just "a CLI".

Calling Line Identification means the identification (telephone number) of the calling line (the telephone line that the caller is ringing from).


The calling and receiving parties of any individual call may be with different telephone providers. Let's refer to the caller's telephone company as Provider A and the recipient's provider as Provider B. During a call, Provider A passes the CLI number (along with the call itself) to Provider B for display on its customer's caller display unit.

Where Provider A and Provider B don't interconnect with one another, then they will use another telephone company, Provider X, to transit the call between them. In which case, the call will go from Provider A to Provider X to Provider B, with a CLI being passed on at each interconnection.

Any request that the caller makes to withhold their number from the recipient (by prefixing the number with 141 etc) is fulfilled by Provider B. So Provider A gets the request (from its customer) to withhold the CLI. It passes on the CLI number and the withhold request to Provider X (iff applicable) and it in-turn passes it on to Provider B. It is up to Provider B to honour the request and keep the CLI from its customer (the receiving party of the call).


NGMsGhost, what you are suggesting is that the recipient's telephone company, Provider B, should be compelled to provide the CLI when its customer says that a call breached TPS or committed some other offence.

I think that any such legislation would be a waste of time due to the total lack of ruggedness in the reliability of the CLI system. When a caller receives a call, the CLI presented to them (assuming that it has not been withheld) cannot be guaranteed to be accurate by their telephone provider. All the recipient's telco (Provider B) can do is present the CLI number that it is given by the telco passing the call to it. [By "accurate", I mean that the number presented is one which the caller can be reached on.]

I would have thought that any party out for malicious intent would wish to provide a fake CLI rather than simply request the recipient's provider to withhold it (a genuine one) from its customer. However, for the purpose of this discussion, I will assume that some do provide genuine CLIs, but withhold them.

Should there be an onus put on receivers' telcos to disclose CLI numbers of those alleged to be breaking rules, then all this is likely to achieve is that those doing the rule breaking will have their telco present a fake CLI. Indeed, the prevalence of subscription to services that reject calls where a numbers are withheld means that they are probably more likely to provide fake CLIs rather than withhelds. Such examples of fake CLIs known to be used are a line of 0s and "1111". How do you propose TPS and ICO trace these? What happens if scammers catch on and start to share the same fake CLI?


Indeed, this thread is about a scam using a fake CLI. So withholding the CLI has nothing to do with it!

If you look at all the e-mail spam that is about, the same problem exists there. E-mails are sent from fake 'from' addresses and even the sender's IP address being recorded in the header does not abate the tirade. And so, CLIs are like 'from' addresses on e-mails; they can't be trusted to be genuine.

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 7:49pm:

Well in my experience receiving unwanted sales calls is extremely annoying so anyone who has not taken in that there is a TPS in all these years either likes the calls because they are lonely and of a gullible and naive personality (my mother has a widow friend of exactly this personality type who is prey to every scam promotion going and always surprised that anyone would be trying to scam her when they phone her) or they are sufficiently uneducated or unintelligent that they simply do not understand the concept or correct theoretical operation of a TPS database.

Thank you for the insight of your view of the world. Perhaps the education system in the UK is not up to scratch and needs improvement. Or maybe "uneducated" people in the UK should be banned from having a telephone so as not to mitigate denial of marketing calls to those who are educated and do wish to receive them.

Either way, do you consider that it is unacceptable for "gullible and naive" such as your mother's friend to be subjected to these scams?



NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 7:49pm:

Oh and I am very judgemental by the way and make no apology for it.  I find that most of my snap judgements usually turn out to be correct when evidence to prove or disprove them eventually becomes available (as it does in some cases)

And when they're not correct…  ;D ;D



NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 7:49pm:

Quote: If they are indeed "victims", then perhaps TPS registration should be compulsory for all UK telephone users. Probably…

Compulsory TPS registration would mean that no company would be able to telemarket to any private individual. That would render the point of the TPS database as being a wasted exercise as the move would, in practice, result in telemarketing to private individuals in the UK being banned.



NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 13^th, 2010 at 7:49pm:

…but more importantly the fines and penalties for deliberately breaching TPS registration should be made as large as those that can currently be imposed by Ofcom on unencrypted Sky channels in the 900 range who inadvertently manage to show their viewers parts of the female anatomy that the genuine viewers of those channels were undoubtedly hoping to see.  Ofcom acts similarly severely towards encrypted porn channels that show programs that might be defined as hard core instead of soft core porn, even though all the paying viewers (rather than those being paid to view it by rival porn channels hoping to catch one of their competitors out or those of a prurient religious persuasion with nothing better to do) undoubtedly wanted to see such broadcasts on these channels anyway. Ofcom is very tough on breaches of its broadcasting code in terms of content because it ticks a different New Labour box (preventing the alleged exploitation of women by getting paid quite a lot to do something that New Labour regards as being morally degenerate rather than getting paid next to nothing to do a very boring job they would have to spend many hours per week doing) but it is weak as water on regulation of the telecoms industry because most of the principal scams generate profits for businesses that have important contacts in the right places with the New Labour hierarchy.

Thanks again for your opinions, as well as an insight into your world.

Essentially, you believe that the way to get companies to behave is to legislate for fines to be imposed should they step out of line. Fines must be relative to turnover as they won't act as a deterent (if they do anyway).

Thank you for your uncharacteristically aggressive responses to my posts Dave in which you really sound much more like our late lamented forum friends DaveM or andy9.

I think your last two posts may well serve as an admirable reference (along with some of SCVs most classically turgid, politically correct and utterly mind numbing diatribes) when it becomes time to write the thread "Why does no meaningful discussion any longer take place on the saynoto0870.com website"

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 1:14pm:

Thank you for your uncharacteristically aggressive responses to my posts Dave in which you really sound much more like our late lamented forum friends DaveM or andy9.

Your post was aggressive and insulting:

Quote:

Well in my experience receiving unwanted sales calls is extremely annoying so anyone who has not taken in that there is a TPS in all these years either likes the calls because they are lonely and of a gullible and naive personality (my mother has a widow friend of exactly this personality type who is prey to every scam promotion going and always surprised that anyone would be trying to scam her when they phone her) or they are sufficiently uneducated or unintelligent that they simply do not understand the concept or correct theoretical operation of a TPS database.

My response merely addressed the points you made. Yours is not the tone of a friendly forum.



NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 1:14pm:

I think your last two posts may well serve as an admirable reference (along with some of SCVs most classically turgid, politically correct and utterly mind numbing diatribes) when it becomes time to write the thread "Why does no meaningful discussion any longer take place on the saynoto0870.com website"

So you cannot provide any workable solutions to any problems you identify. When someone else raises questions about your posting, you have no answers to them.

The meaningful discussion I would like to see on SAYNOTO0870.COM is what can be done about the problems identified such as stopping marketing calls to those on the TPS database. It is saddening to see that some members do not feel this way and choose to attack those who wish to be constructive.

Dave wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 1:57pm:

It is saddening to see that some members do not feel this way and choose to attack those who wish to be constructive.

I equally find it sad that the forum's management now seems to have chosen to deliberately alienate most of the forum's longest established members whilst never editing or amending the posts of one of its most unpopular, out of tune and disruptive members (SilentCallsVictim).

I find it hard to sustain much enthusiasm for a campaign where we are clearly not getting anywhere and where as soon as we make any progress the perpetrators are allowed to have the rules altered again in their favour by OfCON

The one thing that used to sustain me in the campaign was sharing almost exactly the same mindset as most other longstanding campaigners on this discussion forum but since the arrival of SCV, who pretends to support the campaign but has a whole plethora of conflicting agendas on his slate, most of my enthusiasm for participating in this discussion forum has been drained away.

Also contrary to what SCV states this is not an open public forum in which he can say whatever he likes but actually a private one in which the forum owners must be prepared to allow his comments to continue to remain on the forum.  Fortunately for SCV he seems to be almost totally on message with the forum's management and so his comments are always allowed to remain in full.

I will offer some comments in response to the recent postings - replies #5-9 - in two postings. I offer a mixture of my understanding of the facts and some personal views.

If anyone is able to correct any errors in the former, I would be grateful. I am happy to discuss the latter, if we can keep on topic.

I obviously hope to provide information and ideas that may be found useful and of interest to at least some possible readers. None of us expect to please everyone.

(These comments were largely drafted before reply 10 and subsequent contributions were posted. I take no side in any personal argument. I do not believe that a public forum is an appropriate place for such exchanges.)


Firstly, on CLI.

The "true" originating line id, as well as the "presentation number" or request for no number to be presented does pass through the channel of telcos.

It is a legal requirement for this not to be presented to the person called, if so requested by the caller. This is part of privacy legislation. Unfortunately there is no great sense in having a law which demands that you are not allowed to request privacy if you are breaking some other law. (I once mockingly suggested that burglars should be required by law to always leave a card giving their name and address.)

