At the risk of turning this blog into a silent calls soap-box, I’m going to post once more on the topic.

Then I promise I’ll change the record.

I spoke a while ago about a guy called David Hickson. David is a consumer who, single-handed, has taken on the issue of silent calls. David’s campaign has been rather high profile and if not for him we would not be in the pressing position we are now. For this reason you may consider him a thorn in the telemarketing industry’s side.

The truth is, however, that David has done nothing more than acted as a catalyst and bought this issue to a head quickly. The real thorns in our side are those who continue to make silent calls.

I received this press release from him last night and I thought you may all be interested:

THE MENACE OF SILENT CALLS - WHO IS THE MENACE ?

Silent calls create a menace in two ways. There are seen as menacing by
some who receive them. They are also recognised as a major reason for TPS
registration thereby creating a threat to the future of unsolicited
outbound.

Many in the industry are now looking seriously at the option of
transmitting an Informative Message, giving their name and the reason for
the call, rather than leaving silence when there is no agent available to
handled an answered call (a NAA call).

For those who are prepared to receive properly conducted marketing calls
this has to be an acceptable alternative and greatly preferable solution to
the problem of Silent Calls. Some believe that following this route will
not only support ethical objectives, but may help to slow down the rate of
growth of TPS registration.

There appears to be a market for selling by telephone, so in the event that
cold calling effectively ceased to be a viable legal activity we must
assume that this would be picked up by those not covered by the TPS. One
may assume that those not covered by the TPS would not respect other
enforced aspects of good practice either, perhaps leading to far more
telephone nuisance than we have at present.

Unfortunately these efforts to retain and upgrade the UK industry are
menaced from two sources.

IS BT THE MENACE?

BT is spending a lot of money on TV advertising trying to persuade all of
its customers to sign up for the Telephone Preference Service. If BT is
successful then its customers may have to look forward to receiving all
their telemarketing calls from those who do not respect regulations.

If BT’s success with its “Privacy at Home” service continues at the present
rate, how soon would it be before this created a real problem?

IS OFCOM THE MENACE?

The companies planning to use Informative Messages need confirmation from
Ofcom that it would not regard them as the same type of nuisance as Silent
Calls. Ofcom has stated that it cannot make any public statement on this
topic, such as that which is required, whilst it is conducting
investigations. Its present investigations into 7 companies should be
concluded by Christmas, unless Ofcom decides that it needs longer.

If the industry has a solution that is nearly ready to go, can we wait
until after Christmas?

David’s website can be found here: http://www.users.waitrose.com/~silentcalls/

Remember, the first draft of the voluntary code is now available here: Dialling Code Link.

Now is the time for you to pledge support.

Regards,
Darryl