Crackdown on 'silent calls' nuisance
Ofcom is to ban companies from using technology that leads to silent calls more than once a day to individual households.
More than 70 per cent of consumers who have complained about silent calls received two or more in a day from the same firm, Ofcom said yesterday.
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Hide AdThe calls were often made over periods of days or even weeks.
Ofcom believes the fault lies with call centre technology that can mistake a "live" consumer for an answering machine, cutting off the call without the person answering hearing anything.
The new rules will prevent a company using answer machine detection equipment more than once a day unless a call centre agent is on hand to answer.
This would mean that consumers currently worst affected should no longer receive repeated silent calls over the course of a day, the communications regulator said.