There is however a proper exemption covering the revelation of the true line id by the terminating telephone company. It can be revealed to a "proper authority". At one time this was deemed to cover only the Police and an officer of a court. In 2003, BT extended its interpretation of this definition to include Ofcom, when investigating Silent Calls. I understand that both Ofcom and the ICO (although not TPS Limited, which is a private company) would now be considered to fall within this definition by all telcos.

Whilst special resources can doubtless be applied in very serious cases, it is the normal practice of telcos to only record and retain the full calling line information when the "trace" facility is in place on a line and is activated by the subscriber for the particular call. Deployment of the "trace" facility is at the discretion of the respective Nuisance Calls Bureau and is normally only provided for a period of one month when calls worthy of being traced are expected.

This has been used to identify Silent Callers withholding numbers.

There are problems with international calls as there are not suitable international agreements, or ITU regulations, in place to ensure that reliable originating ids are always provided. This is why BT commonly suppresses whatever is provided. Furthermore, for this information to be usable as a means of detecting misuse and breaches of regulations, overseas telcos would need to be obliged to reveal the names of their subscribers to a UK authority. Such arrangements are in place throughout the UK and the EU and some other countries on a bilateral reciprocal basis, but there is no general international agreement.



My own view on presenting CLI is that it can be a useful feature for those who want to let you know who is calling and / or to give a number on which you can call back. The first is essentially useless unless you recognise the number; the second is useless if there is no suitable number to give. Unless one or both of these conditions apply, I personally think that it is best to be withheld. I see no good purpose in potentially soliciting a wasted call.

In general, I believe that far too much is made of CLI.

(continued) ...

... (continued from above)

Secondly, on the TPS.

The EU is to blame. An EU directive was issued demanding that general consent was required for the receipt of unsolicited direct marketing calls. The Telephone Preference Service was already in place as a voluntary register run by the telemarketing industry to assist its members in not wasting their time by calling those who had indicated a reluctance to respond. It was decided to assume that all those not registered with the TPS had thereby granted general consent, and so the TPS acquired statutory status. (Subsequently this was complemented by the Corporate TPS.)

The Direct Marketing Association continues to run the register (under contract to Ofcom) and provides summaries of complaints to the ICO, which is responsible for enforcing compliance with the relevant regulations.  (N.B. These are statutory regulations enforced under civil law. It is not a criminal offence to make a direct marketing call to a TPS-registered number.)

Other EU countries have an opt-in system, whereby the telemarketing industry has to win consumers' consent to this way of finding out about products and services. Many (on all sides) argue that this would have been a better option for the UK.

With the statutory TPS in place and growing, in 2005 BT launched "BT Privacy at Home". This offered free CLID provision (through the network) and automatic registration with the TPS. This was presented on the totally false basis that CLID enabled you to know "who" was calling and that TPS registration was a reliable way of ensuring that Silent Calls were made to other people, rather than oneself.

BT had previously been required to provide its competitors with the names and telephone numbers of its customers, so that they could have a chance to compete with its former monopoly position. BT was losing customers fast. Admittedly some of this was due to bad telemarketing and some very dubious practices, known as slamming. Aside from these indefensible abuses, BT obviously benefitted from getting as many of its customers as possible onto the TPS, as this was an effective means of revenue protection. It is likely that the financial benefit offset the cost of lost CLI fees.

Partly in response to this, many of BT's competitors automatically put the numbers of their customers onto the TPS. The TPS register is simply a list of numbers; there is no verification that the user of the number actually wishes to be registered. Any company that fears losing its customers to telemarketing competitors is well aware of this.

TPS registration continues to be promoted as a solution to the problem of Silent Calls. I do not deny the fact that it offers some benefit in relation to Silent Calls and would never question the right of anyone to register. I do however point out that registration may deny access to those who wish to offer products and services (in the widest sense) that one may be pleased to hear from. Overall, the high level of TPS registration has a negative effect on the domestic telemarketing industry and the standards that it follows.

