Cold call kill: Step-by-step

By THIS IS MONEY
Updated:

 

MANY small businesses have complained to This is Money that they are being plagued by unsolicted marketing calls, faxes and mail. They say there is little protection in the law from this perennial waste of time and they are lobbying for change.

Here is This is Money's three-step guide to minimising the menace of cold-calling.

1) The first step is to contact the Direct Marketing Association's Telephone Preference Service or Fax Preference Service or Mail Preference Service.

Register your company's phone number, fax number or address, respectively. You must also provide your name, company name and company address. These organisations will put your details on a Do Not Contact list within 28 days of receiving your complaint.

Marketing companies, who can obtain the registers from these organisations, are legally obliged to comply with the lists. Limited companies, unfortunately, are not covered by the Telephone Preference Service, but if a firm is being a serious nuisance it can be reported to Oftel, the telephone network regulator.

Oftel can be contacted at 50 Ludgate Hill, London EC4M 7JJ, phone 020 7634 8700.

Telephone Preference Service: 0845 0700707 or www.tpsonline.org.uk

Fax Preference Service: 0845 0700702 or www.fpsonline.org.uk

Mail Preference Service: 020 7291 3300 or www.mpsonline.org.uk

2)If you are still being contacted by marketing companies after this, you can complain to the Direct Marketing Association. You can write, fax or call them. You must tell them the phone, fax number and address you have registered and include your contact details. Enclose any faxes and junk mail as evidence.

Direct Marketing Association: Haymarket House, 1 Oxendon Street, London, SW1Y 4EE. Telephone 0207 766 4410. Fax 0207 976 1886. www.dma.org.uk

2) If the marketeers still keep pestering you, your last port of call is the Information Commissioner. Write to the commissioner identifying your company. And name the companies that have continued to contact you. Again include any junk faxes and mail with your letter. The commissioner will contact the marketing company and instruct them not to contact anyone on the registers.

The commissioner can, as a result, take formal enforcement action against a marketing company. Write to: Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

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