Report to the People
9th May 2005
Calling Time on Nuisance Callers
With the General Election all over bar
the shouting (which, on past experience, will probably last until the next one),
you might think you can sit down to enjoy your tea in peace.
No
more loudspeaker vans outside your window.
No more canvassers knocking over your garden gnomes as they try to stuff
the whole street’s leaflets through your letterbox.
But
now, instead of Sean Connery calling you from the Bahamas telling you to vote
SNP, you’ve got computers calling you from Tuvalu telling you you’ve won a
holiday in Florida.
Not
only are these automated calls a nuisance, if they trick you into calling the
extortionate premium rate line to claim your “prize”, they also lighten your
wallet.
Last
month, then, the premium rate telephone regulator closed down fifteen of the
shysters running these services – hitting them with a £1.3 million fine and
branding them “intrusive, misleading and almost certainly illegal.”
While
it’s good to see the regulator taking firm action, we as individuals can also
fight back.
These
automated calls are illegal, as is making any unsolicited direct marketing calls
to individuals who have said they don’t want to receive them. And making it
clear you don’t want your tea or Coronation
Street interrupted by cold callers is easy. Simply call the Telephone Preference Service on 0845
070 0707 (or log on to www.tpsonline.org.uk)
and stop these uninvited guests annoying you in your own home.
That,
after all, is the politicians’ job.
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