Furthermore, whilst I campaign against misuse of the telephone network, I believe that we all have to avoid being too precious about our telephone lines. If we connect to an international communications network and receive incoming calls, we cannot expect to have total personal control over who tries to call us and when. I believe that the regulators have a duty to require every caller to say who they are and why they are calling at the beginning of each call that is answered - this cannot be achieved by so called "caller display". Beyond that, it is up to each of us to deal with each call that we choose to answer in whatever way we wish. Those who cannot be expected to cope with deceit must be advised, or instructed, never to speak to anyone who they do not know. I use an answering service to deal with calls that I am not ready to answer and have great sympathy for the few who do not have such a facility available to them, as I would commend use of such technology to capture all calls that arrive at inconvenient times.

The TPS and display of CLI have nothing whatsoever to do with "privacy". That important issue is misrepresented and devalued by being falsely applied here.


Very few of us have a positive view about marketing of any sort. I find that most of those who work in the telemarketing industry have a low opinion of themselves; even those in the industry who genuinely aspire to high standards regard many of their colleagues with contempt.

There is also a general contempt for all those who are "victims" of marketing of any kind. We perhaps like to think that we are above it all. I am however reluctant to agree that much of our TV and our newspapers, along with most of the internet (including this site), are only in existence due to a belief in what is alleged to be a fallacy - that marketing works on us all.

It is unfortunate that the telemarketing industry cannot get its own act together to raise standards generally. This is twinned with a failure by the regulators to deal effectively with totally unacceptable bad practice. Together, these create a downward spiral in standards.

Increased levels of TPS registration actually encourage this downward spiral, as there are fewer and fewer worthwhile people for legitimate operators to contact. Anyone who sees any benefit to be derived from volume telemarketing therefore onl

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 2:18pm:

Dave wrote on Apr 18th, 2010 at 1:57pm: It is saddening to see that some members do not feel this way and choose to attack those who wish to be constructive. I equally find it sad that the forum's management now seems to have chosen to deliberately alienate most of the forum's longest established members whilst never editing or amending the posts of one of its most unpopular, out of tune and disruptive members (SilentCallsVictim).

It would perhaps be helpful if you outline the correct "tune" that we should all be whistling to. As a member of the aforementioned forum management, you have never set out the website's "core values" to me, which all members must, according to you, subscribe to.

I note that you and a number of other members believe that certain things are not allowed to be talked about. I feel that introduction of prohibited discussion is the first step to a totalitarian regime and I would not wish for that.

I have made points on this thread in specific response to your posting which you do not wish to answer and instead choose to launch a personal attack. You believe that I should not have my say.

If you feel unable to resist resonding in such a way, then perhaps you should start up your own website where members will have to confirm or be cast out. You have, after all, often launched attacks on the website itself, the way it is run and even resigned once!

Perhaps now is the time for you to fulfil the promise you made previously and start your own website.



NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 2:18pm:

I find it hard to sustain much enthusiasm for a campaign where we are clearly not getting anywhere and where as soon as we make any progress the perpetrators are allowed to have the rules altered again in their favour by OfCON

I believe 13 police forces using 03 numbers is excellent work by the campaign.



NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 2:18pm:

The one thing that used to sustain me in the campaign was sharing almost exactly the same mindset as most other longstanding campaigners on this discussion forum but since the arrival of SCV, who pretends to support the campaign but has a whole plethora of conflicting agendas on his slate, most of my enthusiasm for participating in this discussion forum has been drained away.

Do share with us this "mindset", as judging by your attack on my response, you apparently do not share mine.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 2:18pm:

The "true" originating line id, as well as the "presentation number" or request for no number to be presented does pass through the channel of telcos. It is a legal requirement for this not to be presented to the person called, if so requested by the caller. This is part of privacy legislation. Unfortunately there is no great sense in having a law which demands that you are not allowed to request privacy if you are breaking some other law. (I once mockingly suggested that burglars should be required by law to always leave a card giving their name and address.)

Thanks for the insight into CLI. It is, not quite as simple as I suggested, although it still requires the originating telco to provide correct information. Is is the case that some don't provide the correct "true" originating line number, and perhaps a made-up number?

Dave wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 8:40pm:

Thanks for the insight into CLI. It is, not quite as simple as I suggested, although it still requires the originating telco to provide correct information. Is is the case that some don't provide the correct "true" originating line number, and perhaps a made-up number?

I think the message we can take away from all this is that the ICO now has enough power to force disclosure of any hidden identity of the caller that may actually exist but that has not been disclosed to the called party, but only if they believe a sufficiently serious offence is being perpetrated against an individual to justify use of their powers in pursuit of such an investigation.  We can pretty much rule out any help from Ofcom on wthheld CLIs as they refuse to investigate silent call complaints from individual members of the public (even though we know they love to investigate individual complaints from their fee paying corporate telecoms members) and only use the reporting feature on their website to identify an unusually large number of calls from certain CLIs.  The TPS similarly only count total numbers of calls from each CLI and/or organisation and then provide a report to the ICO for any actual enforcement action.

