8 November 2006
The regulatory body Ofcom is to investigate companies who it believes may be pestering home telephone users with 'silent calls'.
These are the phone calls where the phone will ring but when it is answered, the caller remains silent, leaving the recipient with no way of establishing whether anyone is at the other end.
Ofcom has sent out notifications to telecom companies Carphone Warehouse and Toucan Telecom, and kitchen companies Brackenbay Kitchens and Space Kitchens, to respond to the accusations laid before them.
These include repeatedly exceeding the 3% limit for abandoned calls and failing to include a recorded information message to prevent abandoned calls from being silent calls, along with other actions deemed as "persistent misuse" of the official guidelines set out by Ofcom.
The companies have been given until December 6th to respond and if Ofcom deems their responses to be unsatisfactory it can impose fines up to a maximum of £50,000 a call, following intervention from the government to raise the amount from the previous £5,000 per call.
The news will bring relief to the thousands of people who continue to suffer these calls despite being on the Telephone Preference Service offered by BT.
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