Nuisance Phone Calls

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard, and a special pleasure that this debate is stopping so many of us having to make nuisance phone calls to a small place called Eastleigh, on the south coast; otherwise we should all probably be in call centres having to do that.

The easiest and most fertile targets for nuisance phone calls are the elderly, like me. About 30% of householders in my constituency are retired home owners. They provide a happy hunting ground for fraudsters. Rob Vale and his team in trading standards at Bromley council suggest that the battle over nuisance phone callers is constant, unremitting and growing. According to Bromley trading standards, two particular scams have been perpetrated over the past two years. One is the Microsoft scam. The victim receives a phone call from someone, often with a foreign accent, who says that there is a bug in their computer. The fix requires the victim to log on to a website where their computer is then under the hoaxer’s control. A fictitious problem is then placed on the computer and the victim is told that it will cost, say, £120 for it to be fixed by a download or, indeed, that regular maintenance by the fraudsters will be needed.

The second scam involves debit or credit cards, and everyone has heard of it. Fraudsters telephone claiming to be from the police and saying that the victim’s debit or credit card has been cloned. The fictitious police ask for details of the account, normally also giving a fake police telephone number so the victim can check that they are genuine. However, they stay on the line until that phone call is made, so they keep control and continue the deception until they get the bank details.

Both the present and previous Governments have been more than aware of the problems caused by nuisance phone calls. Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office as regulators have powers to act, and the maximum penalty, as we have heard, has been increased to £2 million. Ofcom set out an action plan on 8 January for improving the service to victims. Generating unsolicited telephone calls is an offence, but it remains planned and persistent. Only one company has been fined £50,000; but I think everyone present would want more fines. The problem continues.

As I understand the matter, the Information Commissioner’s Office is meant to carry out enforcement for the Telephone Preference Service and receive complaints and notification of breaches. As we have heard, there are problems when the companies involved are based abroad. It is then difficult get a grip of the situation; but there must be something that the experts can suggest. For example, no doubt the calls are being made from abroad for the a British company; somehow we must get to the British companies that are authorising the activity. What I find odd is Ofcom’s current advice to recipients of unsolicited sales and marketing calls from overseas, which is to contact the overseas company making the call. How great is that for a little old lady—or little old gentleman? I am not trying to be sexist.

A big problem arises when people have given consent in the past. I often book rail tickets, when I visit one of those constituencies that have by-elections, on the internet. When I fill in the boxes on the internet form I am always asked if I would like to receive further information. It is easy to miss that box or tick it by mistake, but once someone has done that apparently the Telephone Preference Service may not be able to help. That is sad.

I have inquired locally, and trading standards in Bromley have tried to get a grip of nuisance phone calls with various measures. When they hear of a problem, they rapidly get hold of the originators of cold calls and warn them off; they have set up a system for banks and building societies in the Bromley area to contact trading standards if elderly people begin to make unusual withdrawals or to do things that are not typical of them; they have delivered 70 talks in the past year to the elderly warning them about the dangers of nuisance and cold calls; they have sent out packs to elderly residents also warning them of the problem; and of course they use the local newspapers and radio to alert people to scams. I mentioned Rob Vale, the head of standards at Bromley, who does a very good job. He reckons that such measures have probably saved the elderly about £1 million in the past few years, which is great. Those responsible have done so well that The Municipal Journal has awarded them a commendation for their efforts. They are a model.

I am conscious of the time, and the fact that I should soon shut up. I believe that either Ofcom or the Information Commissioner’s Office should get much tougher about nuisance phone calls. After all, there is the power to do so. However, if that does not happen, we should consider setting up a nuisance calls agency as advocated by the Fair Telecoms Campaign. That, in its turn, should get a grip on the problem.