The whole situation is essentially like the moderately incompetent motorist who lets their MOT, tax or car insurance go out of date always getting clobbered but those who deliberately drive round on cloned number plates getting away with everything (including speeding, dangerous driving etc too) except and until the Police actually try to stop them for an offence witnessed by Police patrol officers out on the road.

Dave wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 8:40pm:

Is is the case that some don't provide the correct "true" originating line number, and perhaps a made-up number?

As I understand it, all UK telcos do provide the true line id, although this is not necessarily what is sent as the "CLI". Callers are able to demand suppression of this information or replacement by a "presentation" number.

I believe that this is perfectly proper in cases where the caller has no suitable number to offer for return calls, does not wish to solicit them or wishes to offer a suitable number for return calls that is different from the line from which the call is originated. There is also the rare possibility that callers may choose to present a well known number so that they may be identified.

Because there are some who promote the false idea that CLI tells you who it is that is calling, many people refuse to accept calls from those who do not wish to invite return calls. Furthermore those who acknowledge that they are breaking the law obviously do not wish to be easily identified. Providing a spoof CLI, or a number that simply connects to a recorded message, is an abuse of CLI that enables their calls to get through this possibly misguided measure of protection thereby causing problems and confusion for all.

In a voice telephone call the identity of the caller is established by what they say when the call is answered.

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 8:53pm:

I think the message we can take away from all this ......

I agree - a good summation.


NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 8:53pm:

The whole situation is essentially like .....

A fair point is made, but the situation is different.

There have been a few cases where Ofcom has been disproportionate in taking action against "Silent Callers" for relatively minor offences, whilst ignoring more serious cases. In one case a penalty was imposed when the evidence presented was of no Silent Calls whatsoever. Disproportionate action is however not generally the problem here. I am not aware of any disproportionate action by the ICO.

The problem is that far too little action is being taken overall by both Ofcom and the ICO on these matters. This is because they are obsessed with only taking action in big cases in the hope that this will cause everyone to behave properly. Both organisations are structured to deal with situations where there is a much higher level of compliance with relevant standards and regulations than is actually the case. This is quite different from the situation with enforcement of motoring law, which is generally set up to occur on an enormous scale.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 10:43pm:

The problem is that far too little action is being taken overall by both Ofcom and the ICO on these matters. This is because they are obsessed with only taking action in big cases in the hope that this will cause everyone to behave properly. Both organisations are structured to deal with situations where there is a much higher level of compliance with relevant standards and regulations than is actually the case. This is quite different from the situation with enforcement of motoring law, which is generally set up to occur on an enormous scale.

Much of the ICO leaves me almost as underwhelmed as Ofcom.

For instance for ages they insisted they would only take complaints under the PECR rules in the post compared to the TPS always having a website mechanism (albeit that they wasted money by then not emailing confirmation of the online report and always sending out a letter in the post indicating the matter would be logged with the ICO etc - a practice they have now stopped in favour of also sending a confirming email after my suggestion that this would save them a lot of money).  Then eventually the ICO grudgingly developed a painful to complete Word complaint form that they expected to be uploaded on to their website  through a submission mechanism that never worked.  And then finally they then commissioned some incompetent firm of IT cowboys who obviously specialise in doing useless work for government departments to design a normal web form that would not then work because it had never been quality tested and so had various hopeless tripups in terms of how it expected the data to be entered (for instance it expected people to enter a website as http://www.ico.gov.uk as though we were back in about 1995) and then only errored these entry problems when the user tried to send off the whole form (at which point the user could not adequately see where the errors lay as more than half the form was off the screen and even if you could see the errored box the nature of the correction needed was not properly explained).  It is massively unimpressive that the ICO does not seem able to recruit adequate in house IT resources in the low cost part of the country it is based in order to do simple website form development.  But of course why bother when they lose no money out of their own budget by having no effective online submission mechanism for complaints and it also cuts down the amount of work they have to do when complainants give up.

