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Wild and harassing telemarketing. The Guarantor puts his foot down but it seems impossible to escape

2 years babelfish

Wild and harassing telemarketing. The Guarantor puts his foot down but it seems impossible to escape

The Privacy Guarantor has fined Edison Energia with a fine of over 4 million euros. But in spite of the sensational condemnations, wild telemarketing does not seem to have an end

It was thought – and hoped – to have solved the problems of those annoying phone calls that strategically arrive, generally during nap time, in an attempt to persuade us to change telephone, electricity and gas providers or to trade simply by getting rid of the landline and disappearing from obsolete telephone directories.

It was thought and hoped to have succeeded especially noted the uselessness of the register of oppositions. Instead the wild telemarketing has continued and, if possible, is even more annoying than before.

Having abandoned numbers with strange prefixes, which evidently made those who received the call suspicious, urging them not to answer, now those who do wild telemarketing often use mobile numbers that sometimes pierce the protection of our smartphone capable of suggesting, based on the reports, whether or not it is a spam call.

But, above all, those who do wild telemarketing today have abandoned telephone directories and have the numbers of our private cell phones at their disposal. It is impossible to say how he obtained them: given that we have to communicate it for everything, even for the supermarket sticker card, it is easy that there have been flows of flows in the thousand thousand databases in which we are registered, more or less without our knowledge.

WILD TELEMARKETING: WHO ABUSES IT THE MOST

Based on user complaints, it is possible to determine who stresses people looking for customers the most: first of all, the telephone companies, in first place with 30% of the complaints received. Close behind are the electricity and gas companies with 29.2% of the reports. Bronze medal with 25% to companies that trade online. Many calls come from overseas call centres, especially from the UK.

However, it appears evident that ticking the box "I do not wish to receive promotions, calls, telemarketing activities, etc" is in fact useless, just as it is equally evident that those who carry out wild telemarketing pass the numbers to other operators, probably not free of charge. own disposal or in any case draws from common databases that appear to be illegal.

WILD TELEMARKETING IN NUMBERS

According to Codacons estimates, the sector generates a turnover of 4 billion euros annually in Italy, with the telephone sale of goods and services which produces a volume, for the entire supply chain, estimated at 40 billion euros.

As many as 1,400 outsourced call center companies are active in our country, for an annual turnover of 2.8 billion euros. Also considering the internal call centers of companies, telemarketing employs around 120,000 people in Italy.

In reality, those who operate honestly and base part of their business model on telemarketing are the first to be interested in unfair competition ending, especially in a period like this in which harassment does not give a moment's respite, unnerving users who receive constant calls whether legal or illegal.

HOW TO DEFEND YOURSELF?

What is certain is that the weapons available to users seem blunt. As the new legislation on telemarketing seems to be, which provides for very high penalties against transgressors, with fines of up to 20 million euros for operators, while penalties of up to 4% of the total annual turnover are foreseen for companies. Easily circumvented by call centers located outside national borders.

After all, if the opposition register doesn't work, the way forward is made up of certified emails and reports to the guarantor: not everyone has the desire and time to practice it. It explains why, according to Agi data, the potential audience of 98 million users (20 million fixed and 78 mobile) has remained totally uninterested in the tool offered by the Mise, which has just 3.8 million subscriptions.

Even among the subscribers – always reports the press agency – there is no shortage of complaints: since last August, the Privacy Guarantor has received 20 thousand reports (data updated at the beginning of January) from people who, despite being on the list, have received unwanted calls.

THE GUARANTEE: WATCH OUT FOR DISHONEST OPERATORS

And the Privacy Guarantor may also reiterate that if you say "no" to the unwanted commercial call, the call center or the company that contacted him must immediately note his will and cancel the name from the lists used for telemarketing, but in fact the sad and tired little theater repeats itself daily, like a telephone groundhog day.

Perhaps it will relieve some to know that the opposition expressed during the phone call does not have to be confirmed by email or other methods, as operators are often asked to do, and is also valid for future promotional campaigns.

THE AUTHORITY STRILLS EDISON

The principle was affirmed by the Privacy Guarantor who detected various illicit conducts implemented by Edison Energia spa towards a significant number of users. The Authority then ordered the company to adopt a series of measures to bring it into compliance and ordered it to pay a fine of 4,900,000 euros.

Within the established term, the company availed itself of the right to settle the dispute and paid an amount equal to half of the fine imposed.

The serious irregularities emerged during the investigations carried out by the Authority following various reports and highlighted: the receipt of telephone calls without consent; failure to respond to requests to stop receiving unwanted calls; the impossibility of expressing free and specific consent for different purposes (promotional, profiling, communication of data to third parties) within the site or the app, the presence of deficient or inaccurate information.

The Guarantor therefore ordered Edison to facilitate the exercise of the rights envisaged by the legislation on the protection of personal data and to respond, without delay, to the requests, including those relating to the right to object.

Right which – specified the Authority – can be exercised "at any time" (even during the promotional phone call) and the user's will must be correctly recorded.

The Guarantor has also prohibited the company from any further processing for promotional purposes carried out using contact lists prepared by other companies that have not acquired a free, specific, informed and documented consent to the communication of user data. If the company wishes, in the future, to use telephone numbers supplied by third parties for promotional activities, it will have to constantly verify, also through appropriate random checks, that the data are treated in full compliance with privacy legislation.

Finally, the company was prohibited from processing data for marketing and profiling purposes collected without free and specific consent and was ordered to provide users with correct information, in which only the processing activities actually carried out are indicated.

Users celebrate. Until the cell phone rings again.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/telemarketing-selvaggio-e-molesto-il-garante-punta-i-piedi-ma-sfuggire-pare-impossibile/ on Tue, 21 Feb 2023 15:14:58 +0000.