NEWS One million households have hung up on nuisance calls by signing up to BT's privacy service.
The telco said registrations are currently running at up to 30,000 every day, with a new registration roughly every three seconds. The service was launched in mid-July.
BT also said its Nuisance Calls Bureaux are logging 130,000 complaints per month, which led to the company deciding to take action.
The BT privacy service gives its customers a free caller display (for which the telco usually charges £1.75 per month) and registers them with the Telephone Preference Service which the company said can filter out around 90 per cent of unsolicited marketing calls.
BT Retail chief operating officer John Petter said the huge interest in the service had taken the company by surprise.
"To have a customer sign up every three seconds is remarkable and just shows what an irritant many of these calls are," he said in a statement. "It's clear that our customers are telling us that they don't want silent calls and some of them don't want to receive unsolicited marketing calls."
Telemarketing is widely regarded as the most intrusive of all marketing.
Comments
There are 11 comments. Join the discussion
1. Geoffrey Darnton
...and telemarketing from overseas? ... I have found the Telephone Preference Service (and Fax Preference Service) highly effective - no need to pay BT to do that for me ..... but in the past few days I have been pestered by Indian telemarketers trying to sell me telephone services to India .... I hope BT's service can block telemarketers from abroad.....? ... and more worrying, how do those telemarketers know I sometimes call India?
... and those telemarketers refused to believe that my telephone card gives me calls to India for 5p per minute and I am charged by the second - they tried all kinds of stories!
2. David Hickson
BT privacy at Home is simply a frontdoor for the Telephone Preference Service.
The TPS may not apply to overseas companies and those, like BT, who have an "existing relationship" with a customer.
BT's main objective is probably to try and stop those who have been selling cheaper phone calls to its customers.
I wonder if in the future the new BT retail company will start selling all sorts of other products and services, once it has secured exclusive access to telemarket to its customers.
3. J Baker
Great. The only catch is that you must use BT as your pre-selected call carrier.
4. Cliff Moore
It does not surprise me that BT are "surprised at the response!" I gave up my BT land line last year very reluctantly - but I was fed up with frequent "sales" calls that in the end was about the only telephone calls I was making. BT's inability to deal with this was the main reason - and if they had had a closing trade "out-survey" I would have told them quite clearer this was the reason.
5. anonymous
More to the point - why were users not already using TPS, which has been running for many years, and if they were, what more were they looking from BT.
It would have been interesting to see what the result would be if the BT adverts had said that all they would do was to log you into TPS, which you could do yourself, and give you the caller display, which you currently pay for.
6. Andy Gibbs
I am not sure of BT's honesty here and I believe there is something very amiss with their behaviour in the so called 'nuisance calls' business.
I recently signed up to BT as a new customer - in a new house - with a new number. I also registered with BT for broadband. I contacted no other provider. Have not disclosed my number to anyone and requested my number not be listed in any directory. My phone was connected with new number on July30th at 07:30am.
The first of many 'nuisance' and sales calls started at around 9am. From recorded messages, to people knowing my name, the calls have come at around 2-3per day initially, 2 a week now as I simply hang up.
How do these people get my name? My number? Only BT has it and I cannot even remember it myself. I've yet to even give it to family and friends?
It would be a cynic that says you need to create a problem to market and then sell a solution (even if you don't charge). I am not a cynic but I am not naive either - I believe this is too much of a coincidence to be unconnected.
Well done BT on a great success - should I sign up for a problem that seems to start with, errrr, them?
7. Pricefighter
No you can use any CPS provider.But you must put at least one call a quarter via BT using your 1280 override service.
8. anonymous
In relation to the comment by Pricefighter, you do not have to put any calls through BT using the 1280 Code, if you chose to go to another Telephone provider.
9. Michael Dixon
OK, now how about removing the penalty charges for Anonymous Call Rejection (ACR)? and turning off "Unavailable", which is surely unnecessary in 2005 (are there really that many public network switches around that do not allow 141, which was the original reason for it?), save for those marketers wanting to get round ACR. Come on UK.
10. Jeff Cockburn
Seems a lot of negative comments facing BT when they are only trying to provide a service to their clients.
The naivety of some people in their comments clearly demonstrates a lack of true understanding. Maybe they should be lobbying their own Telco to catch up!
I for one am fed up having my supper interrupted by yet another Indian Call Centre offering me something I'm really not interested in. The initial 1-2 second silence is enough for me to hang up immediately.
11. pricefighter
You do if you want Free Caller Display.(BT Privacy) and thats what we are discussing.