However I have discovered there are several senior caseworkers in the PECR section who are intelligent people and who believe in what they do and they have explained to me by letter and on the phone that are only a few thousand direct complaints to the ICO from members of the public under the PECR rules each year (no doubt in part because of the extraordinary barriers to complaining) and all of them result in a company that has had no warning letter so far getting a warning letter explaining the consequence of continued non observance of the regulations.  However they only actually take action against the most frequent abusers and/or those causing the greatest distress or potential financial loss to those called through their actions.  This is a much better situation than Ofcom where no senior staff member will ever put their name or personal phone number on a letter to a pleb member of the public and their call centre has been instructed to pursue a bunker mentality where anyone who is forced to admit they are a member of the public are directed to speak to the low skilled labour in their contact centre.

In my view the whole situation would be greatly improved if the eventual fines imposed were far more severe for the larger operators (who have far less excuse for claiming that they did not know they had the need to have these systems in place or have their data constantly rescreened against the TPS masterlist) but were only imposed after a variety of more severe looking  correspondence from the ICO that gave the firms in question sufficient time to mend the error of their ways.

These call centres only do what they do to make money and if going on doing it illegally is going to end up costing them more money than they are making from the activity then pretty soon they are going to feel like giving up.  However Indian call centres remain an annoying persistently rump of unwanted makers silent calls calls to TPS registered homes and given the UK's extensive business links with India our regulators/government only needs to form a bilateral agreement with the Indian telecoms and/or legal authorities that they will make it easy to trace these calls internationally and that they will bring in rules equivalent to those in force in the UK for call centres in India who make calls to UK addresses despite the fact they are UK TPS registered.  There are no other country in the world from a which any very significant number of these unwelcome calls are being made so the amount of complex international negotiation on this subject that uk telecoms regulators need to do is therefore surely extremely limited.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 10:34pm:

Dave wrote on Apr 18th, 2010 at 8:40pm: Is is the case that some don't provide the correct "true" originating line number, and perhaps a made-up number? As I understand it, all UK telcos do provide the true line id, although this is not necessarily what is sent as the "CLI". Callers are able to demand suppression of this information or replacement by a "presentation" number.

When I wrote the question I was thinking of those false CLIs numbers such as 1111 and 00000000000. If they were international calls, then, from what you say, BT would have discarded the numbers in favour of presenting an "International" CLI. This would suggest that they could originate from within the UK.

So, could these be the presentation numbers you refer to with real (true) numbers sent to the terminating providers but not disclosed to their customers? :-?

For what it is worth, the situation here is that any telemarketer (anyone using the telephone for solicitation purposes) is required to transmit its number, and if available, its name. This applies even if the recipient has not registered with the national do not call list. A summary of FCC requirements can be found here"

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/tcpa.html

As a 'typical consumer', I tend to receive very few silent type telemarketing calls, but, on occasion, these do happen. If they annoy me sufficiently over an extended period, then I usually report such calls to the FCC using its on-line complaint form. The calls then typically stop.

It is very rare for me to receive unsolicited telemarketing calls on my cellular phone. This would be of slightly greater concern as incoming calls are chargeable.

I am curious as to the process within the UK for reporting slient/abandoned call types. I am assuming that it is via the ICO and not Ofcom. Does the process generally work?

idb wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 12:05am:

I am curious as to the process within the UK for reporting slient/abandoned call types. I am assuming that it is via the ICO and not Ofcom.

Sadly Ofcom is still charged with responsibility for Silent/abandoned calls.  I suspect this is because it recognised early on that this was a sufficiently non grey area that another regulator given powers might actually have leapt in to a program of taking firm and rigorous action.  Far better I am sure they reckoned to leave the job to good old Ofcom who would then use their usual tactics off fobbing off all attempts at direct complaint to them by the public back to the telecoms company or if deadlock was reached there to Otelo.  Ofcom do have a form on their website for complaints about Silent Calls so well hidden that you need to be especially determined to find it even though they seem content for you to read their FAQ on the subject.  But even if you do managed to log a number on it you are warned that no direct information on the consequences of individual complaints is ever provided.  I am sure this is because in the main Ofcom normally takes no action.


Quote:

Does the process generally work?

Silent Calls have reduced a lot because new software to eliminate it has been installed by the main call centres as in the long run it actually saves them money in calling costs.  But where they do still happen the number is mainly withheld and this leaves the called party in the position of not being able to make a complaint unless they get a seemingly linked manned sales call only a few minutes or an hour or two after the silent one.

And there are still plenty of UK based call centres who withhold their numbers which allows them to get away with any silent calls that they end up making.

