When a telemarketer calls

IT IS around 7pm on a weeknight. You’ve come home from a long day at work and after helping with homework, paying bills or just watching current affairs you’re just sitting down to dinner. Then it starts.

The phone rings and the closest to the handset picks up the receiver and after the customary lengthy pause will hear a strangely distant, distinctly accented voice ask for the homeowner.

We have all been there, on the receiving end of the petty marketing tactic of a telemarketing phone call. However what many people don’t know is that we now have the power to fight back against this common annoyance.

Telemarketing is the act of contacting consumers via telephone to offer, sell, advertise or promote goods and services.

These types of phone calls include calls to sell tickets in a competition, calls requesting the recipient to attend an information seminar, calls offering anything for free that is conditional on expenditure, calls to solicit donations and many more.

Calls that are not considered telemarketing by the Australian Communication and Media Authority include product recall calls, fault rectification calls, appointment reminder calls and calls relating to payments.

Telemarketing is a common annoyance that most people put up with and are smart enough to handle appropriately and with common sense. However, there are some cases where people need to be very vigilant of unsolicited phone calls for themselves and for their more vulnerable friends and family members.

It is important you know that as an Australian consumer you have rights.

The federal government provides a number of services to help Australian consumers combat unwanted telemarketing calls and possible scammers, including the Do Not Call Register, a free, secure database where you can list your numbers to avoid receiving unsolicited telemarketing call and marketing faxes.

The Do Not Call Register Act 2006 makes it illegal for any non-exempt Australian or overseas telemarketer or fax marketer to contact a number listed on the register.

The Do Not Call Register is managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, a government body. It allows you to greatly reduce the amount of unwanted telemarketing calls and marketing faxes you receive. Registration on the database will not stop all calls and faxes with some public interest organisations such as charities and political parties being able to call numbers to continue to provide services to the community.

Market and social researchers are also permitted to call or fax numbers on the register to conduct opinion polling and questionnaire-based research. If such calls have a commercial-type purpose, even if it is not the primary purpose of the call, it will fall under the definition of a telemarketing call. To be included on the register a telephone must be used primarily for private or domestic purposes.

Even if a consumer is on the register they can still be contacted on their private lines by their bank or telecommunications provider because they have existing business relationships with the consumer and are thus exempt under the Act. Even if the bank or telecom provider has consent to call consumers they must cease calling if they are asked to stop. However this does not stop banks sending out promotional information for their products to customers in the regular mail.

It is important to note that the system does work. Just recently ACMA slugged telecommunications service provider Telko with a $52,800 fine after it found a call centre used by the company made telemarketing calls to phone numbers on the Do Not Call Register.

ACMA received 91 complaints from people on the register who said the telemarketing calls were offering to change the consumer’s phone plan to Telko. The investigation determined that Telko did not effectively supervise the Australian call centre and even though the calls were made by the centre, Telko had the ultimate responsibility to monitor compliance. 

ACMA said in a statement that any businesses using external call centres for telemarketing purposes must ensure the centre is checking its call list against the register before making any telemarketing calls. It said they should also audit the centre to ensure it is only calling numbers that are not listed on the Do Not Call Register.

If organisations don’t meet their obligations under the Act they could face serious penalties of up to $110,000 a day.

Unsolicited phone calls can be more than an annoyance – they can have more serious implications.

ACMA along with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission reminds consumer to be vigilant about telemarketing calls offering technical or computer support. While there are some legitimate companies that make these calls the vast majority are scams.

A typical computer scam call for a PC will start with the caller claiming to be with a company that has detected a virus or other issue with your computer. The caller may claim to be associated with a legitimate company such as Microsoft or Windows and then suggest that a virus has been downloaded to your computer.

The caller will draw your attention to Event Viewer in Windows and claim that minor operational errors that are logged on Event Viewer are of significant concern. The caller will then offer to refer you to a technician who can rectify the “issues” for a fee. The technician will ask you to log onto a third party website so that they can remotely access your computer to fix the “problems”.

Depending on how reputable the company is the technician might install a legitimate antivirus program to combat a real problem, or do nothing but take your money.

Recently ACMA and the ACCC have noticed a new type of twist in these sorts of calls where after being scammed initially a victim will receive a call from someone claiming to be from a foreign government or foreign law enforcement body and offer to recover the money lost initially for a fee. Beware that this is not legitimate and the scammer will just take more of your money.

The ACMA said the best way to protect yourself from these types of scams is to simply hang up the phone and you should never provide an unsolicited caller with access to your computer.

When it comes to handling a suspicious call the ACCC’s SCAMwatch website provides the following advice.

• If you receive a phone call, email or SMS from someone claiming you are entitled to a refund hang up or delete the message immediately.

• If you are contacted by someone claiming to be from the government or a financial institution verify who they are by independently finding their contact details and calling them direct.

• Never provide or confirm your personal details or give money to someone unless you made the contact using details you found yourself and you trust the source.

• If you think you have provided your account details to a scammer contact your bank or financial institution immediately.

• If you come across a scam you can report it to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on 1300 795 995 or visit www.scamwatch.gov.au.

People can protect themselves from telemarketers by registering on the Do Not Call Register on 1300 792 958 or on its website here.

Registration is free and valid for five years before you are required to re-register.