Nuisance calls generating thousands of complaints

The reported number of nuisance calls peaked at 35,000 in March this year. Yet only a handful of people have been appointed to resolve the issue.

The shocking revelation emerged this week from Westminster, following an evidence session before the House of Commons committee for the inquiry into Nuisance Calls. The witnesses were Simon Entwisle from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Claudio Pollack from Ofcom, and Edward Vaizey MP and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries.

Ofcom’s market research illustrated the extent of the problem. 800 people kept a one-month diary of the land-line calls they received. Ofcom found that 82% received unwanted calls. Of this percentage, the average number of calls received was 8.4 over a four-week period. Yet a quarter received more than 10.

A handful of people dealing with the problem

In spite of the scale of the problem, it was revealed that ICO has only 6 people dedicated to resolving the issue, whilst the government department of Culture, Media and Sport has 2 and Ofcom were unable to provide figures.

The three witnesses justified their efforts to date by stating that they had tackled the initial problem of over-active diallers, and had issued a number of fines.

But the situation has evolved since then.

“There is a level of technical complexity involved with the current problem,” said Claudio Pollack, “as it is very easy for companies to hide their identity”.

Back in 2005, large brand companies were the cause of the problem. They were easy to find and prosecute. Yet now the nuisance calls are coming from a mass of smaller companies, with over half of ICO complaints coming from a collective of over 800 individual organisations, a lot of which are using modern technology to hide their identity, making it very difficult for them to be traced.

Difficult to issue fines

There is also a legal barrier in place, as the current laws prevent organisations from being prosecuted unless they have caused “substantial” levels of distress. It would take over 1,000 complaints to ICO to fall into this category and, as it currently stands, the majority of cases never qualify. This prevents the ICO from taking action, even if the respective companies are causing anxiety or inconvenience. However, a petition has been put into the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) this summer to reduce this threshold. If passed, this should help the ICO bring accountable companies to justice.

In addition, there is a delicate economic balance that has yet to be established with regard to issuing fines. This is because the amount needs to be substantial enough to act as a deterrent, yet not enough to put people out of business.

It was suggested that a merger of Ofcom and ICO, or the development of a new representative body, would help push things forward. Yet Simon Entwisle remained unconvinced. “We work closely with trading standards and the police, amongst others,” he said. “Even if a new regulator was involved, there would still be a large amount of cross-organisation collaboration involved. All the change would do is waste time.” Yet it was later revealed that Ofcom and ICO are not legally permitted to share intelligence, a fundamental flaw in their plans to tackle nuisance calls together.

Overall, what transpired, according to Conservative MP Philip Davies, was a lot of “huffing and puffing” as the witnesses did their best to defend their lack of progress.

The only real advice given was for people to register with the TPS, complain to the ICO, screen their calls with an answering machine or even change their phone number.

What do you think should be done to tackle nuisance calls?