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 12:19am:

Silent Calls have reduced a lot because new software to eliminate it has been installed by the main call centres as in the long run it actually saves them money in calling costs.  But where they do still happen the number is mainly withheld and this leaves the called party in the position of not being able to make a complaint unless they get a seemingly linked manned sales call only a few minutes or an hour or two after the silent one. And there are still plenty of UK based call centres who withhold their numbers which allows them to get away with any silent calls that they end up making.

Thanks for the info. So, is there any movement to mandate the use of CLI for unsolicited calls, as is the requirement here? This, while not perfect, would at least assist the telephone consumer. Perhaps Ofcom is not in the business of assisting customers :)

There appears to be a big difference between CLI acceptance here and in the UK. Perhaps it's a cultural thing. I cannot recall receiving any recent call from a business, agency, government or non-profit organization that had its number suppressed. From what I remember from the UK in 2004, around half of non-presonal calls would present unavailable or withheld.

idb wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 12:44am:

… So, is there any movement to mandate the use of CLI for unsolicited calls, as is the requirement here? This, while not perfect, would at least assist the telephone consumer. Perhaps Ofcom is not in the business of assisting customers :)

I think that this is an excellent idea. Whilst there will always be those who flout this, it will provide the benefits of being able to report companies who make silent calls as well as ringing them back and removing oneself from the database.

Dave wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 1:00pm:

I think that this is an excellent idea. Whilst there will always be those who flout this, it will provide the benefits of being able to report companies who make silent calls as well as ringing them back and removing oneself from the database.

Indeed; Ofcom is also a believer in the idea that burglars should be required to leave their name and address so that they may be more easily caught. It is not easy to object to the idea, however one must question the likelihood of it being effective. To continue the analogy, if it is known that the Police rarely use the information so that others can be protected then the cocky burglar may be happy to provide this information. If the burglar promises not to burgle the same house again, then this may be good news for the victim, but of little benefit to society in general.

Ofcom stipulates provision of CLI by dialler users, along with a requirement that it should not be used as a means of providing the general number on which one may contact the caller for a conversation.

I have long argued that if it is thought highly likely that the call would be unwelcome, then it should be prohibited in the first place. There is the TPS to cover all marketing calls, regardless of the technology used. One of the most common causes of Silent Calls is calls from debt collectors. They, like telemarketing companies, are supposedly required to provide an option to refuse further calls, but only if they use automated diallers.

In fact the so-called Ofcom rules about Silent Calls are not actually legally enforceable regulations at all. if the relevant EU Directive had been implemented properly in the UK, then Silent Calls by direct marketing companies would have been a breach of the PECR and therefore prohibited to all (regardless of TPS registration) under the same regulation that prohibits all recorded message calls.

---

If CLI did tell the recipient who was calling, then a lot of this would make more sense. In fact, it does not. If every incoming telephone call was accompanied by a short string of text, then the situation would be totally different. Every caller would announce themselves in advance of the call being answered, whether or not they wished to provide a number for a return call. I understand that we are a very long way away from such a situation.

The "True Call" device gets close to this, as unrecognised callers are required to offer a brief voice message saying who they are. If a message is provided then the call is offered, with the option to refuse to take it.

I fear that forcing callers to give out meaningless CLI does nothing more than generate lots of unnecessary and useless return calls and further undermines the usefulness of CLI. I am also concerned about the extent to which this is seen as a personal issue, rather than a matter for society as a whole. Hanging up in silence when a call is answered, or making unsolicited calls to those who have explicitly stated that they do not wish to receive them is an offence against us all, not just the individual vicitm. Whilst the vicitm is entitled to some appropriate remedy, that does not fully address the issue.

idb wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 12:44am:

is there any movement to mandate the use of CLI for unsolicited calls, as is the requirement here? This, while not perfect, would at least assist the telephone consumer.

Further to my previous posting I will address this point directly.

The Direct Marketing Association mandates provision of meaningless CLI by its members. There is no structure of regulation to enforce such a requirement on a statutory basis. The obvious vehicle would be the PECR, however that is tied closely to a EU Directive which does not impose this requirement.

The only apparent benefit to the telephone consumer is enabling them to complain about nuisance which they should not be suffering in the first place. Whilst some may find this to be a satisfying experience, I do not believe that facilitating complaints against those who are too stupid to commit a second offence in order to disguise their primary offence (i.e. withholding or providing false CLI when making Silent Calls or breaching the TPS) is worthy of new regulations.

