I’ve no need to tell you that this industry has concerns about the number of TPS registrations.

It’s obviously with concern that I read about BT (who aren’t afraid of making a few sales calls themselves) who are promoting a new service called Privacy at home. This is sold to consumers as a way of stopping cold calls. It gives the consumer free caller display and automatically subscribes them to the TPS list.

I’ve a few issues with this - mainly because it’s a crooked as a nine bob note.

One of the conditions is that the consumer continues to make some calls using the BT network. This is aimed at getting call traffic back from the CPS/LCR providers that offer a much better deal than BT.

This in itself I don’t like - BT are using the current concern over telemarketing as a way to market something unrelated.

Secondly (and this is the really dodgy one), regarding TPS registration BT say:
“Of course, we’d like you to give your consent for BT to contact you after registration with news of genuine savings and improvements to our services.”

Yes - although they subscribe you to the TPS, BT are still going to make telemarketing calls to you. In fact; you’re likely to receive more calls then before.

Regards,
db