Ofcom Follows Up 'Silent Call' Consultation

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has published its response to a recent consultation on silent calls, which includes rule changes and clarifications.

Two weeks ago, the body announced a stiffening of fines for companies making an excessive number of the calls, which can result from automated diallers in call centres getting more answered calls than staff are available to handle, or from software which identifies what it thinks is an answering machine and hangs up (known as AMD technology). The maximum penalty is now £2m.

A Revised Statement of Policy published in September 2008 identified making abandoned or silent calls as one example of persistent misuse and described steps call centres should take to avoid making such calls and to minimise harm where they do occur. The latest consultation began in June this year and closed at the end of July, receiving 63 responses from stakeholders ranging from consumer groups to firms using the technology.

Ofcom says more than 70% of all its complaints about silent calls come from people who have received two or more of them in a day, 'from the same company, often over a period of days or even weeks': and that some had received 10 or more silent calls a day, from the same company.

The body now says it believes 'the majority of repeat silent calls are caused by the inaccuracies of AMD technology' which can continually make 'false positive' identifications of individuals as answering machines: 'if a consumer is mistaken to be an answer machine once, it is likely that this will happen again', leading to repeated silent calls.

As a result, Ofcom will now add a ruling limiting call centre calls to answer machines: 'When a call has been identified by AMD technology as an answer machine (including AMD false positives), any repeat calls to that number may only be made with the guaranteed presence of a call centre agent.' Call centres will be required to comply with this policy by 1 February 2011. More generally, the document states that 'When an 'abandoned call' has been made to a particular number any repeat calls to that number in the following 72 hours may only be made with the guaranteed presence of a live operator (the '72 hour policy').'

Clarifications in the new document cover how call centres should calculate the number of calls they abandon, and the definition of a 'campaign'. They also include requirements for playing information messages in the event of an abandoned call, known as the 'two second policy'. This states that:

• In the event of an 'abandoned call', a very brief recorded information message must be played either no later than two seconds after the telephone has been picked up, or no later than two seconds after an individual begins to speak...'

The message must include the identity of the company on whose behalf the call was made; and details of an 0800 or 0845 number the called person can contact to decline to receive further marketing calls from the company. It must not include any marketing content.

The latest document is on the Web at http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/silent-calls/statement/ .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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