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But actually the case, hence outgoing-only lines, RedCare and so on.

See here. It seems that MKD Holdings Ltd (trading as Kitchens Direct) are still making loads of silent calls. They appear to have been doing it for well over a year now. See this complaint on Ofcom's site.

There is also an interview with one Mike Peacock of Ofcom on the BBC News clip.

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You may be interested to know that someone else who appears in that BBC clip has found your site.

Anyone interested in the issue of stopping Silent Calls may wish to look at www.users.waitrose.com/~SilentCalls.

As the only consumer to have pursuaded Ofcom to use its powers under Sections 128 - 131 of the Communications Act 2003, I may be of help to the SayNoTo0870 campaign.

Using these same powers that cover Silent Calls, Ofcom may take action against those who use revenue-sharing "presentation numbers".

(These powers relate to Ofcom's duty to protect citizens, and are quite separate from Ofcom's involvement in the numbers themselves and the charging, which relates to its regulation of the telecomms industry.)

The examples of "persistent misuse of a telecommunications network" given in Ofcom's Statement of Policy include:

"A return caller may suffer annoyance or inconvenience by unwittingly making a return call for which they are charged more than they may reasonably expect".

Has anyone considered making a complaint to Ofcom in relation to any of the more serious cases covered on this site?

I am still busy fighting the Silent Calls battle myself, but would be happy to offer any tips.

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What does one regard as serious I wonder?  And where does one start and finish?

What about continued insistence in BUPA' call centres at supervisor level that this is "local call rate" and that they are saving me money by subsidising the price difference between a local and national rate call.  Or continued insistence by call centre staff for Surrey Police that this is a special local rate and denial that it can be costing me 11p per minute from a BT Phonebox.

Or is it the fact that the National Rail Enquiries 0845 number now suddenly takes ages to get through to while they encourage you to call their automated 0871 number instead where they neglect to state that calls cost 10p per minute.  Or is it staff manning TopUpTvs 0871 customer service who swear blind that its an "ordinary national rate call"

Or is it BT who will only let me use the call diversion facility on my line by using them as the call carrier instead of the 100 or so companies that I can use if I call the number myself when I am at home.  Or what about BT phoen boxes where all the pubicity materials still state that calls cost 15 minutes for 30p for local and national rate calls.

And what does Ofcom do about any of this stuff?  Precisely Nothing?   Just as they will shortly do nothing about preventing 084x and 087x still being charged massively above the cost of national geographic phone calls.  Well they may make these companies have a price announcement on the line but I bet they won't make it illegal for a company's captive customers to have to pay more than their providers standard geographic phone rates to make a call.

Their predecessor OFTEL is the souce of nearly all these problems as if ever there was a regulator that was in the pocket of the industry it was supposed to control then OFTEL was it.  And what about BT phone rental at £168 a year (Option 1 + 2 Select Services) before I pick up the line to make a single call.  By contrast the water company charges me £20 a year before I turn on my tap.

Like you I have managed to be interviewed on a BBC Radio 4 program about this but I am far from convinced that it will do any good as empirical evidence suggests that almost nobody of consequence listens to You & Yours.

Why is it that having the first name David seems to make people especially disposed to opposing the use of 084/7x.

So far as Ofcom and 084/7x is concerned the submission from BT asking for new regulations requiring that 0845 and 0870 in future only be billed at geographic call rates must have a powerful influence on Ofcom's though processes.  But on the other hand New Labour has been re-elected and it seems to be New Labour strategy to impose yet further secret stealth taxes by moving almost every major government agency call centre in the land (Passport Agency, DVLA, Inland Revenue etc) onto 084/7x so running costs can be subsdised by the caller.  So are Ofcom going to dare to do anything that might upset New Labour's strategic telecoms plans at a ministerial level.

The BT submission to the Ofcom NTS Options for the Future consultation is a curious affair since it proposes stopping the 0845 and 0870 ripoff whilst allowing the 0844 and 0871 ripoffs to continue unregulated by ICSTIS.  Yet the inevitable consequence of this logical consistency are surely blindingly obvious (namely that virtually all 0845 and 0870 abusers will simply move to 0844 and 0871 thus further increasing caller costs).

Unless Ofcom go for the right solution on this (namely ban all 084/087x revenue sharing and force revenue sharing dial up ISPs to move to another unused number prefix like 04 or 06) I will have no further confidence in any of their actions.

For one moment there I thought from your comments and the timing of your appearance in this forum that you were the former MP Paul Tyler.  But reading your post again I can see that you are not since Paul Tyler has been interviewed on You & Yours.

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David,

Thanks for your helpful response.  No insult was really intended on my part and my comments were intended mainly in jest given our 2 moderators in this forum - Dave and DaveM.

I note the work that you are doing on Silent Calls but I wonder if these are in fact as great a menace as receipt of non silent calls that play a message and tell you that you have won a prize draw with televisons and all expenses paid holidays and to contact the following 0906 number to claim (the cost of the 0906 call is never given even thoug it is usually £1.50 a minute).

Speaking personally I have received a lot more of these recorded announcement calls (always showing International Number Unavailable) than any Silent Calls, especially from Casinos and lotteries in Las Vegas.  Although their numbers have been declining steeply of late as ICSTIS takes more steps to introduce delays in paying those who run these lines (to allow payment to be blocked if there is a flood of complaint  about the particular 0906 line).

I also can't actually remember the last time that I received a silent phone call depsite the fact that my number is printed in the BT phone book although I am of course registered with the TPS.

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I've checked this out and it isn't true. 

I wonder if anyone here is able to give a more proficient opinion on this as the reply above (with all respect to Tanallan) is incorrect.  It is not possible to invade the privacy of someone's home and prevent them from dialling numbers or calling 999 simply because you don't put the phone down when calling them!

Nobody at BT seems able to explain what I'm on about and consistently treat me like some sort of moron... send their jobs to India - that'll teach them... (whinge whinge)