call prevention registry - a jump on the privacy bandwagon ?

aerostar

Came across this site http://www.callpreventionregistry.co.uk/about.html
but fail to see the advantages of this when you can do it all for free !!!

from the site

"We are funded entirely by our members and aim to provide a fully efficient service to everyone that registers with us."

To me that seems to be that you PAY for the service!

"Company Number: 5415867.

The Call Prevention Registry is a trading name of Alpine Investments UK Ltd"

Investments is a word I would not associate with what they offer.

Perhaps you are going to get sales calls/literature about investments.

Company started 6th april 2005

The main director seems to have had and has a number of directorships and secretaryships.

Data registry number Z910480X
goto

http://www.esd.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/esd/DoSearch.asp

Note the following

Purpose 4
Trading / Sharing in Personal Information
Purpose Description:

The sale, hire or exchange of personal information.

Data subjects are:

Customers and clients

Data classes are:

Personal Details
Family, Lifestyle and Social Circumstances
Goods or Services Provided

Sources (S) and Disclosures (D)(1984 Act). Recipients (1998 Act):

Data subjects themselves
Other companies in the same group as the data controller
Suppliers, providers of goods or services
Credit reference agencies
Traders in personal data


Make you own minds up on this one.
- one final piece of info - whois shows
the website name is not registered to the company, but registered to an individual in Bedfordshire.

aphistionakis

Actually this company is a genuine independent company, and is NOT operating a scam.

The service is provided to anyone who pays the registration fee which is explained when the telesales staff call you back after you have registered. The service is 99.9% effective and unlike the TPS stops international nuisance sales calls - some people who I spoke to in the course of my job think that the fee of £33 is a small fee to pay to stop the calls, at the other extreme, some people became abusive when asked to pay.

pricefighter

How can it stop Intl Nuisance Calls?

aphistionakis

The manager actively approaches data houses across the world to let them know of the existence of his list of opted out numbers - he makes this available to them free of charge.

By dealing direct with the largest data houses in the country, where the international telesales companies buy their data, the international lists of numbers that are purchased have been 'cleansed' of the numbers of UK residents that have registered.

For some reason I don't fully understand the TPS service does not do this. The TPS service is less effective because they charge the sales companies somethng like £7000 a year to access the 'do not call list' and some companies choose not to do so.

redux

aphistionakis wrote:

The manager actively approaches data houses across the world to let them know of the existence of his list of opted out numbers - he makes this available to them free of charge.
~
In a moment of utter hypocrisy, the owner had the sales teams COLD CALLING residential numbers offering this service - needless to say uptkae was small.

Can I ask the missing question?

The opted-out lists may be given away free, but ...

What about others? Is there any chance he sells the numbers of people that refuse to subscribe?

Purpose 4
Trading / Sharing in Personal Information
Purpose Description:

The sale, hire or exchange of personal information.

Data subjects are:

Customers and clients

Data classes are:

Personal Details
Family, Lifestyle and Social Circumstances
Goods or Services Provided

Sources (S) and Disclosures (D)(1984 Act). Recipients (1998 Act):

Data subjects themselves
Other companies in the same group as the data controller
Suppliers, providers of goods or services
Credit reference agencies
Traders in personal data

aphistionakis

As of when I left the company, he did not sell any personal details of anyone, pass them to any third party or do anything with them other than contact them to offer the service, regardless of whether they subsribed or not. Ther were plans to pass numbers of non-paying customers back to data houses for a fee. I cannot confirm whether this ever actually happened.

BritBrat

Is that a referal link againt this sites rules?

BexTech

Seems a bit sus to me, a brand new poster coming on saying how wonderful they are and then add a referal link, loses all credibility.

yorksrabbit

Relatives who've experienced the fallibility of TPS asked if I'd heard of something called the Call Prevention Registry, which on its website states:

The Call Prevention Registry was established in 2005 with the primary aim of becoming the Consumer Champion in nuisance call prevention. After finding that OUR NUSIANCE CALLS were getting out of hand, we first registered with the Telephone Preference Service which unfortunately didn't have the desired effect for us. So we setup our own independent body which ACTUALLY chases the companies who continue to pester our members with unwanted phone calls. We employ a team of 22 people in our hi-tech offices in Swansea and we work tirelessly for our customers.

Apparentrly you register your phone number with them and they do their job as the "consumer champion in nuisance call prevention."

"Hi-tech offices" in Swansea sound impressive, so I checked the contact address on the website and went to Google Street View for 1 York Street, Swansea, SA1 3LZ.

Mmmm.

Well worth a look for anyone interested in viewing Swansea's answer to Silicone Valley.

I also realised that notwithstanding all this 'Onest John guff about working for customers, consumer champion, etc etc, the website is markedly coy about the annual cost of signing up for its service.

In fact, I only found the price because I went through the Register process and unchecked the tick box about accepting the Terms & Conditions, then read the T&Cs. The fee was in there.

I've advised our relatives to have nothing to do with an outfit which purports to be a consumer champion but which buries its prices -- and also proclaims to operate a hi-tech operation the unimpressive reality of which is all too easily seen on Google.

I just wondered though: am I being too harsh here? And have others on MSE -- please: not instantly registered IDs, I'm not that daft -- any experience of using the Call Prevention Registry "service"?

Thanks.

Jemma-T

Another in a long line of scumbag companies trying to rob or scam idiots who have too much money. They try to sound as official as possible and if they can get away with sounding like a legal authority ("Registry" on this occasion) they'll do that too. A bunch of parasites and they need closing down.

The good thing about this thread (hello!) is when anyone searches them on Google this thread will pop up. MSE is all over Google like a rash. Except it's a rash that you got after doing something you enjoyed.

yorksrabbit

Thanks Jemma.

I think you're bang on target where the Call Prevention Registry is concerned because calling itself a "Registry" isn't the only conceit it resorts to:

"So we setup our own independent body"


is another example of how language can be used to misrepresent.

If the Call Prevention Registry is an "independent body" then so is any corner shop or market hall fruit barrow. . .

Or even the Swansea nightclub above which the 22-staffed hi-tech Call Prevention Registry appears to operate.