SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 3:18pm:

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 9:40pm:

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.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 11:43pm:


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.

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?

NGMsGhost wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 1:19am:
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.

Dave wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 2:00pm:

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.

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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.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 3:30pm:


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.

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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?

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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.