MSE News: TalkTalk fined £750,000 for silent and abandoned sales calls

jobdone1 wrote: »

O well i am sure they will put up prices to pay for the fine

"Both suppliers addressed the root cause of the problem and TalkTalk will fully recover the financial penalty imposed by Ofcom from these companies."

TalkTalk has been fined for something it did two years ago. It breached the level of Silent Calls permitted under Ofcom's own policy.

In 2006, Parliament stated to Ofcom that "We expect you to use your powers to eradicate the nuisance of Silent Calls."

Instead, Ofcom has drawn up a policy that tolerates a certain amount of Silent Calls. Ringing someone up and hanging up without saying anything is wrong. It is a misuse of the telephone network and Ofcom should regard it as such.

Ofcom permits the use of Answering Machine Detection (AMD). This 'listens' to see if it can hear the clicks and whirrs of a mechanical answering machine. In so doing there must be a period of silence at the beginning of the call during which it listens. The detection technology isn't exact and in some case it 'thinks' that a human is an answering machine, which means it terminates the call. This is one cause of silent calls.

However, mechanical answering machines are pretty-much extinct. Answering services are invariably network based. What should happen is that Answering Service Detection (ASD) is used. This would be far more accurate.

They also own most of the phone lines that doctors use for the premium rate 0844 numbers that were banned three years ago, but continue in use in over 1000 surgeries.