I tried to add a new entry to the database for TPF Law, a firm of PPI and Personal Injury claim chasing solicitors from Manchester. 

Amongst other things TPF Law appear to obtain their PPI leads by using call bureaus who make random calls to any random number whether TPS registered or not.  When the call bureau finds a potential victim with an apparently valid PPI claim they then connect the person they have called to TPF who send through a claim pack in the post. You can see their enthusiasm for PPI claims from their alter ego website at http://www.ppiclaimspeople.com/contact-us.htm.  When  making outbound calls themselves (to follow up on leads hooked by the TPS abusing call bureay they employ) they always use the CLI of 0845 073 7177

Anyway I tried to add the geographic alternative number of 0161 820 6585 listed for their Polish speaking line at http://tpf-law.co.uk/contact-us/ as the voicemail for this is answered by an English speaker.  However when I try to add the 0161 number to the database most of it is replaced by the # sign.  This does not happen for the 0845 number.

Is there any reason for this since as far as I am aware Manchester numbers are still 7 digits and the 0161 number at http://tpf-law.co.uk/contact-us/ does ring when it is called?

There is also a further 0161 number for this firm of solicitors at their alter ego of http://www.ppiclaimspeople.com/contact-us.htm of 0161 820 5422 where they also clearly show that they are the one and the same people as TPF Law and are based at the same postal address of Queens Chambers, 5 John Dalton St, Manchester, M2 6ET also shown against this firm by the Law Society (who also only list the 0845 contact number).

To further update this I have now had a call back from solicitor and proprietor of TPF Law and www.ppiclaimspeople.com, Tim Fowler.  This followed on from a call I got from one of his staff members at TPF Law (or PPI Claims People who they also trade as) a day ago wanting to know why I hadn't set back the PPI claims back I had been sent after the previous unsolicited call.

When I suggested this was because I wasn't interested and that furthermore their firm should not have been trying to do business with a TPS registered address phone number but I now had all the information I needed to complain about them the lady wrongly suggested that a TPS opt out was only on a firm by firm basis and not universal and only lasted for a year or two. Naturally I became rather angry about this untrue information about the TPS and ended up hanging up the phone on her after giving her a few choice words about providing such inaccurate information.

Rather than, as some solicitors might, rushing to immediate threats of libel actions etc if anyone dared say anything negative or critical about his firm Mr Fowler took an extremely constructive and conciliatory approach and claimed TPF Law would never knowingly attempt to achieve new business introductions from a lead sourcing company that was not complying with the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations and a phone subscriber's registration with the TPS.  He  indicated that his firm's relationship was with the second call centre I had been handed over to by the first call centre using the automated announcement on the 0151 number and that the second call centre had never admitted to having any dealings with a firm making calls in such a way or especially to TPS registered numbers.

He then went on to provide the helpful information that he had investigated how my data had been sourced and that it had come from a data vendor called www.media-tactics.co.uk  I found this very interesting and useful news another caller some days ago who were quite separate from TPF Law but who I think were also introduced by an automated call from a call centre also using an automated announcement that you might be entitled to compensation and to press 5 if interested also said my data had come from Media Tactics and that they had been assured the data was TPS screened.  So it appears that Media Tactics could be supplying contact data which they indicate is TPS screened but that in fact isn't.

Although the legal liability for making calls to non TPS registered homes actually lies with the caller (although who the caller is may be muddied here by the fact the original call bureau passes the call on twice) in my opinion the Information Commissioner should be trying to find a way to clamp down on database vendors who may be selling data to clients that they represent as being fully screened against the TPS database but that in fact is not.

Of course it could be that the data from www.media-tactics.co.uk is actually fully TPS screened and has a data field flag that show its TPS registered status for those records but that the call centres who the data is then being sold on to are incapable of using such flags properly.  But because of that risk this does rather beg the question why Media Tactics doesn't only sell lists for these companies to call that have the TPS registered addresses stripped at source before they are every put anywhere near an outgong call centre operation.