Culture, Media and Sport CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by David Robinson [NTC 034]

My name is David Kenneth Robinson. I am a retired police officer and am currently a part time student with the Open University, studying mathematics.

My submission is with regard to nuisance telephone calls.

By about August 2012 I had become increasingly irritated by repeated nuisance telephone calls to my home telephone number at the above address. The nature of these calls mainly fell into two categories. The first included unsolicited marketing calls and the second unsolicited scams, all of them in numerous disguises, ranging from the really quite cunning, down to the laughably implausible. Both groups for the most part, may be characterised by their repeated and persistent nature. Some of the most persistent appear to me to be using foreign call centres.

I joined the Telephone preference service but this appeared to have had little effect.

I then purchased a nuisance call management and blocking package from a company called “True Call” (I believe there are other systems on the market). This involved the purchase and installation of an electronic device that sits by my telephone. This system cured the problem immediately.

Please find below my incoming call analysis produced by my “True Call” system. The period covers the last 12 months from August 2012 to 31 July 2013.

INCOMING CALL ANALYSIS

Handling	Count	%
Rejected	262	48.1
Starred caller—call completed	134	24.6
Caller rejected	109	20.0
Starred caller—Chose not to leave a message	15	2.8
Starred caller—No answer—Message Manager	9	1.7
Caller sent to answering machine—no message left	7	1.3
Unrecognised caller—No answer—Message Manager	4	0.7
Unrecognised caller—Call Complete	2	0.4
Starred Caller—Caller Hung Up	1	0.2
Text message forwarded to handset	1	0.2

Please note that about 50% (138 calls) of the “Rejected” count consists of unsolicited calls believed to be from foreign call centres. The “Caller rejected” count of 109 refers to specific telephone numbers that I have blocked using the system.

So, a total of 371 unsolicited calls were one way or another successfully intercepted then rejected by the system, more than one a day, every day.

In percentage terms 68.1% of calls to my home telephone number over the past 12 months have been in this unsolicited, unwanted, nuisance category. That is in spite of belonging to the Telephone Preference Service.

I do not believe the government, in any practical sense, will be able to stop nuisance calls being sent. I believe that the only effective way to stop them is to intercept and block them at the receiving telephone. This means installing individual call management/blocking systems to existing telephones and/or manufacturing telephones with the requisite system already installed. Mass manufacture should bring down unit costs and concessions could be made available for those unable to afford a unit.

Ubiquitous installation of these units will probably do more than anything to alleviate this problem.

July 2013