Nuisance Calls

Mike Weir Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Crockart]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and there are two issues raised. Of course, the vast majority of calls coming from outside the UK are made on behalf of companies operating within the UK, so they should be covered by the regulators. The difficulty is that there are all sorts of problems identifying where those calls have come from and getting the calling line identity to ensure that they can be traced. I hope that the Minister will have something to say later about how he is looking to deal with the various difficulties.

The complexity of the regulation leads to a lack of focus and, therefore, to a lack of action. I welcome the Minister’s involvement, however, which has helped to deal with the first. We will see shortly whether it is helping to deal with the second, as well.

In the all-party group’s inquiry, we made a number of attempts to come to a final assessment of the scale of the problem, but the vast array of inconsistent data makes that difficult. The regulators receive about 6,000 complaints a month about nuisance calls. Ofcom reports that it receives about 3,000 relating to silent calls, and since setting up its online reporting tool in March 2012, the Information Commissioner’s Office has received about 240,000 complaints about unsolicited calls and texts. There is no evidence that the problem is decreasing. The ICO, Ofcom and the Telephone Preference Service all report an overall growth in the number of complaints over the past three years, but complaints data alone fail to tell us the full story. As part of its “Calling Time” campaign, Which? set up a web portal to direct consumer complaints to the relevant regulator.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman may recall that when BT gave evidence to the all-party group, it said that its complaints and nuisance calls line received some 65,000 calls a month—from memory, I think that was the figure. If so many calls are coming in but so few are going to the regulator, that suggests that there is a serious problem and that there is no confidence that the regulator will do much about them.

[Mike Crockart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, although I am not sure whether the failure to complain results just from a lack of confidence. Part of it may well be a lack of knowledge and a lack of willingness to commit time to go through the process of making a complaint. However, I was about to make the point that he raises.

Data from the portal that Which? set up showed that only about half the people who used it went on to make a full complaint to the regulators. As the hon. Gentleman says, the number of nuisance calls received far exceeds the number of official complaints. BT estimates that its nuisance call bureau receives about 50,000 calls a month— that is the figure I have, which is bad enough. There are also nuisance texts, and in the evidence that the all-party group received, the technology company Pinesoft estimated that about 8.7 million are sent every day.

Ofcom’s omnibus survey is generally considered to produce the most accurate estimate of the number of nuisance calls that people receive, because it involves people making a diary of the calls that they receive for a certain period. It has resulted in an estimate that consumers who experience unwanted calls receive an average of about two a week, with four out of five participants receiving at least one nuisance call during the four-week research period. About a quarter of people recalled receiving more than 10 calls in a four-week period. However one calculates it, the annual number of unwanted calls is almost certainly more than 1 billion.

Another recent piece of research was commissioned by StepChange, a debt charity, and conducted by YouGov. It found that more than 3.2 million British adults who had received an unsolicited marketing call or text had been left afraid to answer the phone as a result of those communications.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

I am pleased to be able to take part in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) on bringing the matter forward so comprehensively, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for arranging the debate.

I have some sympathy for Ministers—I do not often say that—because this issue is undoubtedly a complex one that covers many areas and for which there is no simple solution. As has been said, the scale of the problem is huge and the data appear to be contradictory. The regulators told the all-party group that they receive 6,000 complaints a month, yet BT told us that it receives—the hon. Gentleman corrected the figure I cited in an intervention—about 50,000 calls a month to its nuisance calls bureau, so clearly there is a disconnect. The reason why people are calling BT but not the regulators might be that many still identify BT as the national phone operator, or it might be that the regulators have failed to get the message across that they are responsible for dealing with the problem. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there are two regulators for different aspects of the issue, although their websites direct to each other’s as required. Part of the problem is that this situation has gone on for so long that people have simply got fed up and no longer trust the regulator to deal with it. That is serious, because we need the regulators to work with the Government and get things done.

