BT announces new service to prevent spam calls
25th January, 2017 at 16:29pm
The Direct Marketing Commission warmly welcomes the announcement by BT of new customer services that prevent spam calls.
In 2014 in our Annual Report and in evidence to an All Party political group we argued the case for action at the network level alongside regulation, co-regulation and work to inform and empower people. It has been a long-time coming but it is good that this is now happening. We would look to all fixed and mobile carriers to look at how this protection can be assured for all.
For our part the DMC has taken and investigated complaints about marketing and so-called “lead generation” activities. We have set out our concerns over the reliance some businesses put on consents to marketing that are as unclear as they are old. The Direct Marketing Association are taking up this challenge with testing and audits. It is important these are set against clear and challenging requirements.
This is part of the “jigsaw solution” that looks necessary here as in other fields of consumer protection. Smart use of technology and meaningful industry expectations sit alongside action to educate and empower users and regulation. For our part regulators must learn from our past experiences.
Treating every sector and every service the same makes no sense when the commercial drivers and the nature of the customer relationship vary dramatically. Anyone looking at how the incentives, personal injury and PPI businesses had to reach out and capture clients should not have been surprised at how some of them went about their business. Sudden shifts in circumstances can stimulate rapid and sometimes unacceptable responses from those who want to get high benefit from the changes.
As soon as the Government suggested a far more liberal regime from taking funds from pension funds the DMC flagged the risk both of rogue activity but also of high volume and aggressive marketing to the millions who might be tempted to take advantage of the changes. Our worry, learning from past events, was that some stampede to win this business would outweigh any duty to respect TPS registrations and regulations on e-mail and other digital marketing. This ability to identify terms and risks is something self-regulation should be good at – and it’s something statutory regulators need to learn if they are to do more than sweep up the damage after it has occurred.
