Culture, Media and Sport CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Derek Cuthbert [NTC 018]

Hopefully this can still be included with your enquiry on the subject matter.

Please tighten up the law that covers “cold calling” as many companies attempt to get round the rules by stating that it is not a sales call but a survey or an information call but it is clear that they are only interested in selling their products if a customer responds.

Please make it illegal for a company or call centre to withhold their phone number when calling.

Please make it illegal for a company to call with a recorded message.

We receive on average two cold calls per working day. I have registered our land line with TPS and logged information about several companies with TPS but it appears not to make any difference.

August 2013