Whilst they are free to so, I do not believe that people should be encouraged to refuse calls without CLI. All this does is encourage the use of fake and meaningless CLI.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 2:30pm:

The only apparent benefit to the telephone consumer is enabling them to complain about nuisance which they should not be suffering in the first place.

This is indeed a most valuable and therapeutic element in the proceedings that someone with your "I never get cross" Mr Positivist mentality would of course never understand.  I see that you would seek to deny this basic human right to us though.

Personally without the righteous anger at receiving a call from someone pushy that one does not want to get on one's own home number I fail to see what else motivates anyone to spend hours of their private time pursuing this issue.  Any more rational approach involving writing long treatises would normally in my experience only appeal to those paid to do such a job on a professional basis.


Quote:

Whilst some may find this to be a satisfying experience, I do not believe that facilitating complaints against those who are too stupid to commit a second offence in order to disguise their primary offence (i.e. withholding or providing false CLI when making Silent Calls or breaching the TPS) is worthy of new regulations.

I am unclear which you consider to be the more serious offence here?  The withheld CLI or the unsolicited marketing call to someone who is registered on the TPS Do Not Call list?


Quote:

Whilst they are free to so, I do not believe that people should be encouraged to refuse calls without CLI. All this does is encourage the use of fake and meaningless CLI.

It wouldn't do so if there were large fines for faking or withholding a CLI for a UK originated call and the identity of anyone withholding or faking their CLI who was UK based could easily be traced.

Apologies if these brief responses are inadequate.


NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 5:49pm:

This is indeed a most valuable and therapeutic element in the proceedings that someone with your "I never get cross" Mr Positivist mentality would of course never understand.  I see that you would seek to deny this basic human right to us though. Personally without the righteous anger at receiving a call from someone pushy that one does not want to get on one's own home number I fail to see what else motivates anyone to spend hours of their private time pursuing this issue.  Any more rational approach involving writing long treatises would normally in my experience only appeal to those paid to do such a job on a professional basis.

I hope that I do understand the enormous of distress and wasted energy that is caused by telephone nuisance. I campaign for people to be spared from this, not for them to be helped to waste more energy by making a complaint. I do not acknowledge any right to be the victim of nuisance. If the state is deliberately failing to prevent a citizen from being a victim of nuisance so that they may have the satisfaction of complaining about it, then that would be a breach of human rights.


NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 5:49pm:

I am unclear which you consider to be the more serious offence here?  The withheld CLI or the unsolicited marketing call to someone who is registered on the TPS Do Not Call list?

I understand the proposal for the former to be only as a means of helping to address the latter, which is therefore the more serious. I can see no other useful purpose for it, unless every citizen is to be provided with a list of every telephone number and the name of the person using it.


NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 5:49pm:

It wouldn't do so if there were large fines for faking or withholding a CLI for a UK originated call and the identity of anyone withholding or faking their CLI who was UK based could easily be traced.

If measures to prevent the withholding of CLI were effective, there would be no need to refuse calls with withheld CLI. The point only applies whilst there is such a need.

The right to withhold CLI is currently held as an issue of privacy - a valuable right, when understood properly. It is proposed that this right is withdrawn from those who have not yet been found to have have broken the law, but are doing so (that indeed is the whole point of the proposal). I am keen to know which other technically innocent callers would also have to forgo this right. It is suggested that this should apply to all UK-originated calls, however many of us would regard such a proposal as an infringement of our right to privacy. It could certainly provide a nice earner for the telcos in the provision of outgoing-only lines (assuming that these were not also to be banned.)

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To move on a little, many of the CLIs currently provided give access to a recorded message from a call centre (not any particular client) which says "you were called today by xxxx call centre, please leave your number if you wish it to be removed from our calling lists". This satisfies Ofcom, but to me represents a gross misuse of CLI. If anyone pays for such a call they deserve their money back.

BT does something similar, a message says that someone from BT called. That is however on a 0800 number. A total waste of time.

Provision of CLI is only part of the story, one then has to think what it gives access to. Telcos and others are quite happy for this to be a worthless call.

---

To struggle back to relevance for the forum. The enthusiasm for calling back to the CLI of a missed call provides an opportunity for scammers to give revenue sharing or PRS numbers as CLI in the hope that return callers will hang on listening to recorded messages long enough for them to earn some serious money.

I would always advise people never to call a number that they do not recognise, whatever type it is. The proponents of enforced CLI clearly take a different view.