Politicians should be slightly careful when talking about this matter because it is not unknown for political parties to use telephone canvassing. What we may see as democracy others might view as nuisance calls. Indeed, I received a telephone call during the 2010 election on behalf of a Conservative candidate asking me whether I would prefer the current Prime Minister or the previous Prime Minister to be in charge of the UK. I leave it to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to imagine my response, but suffice it to say there was no box to tick for “a plague on both your houses”. That illustrates that those calling may have done little or no research into who their victims are.

I have been approached by many constituents who have been on the receiving end of nuisance calls. They are often keen to describe the adverse effect that those calls have had on them. All of us are victims. Like many, I have been registered with the Telephone Preference Service for years, but I still receive many nuisance calls, which are clearly targeted at specific times. In my house, we usually receive them in the early evening. Often the person who has made the call will start by uttering the immortal words, “We are not trying to sell you anything,” to which the appropriate response is to say, “Aye, right,” before putting down the receiver. Sometimes, however, we receive so many calls in quick succession that we do not answer the phone and leave the answering machine to pick up the calls.

I got so fed up that I invested in one of BT’s fancy phones that allow people to screen out such calls, but they are only a partial solution, because they can screen out only certain types of call or specific numbers. For example, it is possible to block all international calls or calls with no caller identification, but that obviously presents difficulties, as many organisations—including Parliament—withhold numbers automatically, and many of my constituents have friends or family members overseas and therefore cannot use the international facility. The only other option is to block individual telephone numbers, but the number that can be entered is very limited, so given the volume of calls that can be received, that will not deal with the problem. It is also difficult to find out what callers’ numbers are without caller line identification, and many of the numbers appear to be bogus in any event. Increasingly often, the CLI number turns out to be bogus, especially if voice over internet protocol is used to generate a false number.

Of particular concern is the number of elderly people who receive such calls. Many of those who contact me feel that they are being specifically targeted. That might well be true, although it is also possible that they receive more calls because they are in during the day. A recent trial of call-blocking technology by my local authority, Angus council, found that 40% of calls received by the elderly were nuisance calls. There is a serious problem that many elderly people who receive such calls are persuaded to sign up for specific services or contracts. In some cases, elderly people have signed up to numerous contracts to insure the same washing machine, for instance, and found themselves in a very difficult position.

Elderly people are especially upset by silent or abandoned calls—when they answer the telephone and no one is there. Unlike marketing calls, which are the responsibility of the Information Commissioner, those kinds of calls are the responsibility of Ofcom. Many elderly people feel threatened and fearful when they receive such calls because they do not understand that they are simply a marketing device. Regulations under the Communications Act 2003 were intended to limit the number of calls that are abandoned because no live agent is available to answer them. They set out that a recorded message must be delivered when that happens, but my experience of receiving such calls is that the line often simply goes dead, with no recorded message, which is a clear breach of the regulations. Given that most nuisance calls are made during the day, elderly people are more likely to receive silent calls. The 3% limit for which the regulations provide still allows a huge number of calls to be received by the elderly so that needs to be tackled.

Elderly people may experience more specific problems. One of my elderly constituents who had difficulty with her hearing received a call that she thought was her energy company offering the renewal of a contract involving her gas boiler. She was persuaded to provide her bank details, and it was only later, when she thought about it, that the call seemed a bit strange to her. A check with her energy company confirmed that it had not made the call—indeed, it said that it never made such calls—and my constituent had to go to the trouble of rearranging her bank account to ensure that she was not the victim of a scam. Luckily, no money left the account on that occasion, but many people may be taken in by such calls.

I used to receive regular scam calls—emanating, I think, from overseas—in which an agitated individual claimed that he was from Microsoft. He said that my computer was sending a message that it was under attack from a virus and urged me to enter codes to stop it. I would not claim to be especially computer literate, but I am not that daft, so the caller was given short shrift, but again it was impossible to get details of who was actually phoning. That sort of scam might well take in people who are not confident with computers but use them for things such as internet shopping.

