Consumer Rights » Telemarketers

India’s National Do not Call registry very popular

ashish — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:58:05 +0000

No one would have expected this. It was known that Indians are very irritated with the number of unwanted calls they get from tele-marketers, and hence most people welcomed the setting up a National Do Not Call Registry, but this would have been most unexpected. When the registry opened on September 5, 2007, it got 5 million users. This is an incredible number and demonstrates how much people are willing to go to avoid these unwanted calls.

The sheer numbers — around 2.5% of India’s over 190 million mobile subscribers — reveal just how much people resent pesky sales calls. Considering that prepaid subscribers — who are much less of a target for telemarketers — form a huge percentage of all subscribers, this figure of 5 million assumes even greater significance.
The sheer numbers — around 2.5% of India’s over 190 million mobile subscribers — reveal just how much people resent pesky sales calls. Considering that prepaid subscribers — who are much less of a target for telemarketers — form a huge percentage of all subscribers, this figure of 5 million assumes even greater significance.

The website of the Registry is available at this link.
The NDNC Registry will be a data base having the list of all telephone numbers of the subscribers who do not want to receive UCC.After the establishment of NDNC registry, Telephone subscriber (Landline or mobile) who does not wish to receive UCC, can register their telephone number with their telecom service provider for inclusion in the NDNC. Telecom Service Provider shall upload the telephone number to the NDNC within 45 days of receipt. The Telemarketer will have to verify their calling telephone numbers list with the NDNC registry before making a call.An amount of Rs 500/- per call/message has been prescribed to discourage telemarketers who make calls to numbers registered in Do Not Call list. The defaulter telemarketer will face disconnection of telecom service.

Individual DNC numbers for different services
Airtel (link)
Hutch (link)
Reliance (link)
BSNL (link)
Idea (link)

Do not call registry for more Indian banks

ashish — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 18:04:30 +0000

These are some more Do not Call registries for different banks as well as their complaints page / customer policies

CitiBank India Do not call Registry

Citibank India complaint form

ABN Amro Do not call service

ABN Amro complaint form

SBI Bank Complaint form

SBI Bank complaint contact numbers

Do not call registry for banks in India

ashish — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:44:52 +0000

to get around the menace of tele-marketers trying to sell a bank loan, a credit card or other such banking product in India, consumers now have the option of setting their names in the Do Not call Registry for banks. When putting your name, the bank and its sales agents will not call you, giving you a lot of protection from unwanted callers:

For ICICI Bank, click here

For HDFC Bank, click here

For UTI Bank, click here

In addition, if you want to read about the customer policies of these banks and read about their grievance procedures, click on the links below for the respective banks

ICICI, HDFC Bank, UTI Bank

TRAI directs mobile consumer safety

ashish — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 11:31:32 +0000

Getting unsolicited calls all the time, and not sure how to stop them? Getting a number of SMS selling stuff that you are not interested in? Felt hopeless at not being able to stop them ? Well, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has come out with a regulation that should help you.
TRAI has directed the National Informatics Center (NIC) to set up a National Do not Call Registry (NDNC) that will contain a list of numbers (telecom subscribers) who do not want to receive unsolicited commercial communications. This includes both calls and SMS.
Once this registry gets operational, both landline and cellular subscribers who do want to receive unwanted SMS and calls can place their numbers on a list, and telemarketers will have to check this list before making a call or sending a message. If they violate this, they will charged Rs. 500 per violation, and on repeated violations, can have their numbers disconnected.
This does not apply to situations where the SMS or call is from a place with which the consumer already has some sort of contract, for example, a bank with which you already have a relationship.

TRAI orders relief from telemarketing by banks

ashish — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:41:58 +0000

So the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is looking after customers after all. One of the biggest problems faced by mobile users in India right now is the number of calls they get from direct marketers on behalf of banks and other financial instruments. These could be in the nature of loan requests, credit card requests, insurance, and others. Most customers find these calls extemely irritating and keep on getting frustated because they do not see a solution. In addition, they really suffer if they are roaming nationally or internationally and have to suffer roaming charges for these junk calls.
In proposed guidelines, the TRAI proposes to ban banks from using the services of direct sales agents for selling their financial products. Refer this article:

Unsolicited telemarketing calls may soon become history. Under new guidelines on unsolicited commercial calls, telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI) proposes to forbid banks from using the services of direct sales agents for marketing financial tools. Banking industry accounts for about 90 per cent of the unsolicited calls, according to TRAI estimates. There are about 30,000 direct sales agents appointed by banks and they are not covered by any rules and regulations as they do not have a licence from any government authority.
The new guidelines that regulators would propose this week would make it mandatory for all the banks to use the services of other service providers (OSPs), who are licensed entities and work under the guidelines formulated by the department of telecommunications (DoT).

This is really welcome news for customers. In addition, TRAI envisages maintaining a national Do not Call Registry, and subscribers can register themselves with this DNC registry. All banks and their agents would have to respect the names of people in this registry, and banks would be charged penalties if they violate these rules. This would make India equal to other countries in terms of customer protection, and should bring a sense of relief to customers. In addition, TRAI wants mobile operators to disconnect those subscribers who make unsolicited calls.

Freedom from telemarketers (almost)

ashish — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 13:13:45 +0000

If you have been bugged with telemarketers calling you up to offer you free loans, credit cards, and numerous other such ‘tantalizing’ offers, then help is coming your way. The Indian telecom regulator (TRAI) has started the process of offering a way out for citizens. There is a proposed Do Not Call (DNC) registry that will be put in operation on April 1 (and no, I am not trying to fool you on April Fool’s day).
So people have to just inform their cellular operators of their wish to enter their names in the Do Not Call registry (along with exceptions; example, a person can continue to receive calls for home loans and nothing else), and it is the responsibility of the operator to enter their name in the registry. Further, there is no expense in this, since the cost of maintaining such a registry will be borne by the operators.
More details are available in this ET report.

In a unique arrangement, customers who enroll for the DNC registry can opt for a blanket ban on all telemarketing calls or can select the kind of calls they wish to receive. For instance, a member of this registry can opt to receive only telemarketing calls related to home loans or FMCG products. Trai, in its guidelines on the DNC registry, will specify that subscribers will only have to inform their service provider to enroll. It will then be the operatorsâ€™ responsibility to register these subscribersâ€™ numbers in a central DNC registry that will be maintained by an independent agency, Trai sources told ET. The guidelines will be made public next month.

The regulator cannot implement penalties, so if you wanted to penalize a particularly persistent credit card applicant, this is still not possible. However, it seems possible that it could be made more difficult by dis-connecting the number of the offender.
This measure will go a long way in making the life of the consumer better, and even if a bit late, is still a very good measure. Now the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so we need to wait to see how good the implementation of the measure is.