The fact that such a call originated from overseas illustrates one of the huge difficulties with this issue. The hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) talked about calls coming in during the early hours of the morning, and I wonder if the real reason is that an automated caller from overseas has not correctly accounted for the time difference, because no one in their right mind would try to sell something at 1 am. Whatever Ofcom and the Government might do in this area, it is unlikely to have much impact unless they can get co-operation and action from other Governments and regulators.

When the all-party group asked BT whether it could block overseas nuisance calls, it said that the vast majority of such calls do not carry caller line identification, so it would not know what to block. It apparently can block all calls without CLI, but it made the point that many overseas networks do not support CLI, meaning that it would be blocking all calls from certain parts of the world, which would clearly be impractical.

As the hon. Member for Edinburgh West pointed out, many UK companies operate overseas call centres that phone into the UK, which adds another dimension to the problem of blocking overseas calls. These companies must take some responsibility for the overseas call centres that they operate—or, more likely, to which they give business, as in some jurisdictions there are huge call centres that work for many companies. Companies must have some responsibility to look at who they are employing and to ensure that they are complying with regulations.

Such a huge international dimension can be dealt with only through international agreement and action, so I will be interested to hear from the Minister what progress is being made to tackle the problem, and especially about what discussions have been undertaken with the Governments and regulators in overseas countries such as India, which host many of these call centres.

The all-party group also made it abundantly clear to BT that we thought that it was inappropriate, to put it mildly, that it was in the process of introducing a charge for its caller line identification service, which had previously been free to many users. Of course it is true that some companies, such as TalkTalk, do not charge, so consumers may wish to consider that when they are arranging a service. However, it is also the case that BT, through Openreach, operates far and away the largest part of the network, and it probably still has the majority of customers. What discussions has the Minister had with BT about that issue and what pressure can he put on it to reconsider its decision? As has been said, telephone companies can generate a great deal of revenue from this practice, so some responsibility on their part would not go amiss.

I think that many of us were quite surprised about some of the evidence about the TPS. Clearly many people, including some members of the all-party group, did not fully understand the terms of the system, especially the fact that if someone ticks a box saying that they will be happy to receive information from a company—or, indeed, that that company may pass information on to other companies—that is treated as overriding the terms of the TPS and can, it seems, open a huge new range of companies that can legitimately telephone people. Clearly some companies were using that loophole which, it seems to me, brings the whole of the TPS into disrepute.

Indeed, it appears that many companies are acting as phishing agents by operating specifically for the purpose of obtaining information that can be sold on to other companies—so-called lead generation. That is an abuse of the regulations. We recommend action to clean up that part of the industry through an accreditation scheme, but I feel that we need to look at the situation much more closely and, in particular, at how information about what will be done with the details gathered is given to those targeted by such companies. Again, people who take on services should be given a clear statement. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West pointed out the difficulties about wording, but a statement saying simply, “If you tick this box, your data will be passed on and you may receive marketing calls,” would make it clear to people what they were signing up to or not opting out of, which would be a great step forward. Much of the problem could be dealt with by giving people such clear statements.

I also believe that any consent should be given for only a limited period. It has been pointed out that when people give consent, it seems to last for ever. Why should it not have to be renewed at regular intervals? Someone might not remember ticking—or failing to tick—a box when buying something on the internet in the distant past. They might not realise that they had given their consent, and they will continue to receive calls without realising why. We should reverse the system to ensure that that consent had to be actively renewed. I wonder how many people would do that, having received such calls for a year.

I know that the Minister has been working on a strategy to deal with the problem, and I would be interested to know what action the Government are considering. I said at the outset that I had some sympathy with him. I would not like to be the one who had to come up a system that we could all work with and that satisfied everyone in the Chamber and in the industry. However, this issue of huge concern to our constituents needs to be tackled. Like the hon. Member for Edinburgh West, I appreciate that an economic argument is involved. Some of my constituents work in call centres. We have to strike a balance but, at the moment, the balance seems to go against the people receiving the calls, rather than those who are making them, and that needs to be addressed.